Fifth anniversary of 9/11

2pm ToryDiary update: DAVID CAMERON'S 9/11 SPEECH - KEY EXTRACTS
+ johnson4leader.com

Noon update on 100policies.com: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

BLOGS

ToryDiary: Nick Herbert seeks to reconnect local communities with police

Daniel Hannan's memo to Gordon Brown: There is one way the English might accept a Scottish Prime Minister...

"I have found it: the philosopher's stone of politics, the elixir of life. There really is an answer to the West Lothian Question... Today, the problem is no longer academic. On two occasions -- over foundation hospitals and again over tuition fees -- the votes of Scottish MPs secured the passage of contentious legislation that did not apply north of the border."

100policies.com: Westminster representation for Britain's overseas territories, suggests David T Breaker

Three more names for the A-list top-up: Joanne Cash, Kedra Goodall and Judith Pattinson

Fox News: George and Laura Bush visit Ground Zero

DAVID CAMERON: "I AM A LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE, RATHER THAN A NEOCONSERVATIVE."

"David Cameron will criticise, in a speech today, a soundbite approach to foreign policy that sees only lightness and darkness in the world.  In remarks that are certain to be seen as an attack on the conduct of foreign policy by the Bush Administration, supported by Tony Blair, the Tory leader will say that humility and patience have been absent from the making of foreign policy in recent years." - Times

>>> On ToryDiary, read ConservativeHome's ten suggestions for 'Conservative policy in an age of terror'

CAN BROWN BEAT CAMERON?

Compared with Mr Cameron, [Brown] could look definitively grown-up and immensely experienced. Not possessing the slick charm of Tony Blair might seem tantamount to a kind of genuineness and integrity... Fighting Gordon is far and away [the Tories'] easier option: there is at least a history there of tax rises and profligate spending that presents a target, if the Tories can bring themselves to aim at it.  But if the leadership contest is won by Alan Johnson, whose personal history should make an Old Etonian blush, and whose charm seems less calculated than Mr Blair's, or by John Reid, the hero of the terrorist conspiracy breakthrough, and if either of them calls a snap election…" - Janet Daley in The Telegraph 

ENVIRONMENT

"A global body with similar scope to the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund should regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the Conservative party will suggest today. The body would enforce worldwide cuts in emissions after 2012, when the current provisions of the Kyoto protocol on climate change expire." - FT

FUTURE OF BBC

"Hugo Swire, the shadow culture secretary, has called on Tessa Jowell to reveal all up-to-date figures on the BBC's proposed licence fee.  He said Ms Jowell should publish the latest findings on the licence fee because "doubt has been cast" on the figures used by the coporation in its bid for an annual licence fee increase of 2.3% above inflation." - Guardian 

MOST MPs EXPECT A HUNG PARLIAMENT...

...or at least they did when they were questioned in July.  52% of MPs told ICM (acting for ePolitix.com) that a hung parliament was quite likely or very likely at the next election.  31% of 75 Labour MPs thought a hung parliament likely but 78% of approximately 50 Tory MPs thought it likely.  92% of Tory MPs thought Gordon Brown would weaken Labour's appeal in middle England.  Download epolitix_poll.pdf

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