Wednesday 6th September 2006

6.30pm ToryDiary update: ASDA adopts Conservative fishing policy (as Tories abandon it)

2pm ToryDiary update: Six resignations try to force Blair out

2pm update: "The Conservative Party is to launch a website that will use social issues to bring people together as part of its attempt to appear more caring" (Brand Republic).

BLOGS

ToryDiary: TaxPayers' Alliance will have to fill vacuum left by Tories

Discuss Blair's departure strategy on ToryDiary

CF Diary: Clare Hilley asks 'Is Sri Lanka the new Rwandan Crisis?'

DAVID CAMERON IN INDIA

"Relations between the UK and India are suffering from fatigue and need revitalising, David Cameron, the Conservative leader, will tell Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh at a meeting today in New Delhi." - FT

In a letter to The Guardian UKIP's Nigel Farage responds to David Cameron's suggestion of a new trading relationship with India: "Unfortunately for Mr Cameron, his desire for the UK to remain in the European Union means that our trade policy is dictated from Brussels by Peter Mandelson, and any trade negotiations will exclude the British government. Countries such as India and other booming economies should be embraced by Britain as trading partners as a means to increasing global wealth. But until we control our own trade policy, this will not be possible."

"A woman was in a critical condition in hospital in Bombay last night after she was hit by a minibus carrying Conservative Party aides and journalists during David Cameron's tour of India.  The accident, in which the victim suffered massive head injuries, cast a deep shadow over a major speech on the global economy that Mr Cameron delivered to an audience of industrialists in India's commercial capital." - Telegraph

ALICE THOMSON THINKS THAT DAVID CAMERON'S STRATEGY IS WORKING

"Photoshoots of him visiting glaciers and Nelson Mandela, and going to the Beckhams' party, have made it to Heat magazine as well as the broadsheets. When he wore Boden swimming trunks on holiday, sales went up rather than down; people have begun to consider seriously whether to put a windmill on their house. The Conservative Party has now led in 24 consecutive published polls – the longest such sequence since the late 1980s." - Telegraph

COULD IAIN DALE BE THE NEW ALAN CLARK?

"When it comes to the web, are you John Julius Norwich, or Alan Clark? The Times’s Daniel Finkelstein has, this week, become the latest to follow in the footsteps of the second Viscount Norwich, while the statistics suggest that the author, broadcaster and former parliamentary candidate Iain Dale has become the obvious heir to the Clark legacy." - Michael Gove in The Times

BORIS JOHNSON IS THE TORIES' NEW POSTER BOY

"Move over Marilyn Monroe. The Conservatives have a real blond pin-up for student rooms.  Boris Johnson, who by now has almost certainly been famous for 15 minutes, is the star of an Andy Warhol pastiche created by the Tories in their pitch to university freshers' fairs this term." - Guardian

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