Friday 27th October 2006

5.30pm ToryDiary update: Neither the guts to rule Iraq, nor the guts to quit

1pm ToryDiary update on MEPs vote for Euro story

BLOGS

ToryDiary: 46% to 33% prefer Cameron to Brown as new Telegraph Editor chooses a more positive approach to Project Cameron

Stephan Shakespeare on YourPlatform: The public's attitude to the Iraq war is so understandable

Seats and candidates: A public service announcement for non A-list candidates

THE FIRST ECONOMIC COST OF DAVID CAMERON'S ENVIRONMENTALISM

"David Cameron pressurised his party's representatives in the European Parliament to vote in favour of sweeping new environmental regulations, despite the MEPs' concerns about the impact on British business and jobs.  Several Tory MEPs were worried about the effects of an incoming law to crack down on dangerous chemicals. Their concern about the legislation, known as REACH, was that it could put too onerous a burden on companies, forcing them to move to countries such as India." - Daily Telegraph

TORIES SEND MIXED MESSAGES ON KELLY'S LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORMS

"Caroline Spelman, the Tories' spokeswoman, said the white paper was "toothless" and a "series of compromises". But Lord Bruce-Lockhart [Tory leader of the Local Government Association] described the paper as "encouraging". He said: "We need to see the full extent of the powers which are actually going to be devolved." - Guardian

ANNABEL GOLDIE TO SAY THAT SCOTTISH TORIES MUST BE IN THE MAINSTREAM

"Ms Goldie will say that everything the party says and does "must focus as never before on the centre ground" and reflect a "modern compassionate Conservative party".  She is expected to say that this has already been reflected in policy pledges she has announced.  "A drugs strategy to take people off drugs - that's going to the heart of people's concerns," she will say.  "Significant help for pensioner households with their council tax - that is going to the heart of their financial anxieties.  "A robust sentencing proposal for repeat offenders - that is going to the heart of the concerns of victims and their communities."  She will also highlight the Conservatives' "eco bonus scheme" as being at the heart of caring about future generations and the environment." - BBC

DAVID CAMERON BACKS GREG BARKER MP

"TORY leader David Cameron is backing his MP mate who has left his wife for a MAN.  Greg Barker, 40, kept a low profile yesterday after details of his marriage break were revealed.  But the Tory leader stood by his close friend and colleague. Party sources say he will not be sacked from his front bench job as shadow environment minister by Mr Cameron." - The Sun

"The 'other man' in the homosexual affair which has rocked the Conservative Party is revealed as a young socialite who used to work for royalty.  Interior designer William Banks-Blaney, 32, had a relationship with married Tory frontbencher Greg Barker after working on the MP's Georgian mansion." - Daily Mail

LABOUR RETREATS ON FAITH SCHOOLS

"Alan Johnson bowed to the pressure of the Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims yesterday when he dropped plans to force all new faith schools to take a quarter of non-faith pupils." - Times

LISTEN TO MARK STEYN (AND ZAC GOLDSMITH)

Mark Steyn talks to bloggers about his forthcoming book - America Alone.  Listen here now.

Listen to Zac Goldsmith edit the Today programme in December - The Independent

BBC BIAS

"Anyone who could even be vaguely described as Right-of-centre is a rarity. Inevitably, this sets the terms of the debate. And so, as happened in the summer, when a panellist described George W. Bush as a warmongering moron, nobody so much as stirred in dissent. When, a month later, Newsnight tackled the controversy over Ken Loach's allegedly sympathetic film about the IRA, they interviewed two film critics. They were from the Guardian and the Independent on Sunday, and, sure enough, they agreed what a great director he was.  Sometimes, even the BBC notices the bias. Not long ago, I watched a three-man media debate on Newsnight in which two were Guardian writers. The other was captioned with his previous job on another newspaper." - Tom Leonard in The Telegraph

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Thursday 26th October 2006

11.40pm ToryDiary update: 46% to 33% prefer Cameron to Brown

5.30pm ToryDiary update: Tory MEPs vote for Euro membership

Other Tory news updates:

• Cameron opens door to Trimble - UTV
• Shadow chancellor George Osborne rebuked over 'F-word' attack - 24dash.com
  

5pm Seats and candidates update: Thirty seats in third phase of second tranche

11.30am ToryDiary update: Let's roll forward the frontiers of society

BLOGS

ToryDiary: Greg Barker leaves wife and kids for man

Platform: Brooks Newmark MP and Charles Elphicke respond to the Tax Reform Commission report

DC TO MEET McCARTNEYS

"Conservative leader David Cameron is expected in Northern Ireland later, his second visit within a year. He is due to meet PSNI representatives and the Institute of Directors. However, most attention will focus on a private meeting with the sisters of murdered Belfast man Robert McCartney who are continuing a fight for justice." - BBC

BBC INTERVIEW TALEBAN SPOKESMAN

"The BBC has been criticised by the Conservative Party after it broadcast an interview with a Taleban spokesman. Dr Mahammed Anif told BBC2's Newsnight the UK and US had wanted an "excuse" to invade Afghanistan, and foreign armies would be thrown out of the country." - BBC

PMQs

"During a rowdy Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons, Mr Blair came under pressure from Opposition MPs over the embarrassing prospect that he might become the first serving Prime Minister to be questioned by police about party funding." - Telegraph

"Tory leader David Cameron claimed yesterday the country was "not safe under Labour" as he clashed with the Prime Minister over prison and youth custody overcrowding." - Yorkshire Post

LOCAL LEADERS

"The government will today seek to create a generation of strong, highly visible local leaders by forcing all councils to have their top politician elected for four years." - Guardian

"English councils will get the power to bring in bylaws with fixed penalties without Whitehall approval under plans to increase local communities' powers." - BBC

"No longer the servants of the British public, municipal bureaucrats now appear to believe they have the right to harass and punish local citizens who are deemed not to be behaving in the correct ideological manner." - Leo McKinstry in The Telegraph

RIFKIND AND HANDS

"The possibility was looming that Malcolm and Greg would have to fight each other for Chelsea and Fulham," I'm told, "but at a meeting of the executive councils of the two new constituencies on Tuesday night, a statement from Malcolm was read out indicating his intention to go for Kensington, leaving the coast clear for Greg in Chelsea and Fulham." - Telegraph Spy

BORIS TELLS A STORY

"Oh, I know we can't promise tax cuts. I know we can't say exactly which way we would crank the great levers of the Treasury, if and when a Tory government were to get in. I know that George Osborne is bang on when he says that stability is the number one priority, and I know the public would rightly doubt the value of whatever we said so far from an election. And I also know that, as soon as we gave the very ghost of a tax-cutting commitment, the great Labour lie machine would chunter into action." Boris Johnson in The Telegraph

LIBRARIES: DEAD OR ALIVE?

"If the Government decides to compete with £1-an-hour internet cafés, fine. If it wants to provide shelter on a rainy day, somewhere for those at a loose end to sit and read the newspapers, good. The book stock could then be centralised and if you wanted one you could order over the counter or online, to be picked up or delivered to your home in 24 hours, just like at the best independent bookshops. Don’t think of it as the end of libraries, just the start of millions of personal ones. The library is dead, long live the library." - Helen Rumbelow in The Times

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Wednesday 25th October 2006

7.30pm ToryDiary update: Richard Ottaway, Graham Stuart and John Whittingdale elected to Party Board

2pm ToryDiary update: Cameron says Britain isn't safe under Labour

1.15pm Platform update: Graeme Archer reviews last night's The Tory Party is no longer Conservative debate

11am: "Crime figures should be monitored by an independent body to stop them being politically manipulated, the Conservatives have said." - ePolitix

BLOGS

ToryDiary: Tory lead up to 10% as Labour collapses to 29%

"Just a year and a half before she won that third election in 1987, it was Thatcher who was in the doldrums, on 29% and in third place behind the Alliance. She bounced back, and so could Labour, especially since it has a new leader to look forward to and can hold off another election for almost four years." - Julian Glover in The Guardian

ToryDiary: Council tax inspectors?

Dr Simon Newman in YourPlatform:

"Of the major institutions of British society, only the military has apparently not yet fully aligned itself to cultural Marxist values and thought processes. Interestingly, this raises a potential weakness of cultural Marxism: it is a viral meme that is extraordinarily successful at self-transmission, but it is intended to destroy the perceived legitimacy of the very institutions which it infects."

OPEN-MINDED THATCHER

"Just imagine if the modern Tory party were as open to ideas as Mrs Thatcher's was. Ralph would have told them what to do. Public bureaucracy, whether in NHS trusts or local councils, would have been replaced by small, privatised management teams. Inner-city areas, where the Tory party currently does not exist, would have been revived by enterprise zones, with young entrepreneurs encouraged by corporation tax holidays, VAT exemptions and other tax breaks." - Simon Heffer in The Telegraph

THE MARKET POSES A DANGER TO THE ENVIRONMENT

"Governments are limited in what they can do because they no longer control the key economic levers: if they did, they could act swiftly. Instead, they are left hoping that market mechanisms will work their magic and that the polluters' behaviour will change." - Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian

INTERNATIONAL EXAMS FOR STATE SCHOOLS

"The Government is to consult on International GCSEs after the Conservatives called for the examination to be made available to the state as well as the independent sector. Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, announced the review after the Lords voted down an amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill, allowing comprehensives to adopt the award." - Times

WIFE SWAP BRITAIN

"Almost ten years after Labour was elected, nothing about the poor has been resolved. Senior Labour ministers are riven with uncertainty about where to target policy next: the tax credits system has left behind a significant tranche of people, the bottom 15 per cent, who were never in work at all, and whose parents may not have been in work before them, and have not been helped at all by tax credits and New Deals." - Alice Miles in The Times

CSA TOO SLOW

"The Child Support Agency will not meet its target for clearing a backlog of cases despite recruiting 1,000 extra staff, the Tories claimed yesterday." - Guardian

WILL THE UNION SEE ITS 300th BIRTHDAY?

"Is the United Kingdom heading for fragmentation with the secession of Scotland from the Union, even as it prepares to celebrate its 300th anniversary next year? And if it is, should those who make up the vast bulk of its population - the English - give a damn?" - Telegraph

"Wales has sometimes been the neglected elder daughter of the UK family, elbowed out of the picture by a more assertive Scotland and a more troubled Ulster. But now, I hope, she is coming into her own, appreciated for a beauty too long overlooked." - Michael Gove in The Times

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Tuesday 24th October 2006

10.30pm ToryDiary update: Tory lead up to 10% as Labour collapses to 29% 

12.45pm ToryDiary update: I'm £100 poorer

Noon CF Diary update: Best of the CF blogs

BLOGS

ToryDiary: English Constitutional Convention established and Cameron commends 'Kirklees model' where young pay for older residents' council tax rises

COMMUNICATE RESEARCH POLL FOR THE INDEPENDENT GIVES TORIES 6% LEAD

"David Cameron was given a lift last night after a poll showed the Tories have regained their lead over Labour, with a survey putting them six points ahead.  The CommunicateResearch poll for The Independent came as the Conservative leader appealed to his party to give him more time to establish himself. Urging patience, Mr Cameron said: "People are not going to leap out of the arms of Tony Blair into the hands of someone else.""  MORI (excluded for volatility) and CommunicateResearch (because it only reports very occasionally) are not included within ConservativeHome's poll of polls.

- The Independent asks: "How much faith should we have in political opinion polls?"

DAVID CAMERON WOOS OLDER VOTERS

"Grandparents could be paid more than £12,000 a year by the Government to look after their grandchildren under plans being considered by the Conservatives.  The scheme would be a financial boon to the hundreds of thousands of families where grandparents are regular childminders, but could lead to widespread fraud." - Times

Also in The Times: "Fewer small flats and more bungalows and houses with gardens should be built to make it easier for elderly people to avoid going into care, the Conservatives said yesterday.  David Cameron, the party leader, told an Age Concern conference that houses should be designed to be suitable for every stage of life. “We must think in a new way about housing design and urban planning. Housing in Britain never seems to be built with a whole lifetime in mind,” he said."

VOTERS WANT TROOPS OUT

"A clear majority of voters want British troops to be pulled out of Iraq by the end of this year, regardless of the consequences for the country, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today.  In a sign that public opinion is hardening against Britain's military presence in Iraq, 61% of voters say they want British troops to leave this year, even if they have not completed their mission and Washington wants them to stay.  Only 30% now back the prime minister's commitment to keep troops in Iraq as long as is considered necessary."

- Why troops should not withdraw by Melanie Phillips in yesterday's Daily Mail

MICHAEL HOWARD QUESTIONED BY 'CASH FOR HONOURS' POLICE

"Former Tory leader Michael Howard has announced he has been interviewed by police probing the cash-for-honours affair.  Mr Howard said he had "agreed" to be interviewed, and had not been arrested or questioned under caution." - Daily Mail

MILBURN CONTINUES TO THINK RADICALLY

"The former health secretary Alan Milburn, a close ally of Tony Blair, yesterday proposed a new wave of health reforms based on giving patients NHS credits to choose some of their own healthcare.  He said the scheme would empower patients, cut costs and radically redistribute power in society." - Guardian

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