Wednesday 31st January 2007

8pm ToryDiary update: Terraces may return to the Premiership

READ THE THIRD EXTRACT OF LIAM FOX'S DIARY FOR CONSERVATIVEHOME FROM WASHINGTON DC.

Lunchtime blog updates: Cameron calls for Tony Blair to go and Ken Livingstone as the unacceptable face of London

BLOGS

ToryDiary: "Tory core support is strongest"

YourPlatform: Iain Murray reports on the rallying American conservative movement

BritainAndAmerica: Driving faith underground

HAGUE TO FOCUS EVEN LESS ON THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

"A Tory government would abandon Tony Blair's exclusive approach to the "special relationship" with Washington and foster closer links with India, China and Japan, William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, will say today. In a speech redefining Tory foreign policy, Mr Hague will pledge to "shift more political weight" to developing friendships throughout the Asia-Pacific region." - Telegraph

SPECIAL SCHOOLS CRISIS

"Nearly 9,000 places at special needs schools have been cut since Labour came to power in 1997, the Conservatives said yesterday. David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, said that the figures revealed the true scale of the “crisis” facing children with disabilities and learning difficulties and their families." - Times

SOCIAL COHESION REPORT WELCOMED

"But it is coherent enough on some significant issues, pointing elegantly to the fatal confusion between the "right to difference", which leads to cultural apartheid, and the right to "equal treatment despite difference", which is essential to a liberal philosophy. It warns, too, against governments treating with noisy self-appointed spokesmen rather than the quieter majority of a community. The question of how a liberal nation deals with an illiberal minority in its midst has no easy answer, but this report is a constructive and courageous contribution to the debate." - Telegraph leader

"A statement of the obvious, perhaps. But how refreshing to hear a Tory leader daring to speak home truths about these issues, after years in which the liberal establishment has tried to silence all debate with accusations of 'racism'. What a shame that, in PR terms, this constructive speech will inevitably be obscured by his position on gay rights." - Mail leader

GRAY'S RESELECTION

"James Gray, the MP accused of being a "love cheat" survived an attempt to end his political career yesterday, when Tories in North Wiltshire voted to let him stand as their candidate in another election. A delighted Mr Gray promised to "hold no grudges" against party members who had tried to unseat him after he left his cancer-stricken wife for another woman. But there is still the risk that he will be challenged by an independent, backed by the jilted husband of his new lover." - The Independent

The Herald | Mirror | Guardian

TAX BURDEN £40BN HEAVIER UNDER NEW LAB

"The government and Conservatives were involved in a war of words last night after Britain's leading fiscal thinktank said the average family was paying an extra £1,300 a year as a result of Gordon Brown's stewardship of the public finances since 1997. In its annual health check of the nation's budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the tax burden under Labour had increased by £40bn. It accused the chancellor of manipulating the economic cycle to meet his own fiscal rules." - Guardian

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE CONFERENCE

"We are used to the third sector being used as a stick with which to beat the bureaucratic drones of the public sector, but it is fascinating to see it being deployed, by senior Tories, to chastise the greed and ethical dysfunctionality of the private sector - yesterday's Golden Boys and Girls." - Society Guardian

SMITH INSTITUTE INVESTIGATION

"A subsidiary of a charity being investigated for its links to Gordon Brown organised an event last year at which the Tory leader David Cameron was criticised as "an empty opportunist who will do anything to win". The Smith Institute is being investigated by the Charity Commission for the second time in five years over its links to Labour, including hiring the Chancellor's former economic adviser Ed Balls as a research fellow before he entered Parliament as an MP at the last general election." - Telegraph (pic from Guido)

PARTY LEADERSHIP FAILING THEIR DUTY

"The Labour Government is discredited and unpopular. Yet the Conservative Party has not attracted the support it needs to form a government. Why? I suggest it is chiefly because we hear so little from most of its leading members. Their apparent silence on the key issues of the day is a disappointment to the party's supporters. At such a critical time in our country's affairs, it is also a failure of their public duty." - The start of a letter to the Telegraph from Sir Edward du Cann, former Chairman of the Conservative Party

GAMBLING WITH LIVES

"Serious questions remain about whether a large casino can open in a deprived area without a sharp rise in gambling addiction — but at least Manchester City Council appears committed to answering them; it has been chosen in large part on this basis. Far more serious is the rise of problem gambling as a result of the exponential expansion of online casinos. Those based abroad are beyond the reach of British financial regulators, and their customers, unless they seek help voluntarily, are beyond the reach of specialist charities and social services should addiction take hold." - Times leader

"And why not legalise drug dealing and prostitution while you're at it?" - Simon Heffer in the Telegraph

CRITICISM OF HUNTERS' INFILTRATION OF WELSH ASSOCIATION

"Former Welsh Conservative chairman Sir Eric Howells has been suspended after saying he might back an unofficial Tory candidate in May's assembly election." - BBC

POLICE NUMBERS FALLING

"The number of police in England and Wales has fallen for the first time since March 2000, the Home Office admitted last night. The total dropped by 173 officers to 141,873 at the end of September. Police forces have come under increasing budget pressures in the last two years, at the end of a period of massive Government investment in the number of officers." - Yorkshire Post

PARTY ANIMALS

The first episode of "Party Animals" starts at 9pm on BBC2.

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Tuesday 30th January 2006

EVENING UPDATES: £2M SUBSIDY WINS 2008 TORY CONFERENCE FOR BIRMINGHAM and LORD LEVY REARRESTED (BBC | IAIN DALE)

1pm Seats and Candidates update: Gray wins ballot of local members

Noon ToryDiary update: Tax campaign video launches

CLICK HERE TO READ IT.

BLOGS

ToryDiary: Tory report targets unrepresentative Muslim groups and Cameron faces backlash from social conservatives on gay adoption decision

YourPlatform: A very cold Liam Fox reports from Washington DC

SMITH INSTITUTE - A CHARITY CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH GORDON BROWN - IS UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR POLITICISATION

SEE GUIDO FAWKES' POST

"The tax-exempt London group being probed by British authorities over its relations with the Labour Party held an event last year at which a U.S. political operative discussed strategies for battling Conservative leader David Cameron. Cameron, 40, should be branded "an empty opportunist who will do anything to win,'' Bob Shrum, a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns including those of Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, said in the March 16, 2006, seminar, according to a transcript provided by the research organization, the Smith Institute.  The U.K.'s Charity Commission said in November it is looking at the institute's 2004 decision to appoint Ed Balls, a close associate of Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and now a treasury minister, as a research fellow. It is the second probe into the organization in five years."- Bloomberg

CITIZENS HAVE THE TOOLS TO BREAK THE POLITICAL CONSENSUS

Writing for today's Times, ConservativeHome Editor Tim Montgomerie believes that the internet can challenge Britain's grey political consensus.  Discuss the article on 18DoughtyStreet.com.

THE TORY RIGHT DOESN'T GET PROJECT CAMERON

"Underpinning everything David Cameron does is awareness that Britain is now a social democratic country. If he wins an election, it will be in spite of being called a Tory. The right, which includes many rank-and-file party members, refuses to recognise this. Its adherents want heroics. They yearn to see their leader launch his forces in splendid charges against the enemy, which they believe will rouse the admiration of voters, as well as that of the late Lord Tennyson." - Max Hastings in The Guardian

DAVID CAMERON'S PUBLIC SERVICE AGENDA

"Mr Cameron has so far failed to address the central question for the next few years: at a time of much slower growth in public spending, how can rising demands for services be met without more direct payments by users of services, such as tuition fees, road pricing etc? Perhaps that is what social responsibility really means." - Peter Riddell in The Times

THE TORY A-LIST HAS DELIVERED PROGRESS

So argues Michael White in The Guardian.

A VERY GOOD LETTER TO TODAY'S TELEGRAPH

Sir – "Only 26 per cent are satisfied with Tony Blair," wrote Prof King about your YouGov poll. Given the damage done to our nation, should that not be: "How can as many as one in four still support Tony Blair after 10 years of failure?" - from Joe Windsor, Poole, Dorset

TAX THE GAMBLING INDUSTRY

"The gaming industry is doing rather well by New Labour and should be required to offer something in return. The government-inspired expansion in gambling will lead to more problem gamblers, more ill health, more shattered families. Why should the taxpayer pick up the bill? There is a powerful argument for a levy on the new casinos that will help pay for the damage they will inevitably cause." - Telegraph leader

LABOUR RATTLED BY TORY ATTACK ON PRISONS

"John Reid's allies accused the Conservative party of political "mischief making" last night after it blamed spending priorities set by Gordon Brown for the current prisons crisis.  George Osborne, shadow chancellor, said Mr Brown's "Treasury targets, his skewed PFI [private finance initiative] accounts and his extraordinary decision to freeze the Home Office budget, have all contributed to the current crisis"." - FT

LORD CHANNON HAS DIED

Paul Channon, the former Conservative MP and Cabinet minister, has died aged 71 - Telegraph

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Monday 29th January 2007

7pm updates on Seats and candidates: 25 seats in latest tranche and  Selection changes confirmed.

2pm Seats and Candidates update: Tooting shortlist

Lunchtime ToryDiary update: The five barriers to community cohesion

BLOGS

ToryDiary:

• YouGov gives Tories a 7% lead
• Cameron to address Islamic extremism
• Cameron backs Government against Catholic Church

YourPlatform: Patrick Barbour on better government and Liam Fox has begun a daily diary of his trip to Washington DC

This week's featured blog is the Eurosceptic, Atlanticist and Thatcherite Thoughts from a young Tory by Ross Cowling.

A NEW NATIONAL HOLIDAY

"The Queen’s Birthday will become a national holiday under Tory plans to create a sense of "True Britishness", David Cameron tells The Sun today. The Tory leader wants everyone to have a day off to celebrate Her Majesty’s official birthday in June — and mark what it means to be British. The civil service already gets that day off, and Mr Cameron would give the nation a break as well." - The Sun

GOLDIE REFORMS EDUCATION POLICY

"The Scottish Conservatives have decided to ditch a number of key policies for this year's Scottish Parliament election and concentrate instead on crime and drugs, it emerged yesterday. Annabel Goldie, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, revealed she had dropped her party's pledge to axe the graduate endowment - the payment in lieu of tuition fees paid by students after they graduate. The Tories have also dropped their policy of taking education out of the hands of councils and their commitment to cut council tax by 35 per cent for all households." - Scotsman

CONSERVATIVES INCREASINGLY VOCAL ON ADOPTION LAW

"Cabinet divisions over plans to force Catholic adoption agencies to consider gay couples spread to the Tories yesterday, as a senior shadow cabinet member said he was likely to vote against the move. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said he would "almost certainly" vote for Catholic agencies to be exempted from allowing adoption by gay couples, a view shared by an increasingly vocal segment of Conservative party opinion." - Guardian

"The Catholic Church does not accept single-sex partnerships. That is a matter of religious doctrine. One does not have to agree with it to defend its right to be stated. No doubt the secular character of the present Government has reinforced its decision: There is to be no exemption. In its philosophical chain of thought, European ideas have played a guiding part." - WIlliam Rees-Mogg in the Times

DRINKING AND GAMBLING UK

"The Government is preparing to make a substantial U-turn over 24-hour drinking by making it harder for pubs to open later in future amid the first signs they realise that the policy went too far too fast.

Tessa Jowell will unveil the latest controversial change to social policy tomorrow by announcing the location of Britain’s first super-casino, which will bring £1 million slot machines into this country for the first time." - Times

"Gambling companies hoping for a change to the law to allow more than one regional super-casino face an uphill political battle, the Tories have warned. The main opposition party used its bargaining power in parliamentary horsetrading over the gambling bill in 2005 to reduce the statutory ceiling on the number of Las Vegas-style super-casinos from eight to one." - FT

GRAY'S BALLOT RESULT ANNOUNCED TOMORROW

"I never had any intention of belittling my wife's cancer, and nor would I do that. My reading of my letter is that it does not do that. The reference to mainly pre-cancerous cells was a small point. ''The point was to address that Sarah is not cancer-stricken now... I am not sure why Sarah has chosen to put this in the public domain. It is my view that these should be private matters." - Telegraph

FOOTBALL AND THE COMMONS PEOPLE

"Two weeks ago, Gordon Brown announced that he hoped England would win the 2018 football World Cup. Now newspapers have unearthed an essay Mr Brown wrote in 1994, titled "Why Scotland Means the World to Me", where he declared himself a member of the "Tartan Army", and described watching Scotland beat England in 1967. He spoke of "the sheer joy of defeating the English at the game they regard as their own". This makes Mr Brown look posturing and foolish. But who on earth would have known where to find the essay, which appeared in an obscure 13-year-old book about MPs and their football teams called Football and the Commons People (co-edited by Alastair Campbell)? Oh." - Telegraph notebook

SHORT-TERM POLITICS

"Recruiting the services of Zac Goldsmith to spearhead the Conservatives' environmental policy was a clever move on David Cameron's part. But one rising star in the environmental campaign has delivered a stinging criticism of what he calls "short-term politics"." - Telegraph Spy

A-LISTER KEEPING BUSY

"Howard Flight, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, is backing a new fund worth up to £100m which will finance mergers between Chinese and European companies." - Telegraph

WORST IS YET TO COME FOR THE HOME OFFICE

"John Reid admits today that the Home Office will continue to be undermined by new crises and embarrassments before he is able to bring the department under control. After another weekend of woe for the home secretary - including claims that ministers did nothing to tighten a loophole allowing sex offenders to escape monitoring in the community - Mr Reid concedes he is contending with both inherited and new failings discovered by his reforms, and others found by the media." - Guardian

"What the New Labour doctrine has done is to conflate the purpose of law enforcement ("crime") with the role of the social services ("the causes of crime"). Not only does that famous aphorism imply that crime always has a socially determined "cause", but it creates conflicting and inhibiting constraints on law enforcement: the police and the courts are now under as much pressure to consider the supposed causes of an offence as its consequences." - Janet Daley in the Telegraph

CONSERVATIVE HOME'S JANUARY SURVEY CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT

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Sunday 28th January 2007

8pm ToryDiary update: Lidington calls on Sinn Fein to match words and deeds

BLOGS

ToryDiary: Cameron's new "crusade" embraces rights of Muslim women and Cameron's hesitation on Catholic adoption row imperils his faith-based social action agenda

LondonMayor: Big Issue founder John Bird may be Cameron's candidate

Seats and candidates: James Gray saga drags on

CASH-FOR-HONOURS PAPER TRAIL LEADS DIRECTLY TO TONY BLAIR

"Detectives have discovered a hand-written note from Tony Blair among new evidence that has widened significantly the cash-for-honours investigation.  It is the first time that the "paper trail" uncovered by Scotland Yard has led directly to the Prime Minister. The note is understood to acknowledge the efforts of Labour's 12 secret lenders who provided £14 million to help the party fight the 2005 election." - Sunday Telegraph

HOME OFFICE BLUNDERS

"The goal for the Tories must be not only to end Reid’s career but also to paint Brown as the co-offender. It is the chancellor who is principally responsible for allocating enough public spending to achieve each of the government’s policy objectives. In a properly functioning administration there could not be such a mismatch between changes to sentencing policy and the distribution of resources to prisons.  In part it is because Brown has squandered money ineffectively on health, education, tax credits and the “new deal” youth training scheme, leaving the Home Office strapped for cash. As a former Treasury minister, I should add that chancellors always take a dim view of the Home Office — and for good reason. Its demands for money are never-ending and the value it achieves is unimpressive." - Michael Portillo in The Sunday Times

INCUMBENTS PROSPER IN SCOTTISH TORY RANKINGS FOR HOLYROOD

Full list on Scottish Tories website | icScotland on Mary Scanlon's return.

WILLIAM KEEGAN INTERVIEWS GEOFFREY HOWE

"The point that really made me sit up came towards the end of our conversation, when Howe said he had often asked himself whether the Tory party was better or worse off for Thatcher's disappearance. Could it have been better for her to lose an election? His answer to his own question was emphatically no. He concluded: 'John Major was too young to become Prime Minister, but deserves huge credit for consolidating Thatcherism. If Neil Kinnock had won [and he insisted he likes Lord Kinnock personally] Thatcherism would have been swept away - the prize was delivered by her resigning and not being defeated [at the polls].'" - Observer

IT'S TAXING BEING A TORY

This from the always unmissable Fraser Nelson column in today's News of the World: "Millionaire Stuart Wheeler, founder of spread betting IG Index, tells me he's been investigated by the Inland Revenue THREE TIMES in four years.   Each time they found nothing.  His being a major Tory donor is a pure coincidence, of course."

OTHER NEWSLINKS

"[Tory] Candidates for councillor are being told to recruit celebrity fundraisers to “raise three times the legal election maximum”, according to a leaked copy of the party’s campaign manual.' - Sunday Times

"Peter Mandelson had a sly dig at Labour arch foe Gordon Brown when he bumped into David Cameron at the Davos economic summit in Switzerland.  Cameron says: 'Picking my way through the snow, I heard a voice from a balcony asking how many votes I expected to find in Davos. It was Peter Mandelson. I told him I assumed I could count on his support in a run-off with Gordon Brown. "It's a no-brainer," he replied.'" - Mail on Sunday's Black Dog diary

"Almost 600,000 people have put their names to a petition demanding Tony Blair scraps plans for a controversial new tax on motoring." - Mail on Sunday

"MPs have failed to back a bid by Tim Yeo to turn the clocks forward one hour.  Debating his Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill in the House on Friday, the Conservative MP said the move "would benefit families and individuals up and down the country".  But the Bill was talked out by MPs who used up all the available parliamentary time without coming to a decision on whether to back it." - ePolitix.com

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