Friday 28th September 2007

9.45pm ToryDiary: Another 11% Labour lead

7.15pm ToryDiary: Has James Purnell faked photos before?!

5.30pm ToryDiary: Tories will pledge abolition of inheritance tax and Thoughts on next steps for 'core vote' issues...

4.30pm CF Diary: New Youth Development Manager appointed

3.30pm ToryDiary: Thoughts on next steps for modernisation...

12.45pm ToryDiary: "All passes have been cleared by the police"

11am PlayPolitical: Hazel Blears and the Conservative cookies

10am Seats and candidates: John Bercow readopted last night

ToryDiary: New Tory assertiveness and local by-election results may sow new seeds of doubt in Brown's mind

Platform: Owen Paterson MP writes a diary of his trip to the US and Dana Peters describes the Conservative Group for Europe

TheWrongMan: Brown's neglect of British farming

Columnists: Theresa May details how Brown's speech was nothing more than a rehash

A balanced, coherent vision

Interview with George Osborne - Telegraph

"David Cameron is preparing to move to core Tory policies on tax, marriage and crime and style himself as an heir to Margaret Thatcher - not Tony Blair. In a shift that will see him distance himself from green tax proposals, the Tory leader will use next week's crucial conference to try to reinvigorate his leadership before a possible snap election." - Telegraph

"David Cameron should open up his close-knit circle of advisers. He and his team need to continue on the path they have set out, but to widen its appeal to those who have felt excluded. This doesn't mean a reversion to the ''core vote strategy", but it does mean expounding on core principles a little more often and a little more volubly." - Iain Dale in the Telegraph

"Our interview today with George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, suggests the Tories are attempting to construct a balanced policy platform that maintains David Cameron's commitment to the political centre, where he believes elections are won and lost, while reassuring the Tory core that a party leadership with which many activists still feel uncomfortable remains committed to traditional values." - Telegraph leader

The power of oratory

"Mr Brown may be good at steadying a nervous, unsure country and convincing the voters that only he can deal with the dangers ahead, but to those who could be bothered to listen, he sounded pedestrian, pessimistic and patronising. Mr Cameron needs to show that he can inspire confidence in being British again and that we should be an optimistic nation, excited by the future. He needs to find the words to build his version of the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan's shining city by the seaside in Blackpool next week." - Alice Thompson in the Telegraph

Labour still doesn't understand the forces

"Des Browne has blown his only excuse for the state of the Armed Forces: not understanding them. But what minister who understands the Forces could cut manpower and force an infantry reorganisation in the middle of two bloody campaigns like Iraq and Afghanistan? His inability to wrest money from the Chancellor is not surprising. When the Prime Minister spoke the day before, there were not two complete sentences on the Forces." - Allan Mallinson in the Telegraph

Balls' attack on Tory toffness

"It suited the minister's purposes to pretend that the Tory leader believes so firmly in "privilege" that he wants to build new grammar schools. If only! In fact, he is so conscious of being upper-class - and so terrified of being thought to favour anything that smacks of elitism - that he refuses to throw his weight behind selective schools." - Tom Utley in the Daily Mail

Toynbee: Cameron should be a martyr for his progressive instincts

"if he ends up as the Neil Kinnock of the Tory party that's a noble role for which he too would be remembered with admiration by his party when he is old and grey. But if he turns back to the dark side, he will join his last four leaders in the dustbin of history." - Polly Toynbee in the Guardian

Election depends on Tory conference bounce

"Gordon Brown will see how David Cameron performs at the Tory rally next week before deciding on a November 8 election. The Prime Minister will call a vote if he thinks Conservatives are tearing themselves apart in Blackpool. He will today study polling data with key lieutenants in a Downing Street war room." - Sun

Sam Cameron: a profile

"For a woman who has for more than a decade been the creative director of Smythsons, a fast-growing and increasingly fashionable design firm, one imagines the role of silent, smiling consort will be at least as galling as it ever was for senior QC Cherie Booth or the former top PR executive Sarah Brown." - Guardian 

"1998 ghosts returning to haunt the junta

"The faces of the protesting monks are exactly like those who were killed in Mandalay during the 1988 uprising, in which I was one of the participants and a witness to the massacres. Back then, truckloads of battle-hardened soldiers fighting on the front were shipped into the cities and told by their commanders that the monks and protesters were urban communists." - Pascal Koo-Thwe in the Telegraph

"The junta’s belief in astrology in part reflects the capricious weirdness of a peculiarly nasty regime, insulated from the rest of the world and divorced from reality." - Ben Macintyre in the Times

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary...