Sunday 21st October 2007

9.15pm BritainAndAmerica: Half of Americans would never vote for Clinton

6.45pm ToryDiary: 1,029 members have advice for David Cameron on next steps

3pm BritainAndAmerica: Introducing Mike Huckabee

11.30am BritainAndAmerica: These people make George Galloway look moderate...

11am ToryDiary: Tweedlelibdem and Tweedlelibdum both rule out EU referendum

TheWrongMan: New book reveals feuding, bullying and foul-mouthed Gordon Brown

Seats and candidates: Andrew Pelling MP's suspension still in place

Graeme Archer's Sunday column includes a factfile on Canadian politics and a challenge to all of us to scrutinise the LibDems:

"ConservativeHome should cover this campaign with relish, to help correct the mainstream media narrative which is building up, which goes something like ooh the Tories should be worried, they might pick that bloke wot looks a bit like Cameron, that Nick Check Out My Missus I’m Married Clegg, that’s gonna eat into the Tory vote that is. Hmm. I don’t think so, baby. To say that a leader who looks a bit like Cameron is a threat is just a tad too simplistic, even for me, even for the Today programme."

"We must value education for itself, not just to get a job"

"Of course we want productive workers. But more importantly, we want a strong society made up of happy and robust individuals. A real education is the only way to provide that." - David Willetts in The Sunday Times

Geoff Hoon, Labour Chief Whip, favours cap on Ashcroft money

"In an interview with GMTV, Hoon said: 'It's important that we restrain the amount of money that can be spent on parliamentary elections. Otherwise we simply end up in a situation where all political parties are trying to outbid each other in some sort of financial arms race to spend ever more money.  'That cannot be good for democracy, and I am worried about the way in which one man, in this case Lord Ashcroft, appears to be dominating one political party in order to influence the outcome of elections in particular parliamentary constituencies.'" - Observer

Yesterday evening's ToryDiary includes notes on Lord Ashcroft's defence of his support for target seat candidates: No extra state funding of political parties without cap on union donations says David Cameron

Kirstie Allsop to help Grant Shapps lead housing policy quest

"Kirstie Allsop, the self-styled queen of property television shows, is to use her profile and housing know-how to lead a review by David Cameron into how buying and selling a home could be made easier... This week Allsopp will start to head a review of home buying, working alongside shadow housing minister Grant Shapps, to come up with ideas which could regenerate the housing market and make it easier for first-time buyers to get a foot on the housing ladder. A website will be launched and the public will be invited to send in ideas on how negotiations and exchanges could be simplified." - Observer

Labour set to steal another Tory policy... on the number of non-EU immigrants coming into Britain

"Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, last week repeatedly refused to rule out annual quotas as a means of controlling the rising number of migrants.  Home Office officials have now confirmed they are considering whether such a scheme would help to ease the pressures on public services created by large numbers of new arrivals." - Scotland on Sunday

Recent ToryDiary on 'Copycat Labour'

£4,000 goodbye for asylum seekers who go home voluntarily

"Failed asylum seekers are to be offered up to £4,000 to go home voluntarily, it was revealed yesterday.  The support packages - which can include help towards private school fees - are intended to arrest an alarming slump in the number of bogus refugees being removed from the country." - Mail

Fraser Nelson's verdict: "Illegal immigrants already think Britain is a soft touch. Now, for them, it's a case of 'heads you get to stay in Britain, tails you get a £4,000 consolation prize and a free flight back home'."

UK population to grow by 'two Londons' by 2051

"Rising immigration, a higher birthrate among migrant families and longer lifespans are on course to lift the population by at least 15 million by 2051, from last year's 60 million total. There are fears it could even hit 77 million.  The increase will be the equivalent of building two new cities the size of London. It will place enormous demands on housing, transport and public services, and will bring a dramatic change to the nation's ethnic mix." - Sunday Telegraph

Esther McVey and Labour MP war over Ashes tour claims - Mail on Sunday

Tory Muslim peer accused of adultery

Tory Chairman of Conservative Muslim Forum (author of the controversial report that ConservativeHome highlighted on Friday) is the subject of a typical News of the World expose: "A Tory peer who lectures on family values is a love-rat who cheated on his wife for nearly ten years.  Baron Mohamed Iltaf Sheikh, who is the Chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, enjoyed a decade of regular sex sessions with his secret Hindu mistress Saroj Dattani."

LibDem leadership race

"In an article for this newspaper, Chris Huhne aims the first personal shot at Nick Clegg - claiming that his rival risks being seen as little more than a "Tory twin".  In a broadside at Mr Clegg's free-market credentials, Mr Huhne says there is "no gap in the market" for a third party "parroting" David Cameron by promising choice and competition in public services." - Sunday Telegraph

"This weekend Chris Huhne is discovering, just as David Cameron before him, that his undergraduate days at Oxford can come back to haunt him. Last night Huhne, 53, was doing his best to disown an article he appears to have written in an Oxford student magazine about the benefits of illegal hard drugs." - Sunday Times

"The pin-up promising the return of zing after Ming" - The Sunday Times profiles Nick Clegg

The BBC has a report on yesterday's Clegg and Huhne hustings

Scotland on Sunday reports that Brown may give Ming Campbell job of overseeing Labour's constitutional reforms.  The News of the World suggests, in contrast, that Ming may become Speaker after the next general election.

Salmond-Brown relations deteriorate further

"Relations between Holyrood and Westminster slumped to their lowest point since devolution last night, after Alex Salmond accused Gordon Brown's government of "idiocy" and declared he would take on the Prime Minister in public.  In a furious broadside ahead of this week's party conference in Aviemore, the First Minister claimed Brown was effectively reneging on a promise to deal fairly with the SNP Government after it cut back increases in Holyrood's budget two weeks ago." - Scotland on Sunday

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