Sunday 4th November 2007

7.30pm ToryDiary: Cameron has changed the Conservative Party (but not enough)

4pm Seats and Candidates: Nigel Hastilow has resigned

1pm New PlayPolitical videos: Two new Australian election ads, a US news report on the nanny state and some Soviet propaganda movies.

11.30am ToryDiary: Tories now ahead by 5% according to MORI

ToryDiary: CCHQ highlights widespread abuse of parliamentary communications allowance by Labour MPs

Seats and candidates: Candidate who says Enoch Powell was right is summoned to meeting with Party Chairman

Columnist Graeme Archer: The Time of the Angels:

"WAGN-One repeatedly play pre-recorded messages, very loudly, before and after every stop, telling us: the name of the last station, the name of the next station, the name of every station between now and the end of the route; the fact that safety notices are displayed in every carriage... and that we should familiarise ourselves with them each time we travel; and that – of course! – smoking is not permitted anywhere on WAGN-One services. I’m particularly glad of that last reminder, since smoking has only been banned on the service since 1987, and I do worry, in the absence of these constant reminders, that the entire carriage might light up one morning, perhaps starting a fire, and that someone who had stayed on the train too long, having forgotten at which station they intended to alight, might suffer injury through not having familiarised themselves with the safety notice each time they travel."

Douglas Carswell MP writes his regular review from Parliament: Culture, Media and another holiday

Daniel Kawczynski MP on the Platform: We must act to to give the Burmese people their right to freedom

Andrew Green: We can control immigration

"The genie is now well and truly out of the bottle. Public opinion is extremely strong - 80% disbelieve the government’s honesty and competence; 75% want to see an annual limit; two-thirds fear that our culture is under threat. Only one in three believe that immigration brings economic benefit to Britain.  The immigration lobby claims there is little that the government can do. It is all down to some mysterious force called “globalisation”. They are wrong. In fact, immigration to the UK took off in 1997. The prime cause was a series of policy errors by the present government. First, it abolished such border controls as it inherited. Then it trebled the number of work permits to 150,000 a year, plus dependants. Finally, it hopelessly miscalculated the inflow of east Europeans.  These policies can and should be reversed." - The Chairman of MigrationWatchUK, writing in The Sunday Times

Wrong again, minister: the tally is 8 in 10 jobs go to migrants - The Sunday Times

A News of the World investigation focuses on the problem of illegal immigration: "Hunched down in wasteland near French channel ports, a flock of illegal immigrants wait their turn to be sneaked into Britain.  They are among thousands flooding in every year with shocking ease.  Today a News of the World investigation uncovers the full extent of the scandal after infiltrating a gang of traffickers who smuggle them in..."

Spare no pity for Sir Ian Blair, a most political policeman - Brian Coleman, deputy chairman of the London Assembly, writing for The Independent on Sunday

The political fallout from the de Menezes case will undo Britain's most senior policeman - Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer

Osborne moves to exploit disquiet over Darling

"It started with the odd critic but now you hear the question everywhere: is Alistair Darling up to the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer? He has been in Number 11 for four months and he is not looking impressive. In challenging economic times, we need a strong Chancellor, with a clear vision for the British economy.  Yet Alistair Darling fails both tests. He is clearly not his own man at the Treasury. And he shows no signs of a vision for the economy." - The Shadow Chancellor writing in The Sunday Telegraph

Salmond needs Tory support for his budget

"Alex Salmond will only get his first budget through Parliament if he agrees to back Tory plans on housing, drugs and crime, Conservative chiefs have warned." - Scotland on Sunday

Tory plans to address the West Lothian Question are scrutinised

"The Rifkind proposal undermines the principle of collective responsibility according to which a government must command a majority on all of the issues that come before Parliament, not just a selection of them.  The Speaker would become politicised if he had to determine precisely which bills were 'English'. For many bills contain some clauses that provide for changes in England only, while others provide for changes in Scotland as well. Most of the 2004 Higher Education Act, providing for top-up fees in universities, applied just to England and Wales. But other parts extended to Scotland as well as to England and Wales. Would MPs from Scotland be brought back in what a Scottish Labour MP George Foulkes called a kind of 'legislative hokey-cokey', to vote just on these particular clauses?" - Vernon Bogdanor in The Observer

"For David Cameron, the focus on English grievances is a net vote winner. The most his party can lose in Scotland is one seat - currently held by David Mundell - compared with the dozens of new constituencies it could pick up in southern marginals." - Paul Hutcheon in The Sunday Herald

Henry Porter and David Cameron exchange letters about civil liberties - The Observer

Axed: the NHS heroes who cared for Cameron's disabled son - Mail on Sunday

Meet Bridget Jones MP - The Sunday Telegraph profiles Nadine Dorries MP

Brown can't see what we really want - Martin Ivens in The Sunday Times

Immigration and education shake-up in Queen's Speech - Independent on Sunday

Some independent schools may give up charitable status as they are asked to prove "public benefit" - The Sunday Times

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