Sunday 30th November 2008

6.45pm ToryDiary update: Damian Green instructs General Pinochet's solicitor

4.45pm Local Government: IDS report backs ending life tenure for Council tenants

2pm Simon Chapman on CentreRight: Jacqui Smith personifies the phrase "Nothing to do with me, Guv"

1.30pm Seats and Candidates: City of Durham's newly-selected candidate, Nick Varley, is the youngest Conservative ever to stand for the House of Commons

12.30pm ToryDiary: Dominic Grieve says he thinks Jacqui Smith did know an MP was involved in the Home Office leak inquiry and Local Government: Labour-run Norwich persecute mulled wine serving hairdressers

10.45am CentreRight:

• Paul Goodman blogs from Delhi on the Kashmir connection
• Peter Whittle on the BBC and Channel 4's evasive coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks

10am ToryDiary: Jacqui Smith refuses to apologise to Damian Green

ToryDiary: Was this the week which determined the result of the next election?

Andrew Mitchell MP on Platform: What I witnessed in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Mark Wallace in Local Government: Why is only Hammersmith and Fulham cutting council tax?

Seats and Candidates: Christian Holliday selected for Swansea East

David Cameron increases pressure on Brown over Damian Green arrest

"The Prime Minister has simply repeated that he “had no prior knowledge” and this is “a police matter”. Frankly, that’s not good enough. The question is, does he think it is right for an MP who has apparently done nothing to breach our national security to have his home and office searched by a dozen counter-terrorist police officers, his phone, BlackBerry and computers confiscated, and to be arrested and held for nine hours?" - David Cameron writing in the News of the World

Alleged Home Office "mole" was a Tory candidate

"Civil servant Christopher Galley, who is accused of leaking information to Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green, stood as a Tory candidate in 2004 elections for Sunderland Council." - Mail on Sunday

Are senior Tories' Commons offices being bugged?

"The House of Commons office of Damian Green, the Tories' immigration spokesman, is routinely swept for electronic bugging devices, along with other offices belonging to senior Conservatives, amid fears of covert monitoring, The Independent on Sunday has discovered. Anger surrounding the shadow immigration minister's arrest last week escalated dramatically last night over suspicions of a major bugging scandal inside the Palace of Westminster." - Independent on Sunday

Did the police entrap Damian Green?

"The police used a Whitehall whistleblower to try to lure Conservative frontbencher Damian Green into incriminating himself, it was claimed last night. The Mail on Sunday understands that the Shadow Immigration Minister, who was controversially arrested for allegedly leaking information embarrassing to the Government, may have been the victim of an entrapment plot. " - Mail on Sunday

Ben Wallace demands review of the Wilson doctrine

"Last night, a Conservative MP wrote to Gordon Brown demanding an urgent review of the Wilson doctrine, the convention that protects MPs from phonetapping but does not cover other surveillance techniques. Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP for Lancaster & Wyre, said the Wilson doctrine, which dates back to 1966, needed to be changed to cover all forms of surveillance, not just intercepting of calls." - Independent on Sunday

Melissa Kite: Why I published Home Office memo passed on by Damian Green

"Leaks form an essential basis of journalism. In a perfect world, they would not have to. But in a system where people try to cover up mistakes for personal or political reasons, we rely on finding out the most inconvenient truths in ways which are necessarily covert." - The words of Sunday Telegraph deputy political editor, Melissa Kite

More cross-party attacks on the circumstances of Damian Green's arrest

"Calling for a review of “operational methodology in the light of Damian Green’s arrest”, David Blunkett said it also “would be prudent for the cabinet to consider reviewing the process by which the police have access to the offices and confidential material of MPs. It’s clear that whatever process is currently in place is not sufficiently robust to give confidence either to MPs themselves, their constituents or the wider community”. - Sunday Times

"In an extraordinary attack, Denis MacShane said it would destroy people's belief that they could deal confidentially with their MPs about matters of concern to them. 'The Speaker should have eyes to see and ears to hear only as the House directs him, and I am not aware the House of Commons has ever debated, let alone authorised, raids by the police as agents of the executive into the private offices within the Commons of MPs. We need an urgent statement and debate on what has taken place, and a reaffirmation of the doctrine that MPs and their offices are protected by privilege." - Observer

Outraged MPs threaten to hijack the Queen’s Speech

"Speaker Michael Martin faces a humiliating revolt by MPs over his handling of the Damian Green affair when the Queen visits Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday. An all-party group of MPs is threatening to hijack the Queen’s Speech in an attempt to force the Speaker to apologise for his conduct – and may call on him to resign." - Mail on Sunday

A second post-PBR poll sees double-digit Tory lead

"Alistair Darling's £20bn 'spend now, pay later' pre-Budget report may have been the beginning of the end of Gordon Brown's 'bounce' in the polls, according to today's Ipsos MORI survey for The Observer. The poll, conducted on Thursday and Friday, shows that among those certain to vote Labour's share has dropped by five percentage points to 32 per cent since mid-November. By contrast, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have gone up by three percentage points to 43 and 15 per cent respectively." - Observer

Darling says he hasn't done enough to save the economy...

"Alistair Darling has admitted that he will 'almost certainly' have to deliver a second dose of financial life-support to Britain's ailing economy as soon as next spring if his unprecedented £20bn tax-and-spending package fails to contain the recession. In an exclusive interview with The Observer, the Chancellor conceded that his pre-Christmas VAT cut might not be enough." - Observer

...as Tessa Jowell raises "anxiety" over tax rises

"Tessa Jowell said the City and the middle classes needed reassurance following the announcement of Government plans to raise the top rate of income tax to 45p." - Sunday Telegraph

David Cameron: We need a scheme to guarantee loans

"Thousands of healthy businesses and millions of people who work for them are desperately relying on the government to get the credit markets moving again. For their sake, it must act now before it is too late." - David Cameron writing in the Sunday Times

> Friday's ToryDiary on David Cameron's speech on "monetary activism"

Goodbye to Britain's low tax system

"Last week was a big moment. A totem of the past two decades was demolished in a moment. The consequences of that moment may be felt for a very long time." - The Sunday Times economics editor David Smith gives his take on the PBR

Chasm between the two Britains is laid bare

"As the recession clears away the rhetoric, we begin to understand how Brown created two Britains. Beneath the explosion in credit and the boom in house prices, only the public sector was actually expanding, "creating" three-quarters of all new jobs since 1997. The private sector was becoming more efficient, stripping out layers of middle management, out-sourcing back office functions, installing IT that improved productivity. Now it's the private sector that's in the firing line." - Tory MP Michael Fallon writing in the Sunday Telegraph

Ed Balls faces Electoral Commission probe over Smith Institute role

"The Electoral Commission is to investigate whether Ed Balls worked for Gordon Brown while on the payroll of a charity before becoming an MP... “Balls has always been Brown’s bag carrier, but it would be a breach of electoral law if the charity was paying for someone who was actually working for Brown,” said Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary." - Sunday Times

The BBC News website profiles the Isle of Wight's Conservative MP, Andrew Turner - BBC

Government to announce sweeping new laws to regulate alcohol sales - News of the World

Lord Mandelson and Alan Johnson at odds over proposed law on cigarette sales - Sunday Telegraph

Preview of the controversial bills set to be included in Wednesday's Queen's Speech - Sunday Telegraph

How Ministers on £138,000 a year dodge Darling's new 45 per cent top tax rate - Mail on Sunday

No scanners means ID cards cannot be read - Observer

40,000 a year killed by the NHS - News of the World

Nick Clegg overheard criticising his frontbench team during flight - Sunday Mirror

Canadian Tories scrap plan to end state party funding as Stephen Harper seeks to hold the reins of power - Calgary Herald 

And finally... Oasis mogul and ex-Labour donor Alan McGee loses faith in Brown

“Do I think Cameron would do a better job? Undoubtedly. Could the Tories do any worse than this bunch of cretins that we’ve got in now? Labour are monumentally useless. Gordon Brown has had a charisma bypass. For all Blair’s faults, Blair had charisma. He was a leader, a winner. Gordon Brown is none of these things. He’s a f****** diabolical prime minister and the country is in a mess.” - Sunday Times

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