Tuesday 10th February 2009

9pm ToryDiary: Boris Johnson tells the truth about public sector pensions

8.45pm ConservativeInternational: Open thread on Israel's elections

8.30pm Seats and candidates: Reading West becomes more winnable

8.30pm Tim Montgomerie on CentreRight: "The proximate cause of the banking crisis was the increase in couple cohabitation."

6pm Michael Fallon MP on Platform: The banks failed. The FSA failed. Gordon Brown failed.

5.45pm Jeremy Hunt MP on CentreRight: Another example of an unhealthy monopoly... Children's TV

3.15pm Parliament: Malcolm Harbour welcomes voluntary effort to make Internet safer for children

3pm Parliament: Sir George Young aims to improve reporting of donations to MPs

2.30pm Parliament: Chris Grayling worried about illegal immigrants

2.30pm Local government: Cameron says councillor was impolite to display topless women calendar

2pm Andrew Lilico on CentreRight: Could we sue Gordon Brown?

Noon Parliament: The cost of anti-Israel protests

Local Government:

• Why is Conservative-run Poole Council engaged in class war?
• Fortnightly bin collections are good news for rats
• Council reorganisation is a botched job

CentreRight updates:

• Greg Hands MP: "There isn't space here to explore a whole set of reforms to our banking culture, but one of the areas we need to look at is amending the recent culture of encouraging the primacy of the individual (or his or her team) over the corporate whole."
• Andrew Lilico on the pointlessness of coordinating a lack of clarity

ToryDiary: Is it time to put more restrictions on the right of European citizens to work in Britain? Is Boris Prime Minister material? What is Boris Johnson's biggest achievement so far?

Howard Flight on Platform: China and the economic crisis

Seats and candidates: Search for 100 Peers: Edward Lister

Julia Manning on CentreRight: Wise men are keeping Cameron and Osborne company (260 of them)

AmericaInTheWorld: Will Obama's stimulus remedy or exacerbate American economic weakness?

WATCH: £1bn bonuses for RBS employees would be "outrageous" says David Cameron

Fringe parties are main beneficiaries from Labour's collapse - Tories 14% ahead in new Populus poll

Our political leaders are hesitant on economic strategy

"More than half the public think that neither Mr Brown nor Mr Cameron knows what to do about Britain's economic problems, with only just over two fifths thinking that they have clear ideas. That sense of drift is the biggest challenge to both main leaders." - Peter Riddell in The Times

"Currently, political leaders dare to speak out but are fearful for different reasons of coming up with precise policies. Mr Cameron's latest move is to form a new Economic Recovery Committee, another gesture, an attempt to be seen doing something rather than addressing more fundamental questions about the Conservatives' economic policy. Mr Cameron's committee and Mr Brown's review are symptoms of fearful caution as the world moves on." - Steve Richards in The Independent

Conservative Party's new Economic Recovery Council

"David Cameron on Monday appointed a small group of senior business people to help frame his party’s economic policy, highlighting some of the corporate advisers expected to wield the most influence on a future Conservative government." - FT

> Yesterday's ToryDiary: David Cameron announces Economic Recovery Committee

Ed Balls makes 'recession worst for 100 years' gaffe - BBC

Philip Hammond reacting: "We are being told that not only we are facing the worst recession in 100 years, but that it will last for over a decade - far longer than Treasury forecasts predict. Is Ed Balls spilling the beans here and telling us that the government sees the situation as slightly more serious than they have tried to portray?"

Developers would be forced to invest in wildlife protection at other locations by a Conservative government

"The plan being put forward by the new Conservative shadow environment secretary, Nick Herbert, is modelled on similar "bio-credits" initiatives, including in the US, Malaysia and Australia, which have created markets in biodiversity worth tens of millions of pounds a year." - Guardian

Jeremy Warner's three point remedy for 'bankers' excesses'

• "First, a number of high-profile bankers need to be prosecuted and sent to jail. Only through retribution is public anger properly answered...
• Second, bankers need to be made personally liable for gambling with other people's capital, so that excessive pay and accumulated assets can be confiscated in the event of failure...
• Third, and most important, much more competition needs to be introduced into banking, which at both retail and wholesale level is dominated by a cosy cartel of self-interested skimmers. Right through the system, fees and charges are excessive, never mind the churning of risk that these excesses encouraged."

- Jeremy Warner in The Independent

"Ministers cannot agree what to actually do to reform the banks" - Rachel Sylvester in The Times

> Yesterday on CentreRight: Andrew Lilico says "the idea that we need to "end the bonus culture" is plain old cheap, pointless political posturing".

Harriet Harman attacks bankers who use strip clubs - Daily Mail

Not one MP uses thirty minutes of questions to quiz Jacqui Smith on her housing allowance

"It was Home Office Questions, a session which lasts for an hour. In that time not a single MP raised the scandale of Miss Smith's housing payments. All too worried what their own party colleagues have been up to, you see." - Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail

The policeman who ordered the arrest of Damian Green will face questions today from MPs - Times

Peter Hain attacks Electoral Commission as "incompetent" - BBC

An Italian defence of the free movement of labour across Europe

"Would any Lindsey protester expect his British neighbour to hand over his legally acquired job? Does the same worker believe that his British countryman working in Italy should surrender his job to a native Italian just because of his nationality? The answer is emphatically no. A contract fairly competed and fairly won should be binding and upheld – if necessary by a firm show of support from the national government. In Margaret Thatcher’s words, “This is no time to go wobbly”." - The Chairman of the Italian Employers Association writing in the FT

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