Wednesday 8th April 2009

6.15pm CentreRight updates:

• Iain Murray on being Conservative AND Libertarian
• Professor Nick Bosanquet and Dr Patrick Nolan on 'Competing for recovery'

5.45pm ToryDiary: Will Sinn Féin sell its 'principles' for £500,000?

4pm Local Government: Police swoop on Whitstable graffiti suspects

1.45pm Local Government: Pioneering Essex heralds school choice revolution

1.30pm ToryDiary: Boris clamps down on fat cat pay and sets up his Mayor's Fund

12.45pm ToryDiary: Osborne salutes "awe inspiring" achievements of capitalism

12.30pm Charlie Elphicke on CentreRight: A fair TV tax?

Noon Ridley Grove on CentreRight: Scrap NHS funded hospital priests and pay for more nurses

11.45 Chris Grayling comment on Ian Tomlinson: “These latest revelations are extremely alarming and leave big questions to be answered by the police. It’s right that there should be an independent investigation. The inquiry must be completed quickly so that any further appropriate action can be taken.” (Watch video).

11am WATCH: Grant Shapps explains his proposal to give local communities new powers to reclaim local land for local people

10.15am AmericaInTheWorld: 'Europe has been sucking on America's tit for sixty years'

9.30am WATCH: A Guardian video of police allegedly striking a man from behind during G20 protests

ToryDiary: What unpopular things need to be said by the Tory leadership?

Carl Thomson discusses the Kosovo campaign on Platform: How myths and half-truths led to one of post-war Europe’s bloodiest conflicts

International: Merkel and Berlusconi enjoy strong domestic support

Local government:

• Tower Hamlets Council funded centre to host pro-al-Qaeda preacher
• People power saves Colchester shrubs
  

Alex Deane on CentreRight: A specific and telling example of BBC political bias

Mirror attacks shadow cabinet for use of allowances... Sinn Fein claims £500,000... MPs fail to turn up for duties...

"The Mirror discovered the Shadow Cabinet grabbed £539,307 in Additional Cost Allowance for running a second home in the last financial year. Mr Cameron claimed £19,626 and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne £22,994. Shadow Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan got £23,057 for a second home despite representing Amersham which is on the London Underground and in easy reach of Westminster." - Mirror

Sinn Fein MPs claim nearly £500,000 in expenses on London flats - Daily Mail | Telegraph

"Backbench MPs routinely skip the meetings of powerful Commons committees, undermining Parliament’s power to scrutinise the Government, The Times has learnt."

John Prescott was the laziest MP over the last 12 months says Tory Rob Wilson - The Sun

> Yesterday's ToryDiary: David Cameron should clear his diary and propose a new system for MPs' pay and expenses

Labour attack what they say is the real face of the Conservatives

"The shadow chancellor wants to cut pay for nurses, teachers and the police, their latest poster boy wants to privatise the NHS and now they reveal one of their top priorities in a recession would be to abolish the hunting ban." - Liam Byrne MP quoted in the Daily Mail

"Conservative discipline was under strain last night as party chiefs mounted a damage limitation exercise over bungled announcements on fox-hunting and public sector pay." - Independent

Johann Hari attacks Boris John's environmental record: "He has done everything he can to encourage car use, and binned Ken Livingstone's carbon-reduction plans. He has halved the size of the environment team, scrapped the expansion of the Congestion Charge to west London, postponed indefinitely the expansion of the city's "Low Emission Zones", and cancelled Ken's plans to charge ultra-polluting SUVs an extra £25 a day. Despite constantly inviting photographers to snap him on his bike, he has hacked £27m out of the budget for building cycle lanes, wrecking proposals for 300 new ones." - Independent

It's all economy, economy, economy for Cameron

"David Cameron has made only one speech dedicated to health and education in the past nine months, compared with 18 on the economy, according to Financial Times analysis."

Darling unlikely to help savers in Budget

"Alistair Darling, the chancellor, has rejected a Conservative plan to abolish basic rate income tax on savings income, even though the cost of the scheme has fallen from several billion pounds to as little as £300m as interest rates approach zero." - FT

Darling will set a target of creating 400,000 jobs in "green industries" - Independent

Daily Mail: Silence from politicians on deficit reduction is "insulting"

"The British people are not fools. We know very well that the medicine will taste foul, whichever party prescribes it. This deficit will have to be filled, whether by huge tax increases (which would risk stifling recovery), by painful cuts in the public sector - or a mixture of both. The very least we deserve is a full and honest disclosure of the two main parties' plans for us. Their silence is insulting." - Daily Mail leader

FT: Public sector pay is high enough

"The basis for setting pay should be that salaries are set at levels required to fill vacancies with appropriately qualified staff. On that test, public sector pay does not need to rise now. Individuals value the relative job security of the public sector more highly in an econ omic downturn, while the generosity of public sector pensions is more evident with every new constraint on membership of private sector company schemes." - FT leader

We need more, smaller banking institutions that can fend for themselves, says John Redwood in The Telegraph

Norman Fowler leads House of Lords call for BBC to share licence fee with rivals - Telegraph

Use higher prices not health campaigns to tackle problem drinking, medical experts tell ministers - Guardian

Tony Blair calls for the Pope to rethink Church's attitude towards homosexuality - BBC

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