Weblinks for Wednesday 22nd September 2010

4.45pm ToryDiary: Michael Fallon appointed as Deputy Conservative Chairman with job of roughing up new Labour leader

3.45pm ThinkTankCentral: Policy Exchange says that housing associations should become social enterprises

3.30pm Local Government: Should the Tory conference venue be privatised?

1.45pm WATCH: Vince Cable speaks to the Liberal Democrat Conference

1.30pm ToryDiary: The biggest problem with Vince Cable isn't his views on banks.  It's his views on tax.

11.15am Seats and Candidates: The Metropolitan Police apologises to Nigel Waterson

ToryDiary: David Cameron as well as Nick Clegg is behind this week's messages from the Liberal Democrat Conference

David Amess MP on Platform: Britain should cut bilateral trade and political ties with Iran until an end is put to human rights abuses there

Local Government:

• Trafford is first council to launch interactive iphone app
• LibDems back local money for spending
• South Northants and Cherwell plan to share senior management

Alex Deane on CentreRight: The boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark should stop the City of London Corporation from vandalising Tower Bridge

WATCH:

• Bob Russell MP criticises cuts...at the Liberal Democrat conference…
• ...And ‪President Ahmadinejad criticises capitalism at the United Nations‬

It's Red Vince day at the Liberal Democrat Conference

 "In an echo of Denis Healey's famous 1974 pledge to 'squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak', Cable will unveil plans to shine a "harsh light into the murky world of corporate behaviour". The business secretary will announce the launch of a major consultation on takeovers and executive pay, with the intent of ending "corporate short-termism". 'Let me be quite clear,' Cable will tell the Liberal Democrat Conference in Liverpool. 'The government's agenda is not one of laissez-faire. Markets are often irrational or rigged.' - The Guardian

"Vince Cable, business secretary, said at his party conference in Liverpool that banks faced a “potential train crash” if they ignored public opinion. The same warning could apply to relations within the coalition as the February-March bonus season approaches...But Mr Osborne believes the coalition has already done much to rein in excess in the banking sector and has no intention of imposing a new levy on bonuses or increasing the £2bn-£2.5bn annual bank levy already in place." - Financial Times

Cable: I'm no Marxist - Daily Mail

Wince Cable - The Sun

Tax on Bankers' Bonuses Earns U.K. Treasury 40% More Than Osborne Expected - Bloombergs

Allister Heath: the Coalition's attacks on the City must stop - City AM

  "Cable’s comments will outrage business leaders, entrepreneurs, the City and much of the Tory base. Nick Clegg’s view yesterday that all accountants and tax lawyers are engaging in immoral behaviour when they help their clients legally pay less tax is an attack on millions of middle-class folk – including everybody who puts money in an Isa or a pension. The coalition’s gratuitous bashing of business and the City has gone too far; it is now endangering our reputation as a place to do business and is beginning to cost jobs. Enough is enough." - City AM

Cable concedes that 50p tax 'will not raise much cash'

"Speaking at a fringe event at the conference, Mr Cable was asked whether he thought more money could be raised from those with big incomes. 'I think I would be surprised if the higher rate of tax does actually raise much revenue. I think it is there largely to show that the pain is being shared,' he said. Many economists have claimed it will not boost revenue because those on large incomes can reorganise their finances to avoid income tax - and may even be incentivised to do so by the measure." - Press Association

Chris Huhne fights Treasury to save his Climate Change Department

"...When all government departments were asked to model the effect of 40% cuts over the summer, officials at Decc told ministers that cuts of that level to its £3.2bn budget would make it unable to stand alone as a viable entity. At that time it was suggested it merge with the business department, but that was never formally suggested to the Treasury. Instead the Treasury renewed a push to get Decc relocated." - The Guardian

> Yesterday in Tory Diary:  Chris Huhne wants a big shift towards green taxation

LibDems try unity as rebel Hughes bites tongue - The Times (£)

Liberal Democrats debate same sex marriage and civil partnerships

"At last we heard from Jenny, whom I last encountered outside the hospital in Putney during an election campaign. She is well over 6ft, even in flatties, and has a voice not unlike the late Bernard Bresslaw. She was arrayed in a large floral dress. Alas, her husky voice did not carry well to the rear of the hall, where the press seats were sited. As she strode to the lectern one was put in mind of Ian Botham heading out to bat. She talked about the experiences of 'my friend who is fully transitioned' and then explained that marriage in a church was not possible for her, Jenny, because the vicar still considered her to be a bloke." - Quentin Letts at the Liberal Democrat Conference, Daily Mail

Liberal Democrat Conference backs same sex marriage - Daily Telegraph

Jo Grimond would have approved of David Cameron's Big Society

"Groups and relationships are the future for both the public and private sector and these civic networks could finally change our politics by reconstituting our society. This is the intuition that David Cameron has grasped with the "big society", it is also Grimond's vision; and this is the basis of a coalition that would really matter and could deliver a state based on civic society, mutualism and social enterprise." - Phillip Blond, The Guardian.

Daniel Finkelstein: Voters don’t get it, but they still have to pay it

"Politically, the consequences could hardly be more serious. The entire Government is tied to a policy that, while necessary and correct, is one that voters don’t really understand. The electorate are going to be asked to swap concrete, simple things — benefits, school buildings, policemen — for something they don’t quite get, can’t quite see." - The Times (£)

British voters are furious - but they won't hold a tea party

"The closest thing [to the Tea Party movement] to date is probably my own group, the TaxPayers' Alliance, which has tens of thousands of grassroots supporters for its low-tax, small-state agenda. But the truth is that a mass movement along the lines of the Tea Party would be difficult or impossible to sustain...we lack the political institutions that give movements like the Tea Party their bite. For example, we don't have primaries that let voters kick out candidates who don't represent them properly." - Matthew Elliott, Daily Telegraph

Simon Heffer: This five-year plan for Parliament is a fix in more ways than on

"Fixed terms would also impinge upon the prerogative powers of the Sovereign, altering her role in the constitution and assisting republicanism. The Sovereign's right to refuse a dissolution is a protection against the caprices of a prime minister. The prerogative powers make unlikely the sort of abuse against which fixed terms are supposed to protect..With fixed-term parliaments the constitutional point of the Sovereign would be reduced almost to nothing." - Daily Telegraph

MI6 consulted David Miliband on interrogations - The Guardian

Former Ministers face Shadow Cabinet upset - Financial Times (£)

Rowntree Report says Scots jobless highest since 1996 - BBC

BBC agrees to give National Audit Office free access to its accounts - The Times (£)

MPs’ expenses: pressure grows to scrap secret deals - Daily Telegraph

There was no Muslim plot to kill the Pope - Mark Steel, The Independent

And finally...Nick Clegg* on why a sausage is a vegetable

"But let's be clear about one thing. To be a true vegetarian involves eating a certain amount of meat. And let's hear no more talk of what is and what is not a vegetable. In today's modern global economy, I passionately believe that there must be fundamental changes to the whole way we define the word 'vegetable'. In the 21st century, a pork sausage surely has as much right as a parsnip or a cauliflower to call itself a vegetable." - Daily Mail

*AKA Craig Brown

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