ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Where do you go for Tory coverage?

It's certainly true that you don't get free Dr Seuss stickers with ConservativeHome but, unlike The Daily Telegraph, you do get comprehensive coverage of the Conservative Party.  It's interesting that this morning's newspaper contains zero coverage of yesterday's party board decision on MEP selection.  In recent weeks a number of old media outlets have been complaining about the blogosphere but one of the much under-reported advantages of blogs like ConservativeHome is that we provide a depth and breadth of specialist coverage that the mainstream media struggles to rival.  My favourite websites and blogs are those that specialise.  They are more expert and more interesting than much of that reported by the BBC and newspaper reporters that hop from one posting to the next.  A few sites worthy of highlight include Mike Denham's waste-watching Burning Our Money, NHS Blog Doctor, PoliticalBetting.com and the British Army Rumour Service.

ConservativeHome has been noticed by a couple of leading US websites.  Rob Bluey wrote about the rise of Britain's conservative websites on TownHall.com and guest-blogging on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Reihan Salam was very generous about ConservativeHome's 'and theory of conservatism'.  A full account of last week's fact-finding mission to Washington has been posted on BritainAndAmerica by Sam.

Civility and social progress

Libby Purves concurs with Cameron's diagnosis of society in the Times today:

"As Mr Cameron said, there’s a lot we have started to shed responsibility for — public manners, civic pride, carrying a job through and taking the rap if we foul up. And the way has been led by a governmental and official culture of denying guilt and refusing ever to resign, and a mania for removing responsibility from individuals by hedging them in with restrictive rules. Head teachers, police, NHS staff, museum curators, officials of all sorts are made to spend far too much time in the tedious tasks of “accountability” (meaning form-filling and pretending to have hit imaginary “targets”). Individuals, meanwhile, fear to tackle nuisances in case they themselves are jumped on by the law."

Click here to read yesterday's civility speech in full (over 4500 words) or continue reading this post to see a few extracts. It brilliantly articulates some of the subtler, underlying problems with 21st century British society. The New Culture Forum has also covered the speech.

Deputy Editor

Labour drops below 30%

It's back to the days of Michael Foot for Labour.  A Communicate Research survey for The Independent puts Labour down 4% to just 27% - their lowest level since 1983.  Labour also fall below 30% for the first time in ConservativeHome's poll of polls.

Communicate Research suggests that Tory supporters are most likely to actually vote.  Tory support is at 90% intensity whereas LibDem intensity is 81% and Labour intensity is just 80%.

One of the reasons why Tory support is stuck at 36% despite Labour's weakness may be the growth of 'other parties'.  15% of voters are intending to support UKIP (1%), BNP (2%), Green (3%), SNP (4%), Plaid (1%) or others.  We've added a new box in our opinion poll graphic so that we can keep regular track of this rise of support for 'others'.

Party Board's decision on MEP selection

"The Board of the Conservative Party has reached a decision in principle on the method for selection of candidates for the European Parliament for the 2009 election. Sitting MEPs who have been re-selected following a procedure similar to that laid down in the Party’s constitution for Westminster MPs will be placed in ranking order by party members in a postal ballot. Members will also be asked to place additional candidates in ranking order.

In the wholly exceptional circumstances that there will be no sitting MEPs who are women seeking re-election, and for this selection process only, the top position in each region below any reselected sitting MEPs will be occupied by the woman candidate who gets the most votes in the postal ballot. Detailed arrangements will be developed in the coming weeks."

Deputy Editor

ConservativeHome will be unveiling its campaign response to this decision tomorrow lunchtime.

William Hague reacts to Boris Yeltsin's death

“Boris Yeltsin will always be associated with the creation of democracy in Russia. He contributed to breaking the stranglehold of communism, the ideology he was born into and that brought him to national power.  Mr Yeltsin will be remembered as a President who carried his country through a turbulent transformation in far calmer fashion than many had feared.”

New FT, New Chancellor...

The FT has a crisp new look today and carries an article about the possible line-up of Gordon Brown's first team.  The article follows yesterday's news that David Miliband will not be challenging Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership.  Mr Miliband's reward, speculates the FT's James Blitz, might be the office of Foreign Secretary although Mrs Beckett has only been in the job for one year.  Mr Blitz expects John Reid to stay in place.  There has been a thaw in relations between Brown and Reid in recent months and there is little sense in introducing new instability into a department that desperately needs some continuity of strategic leadership.

The most interesting decision for Mr Brown will be the appointment of his own successor.  Alistair Darling has been the long-term favourite but there is now some concern that having three Scots in the top four jobs in British government won't exactly help the Labour Party with its English problem.  Mr Darling might be passed over as a consequence and Ed Balls or Jack Straw might become Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Jack Straw, Brown's campaign manager, would then have held all three main offices of government outside of the very top job.  The FT says that the City would probably welcome Ed Balls as Chancellor.

Blitz also expects some big promotions for young turks Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, James Purnell and Ed Miliband in order to suggest that a Brown administration will have vitality.

This resuffle speculation follows last week's blogtalk that the Tories might play musical chairs themselves.  Dizzy speculated that Liam Fox might be moved.  That would be a very risky move as Dr Fox is the champion of the right within the shadow cabinet and his emphasis on energy security represents an alternative way of selling David Cameron's climate change agenda to people who are sceptical of the state's ability to combat global warming.

Sarkozy would be good for France but not for Turkey

Only 0.69% of this blog's readers come from France so any endorsement this blog makes of Nicolas Sarkozy will be electorally irrelevant but ConservativeHome does think his agenda is preferable to the reheated tax-and-spend policies of his second round and socialist opponent, Segolene Royal.

Sarkozy describes himself as a 'man of the right' and set out six defining belief criteria to substantiate that description last year:

"First, the primacy of work... Second, the need to compensate personal merit and effort... Third, respect for the rules, and for authority... Fourth, the belief that democracy does not mean weakness; Fifth, values; Sixth, . . . I'm persuaded that, before sharing, you have to create wealth. I don't like egalitarianism."

There are real weaknesses to his agenda, however.  As Martin Callanan MEP wrote on YourPlatform last October - he is no reliable Eurosceptic and will largely follow Angela Merkel in her efforts to reheat parts of the EU Constitution that his country so soundly rejected.  He's also a protectionist and has backed Chirac's 'pickling industrial winners' policy.  Most disappointing is his opposition to Turkey's membership of the EU.

Fortunately, the British political establishment is largely united in supporting Turkey's ambitions.  Some UK Eurosceptics see Turkish membership as a way of thwarting political union and of delivering the kind of multi-layered, multi-speed Europe that many have long wanted.  More importantly, however, rejection of Turkey sends all the wrong signals to the Muslim world.  Liam Fox made the right case for Turkish membership of the EU last year - in a piece for The Sunday Telegraph:

"For Europe, the admission of Turkey to the EU is the primary test of whether the union can adapt to a changing world or whether it will become an increasingly introspective and redundant body. For European politicians, rejecting Turkey carries the risk of pushing this vitally important country into the arms of the political and religious extremists...

A senior French official complained to me last year that Turkish membership would mean that "we could never have a political Europe, only an economic one". Stifling a "three cheers to that", I pointed out what a sadly dated view of the world this was. Even more disturbing was the deeply unpleasant undercurrent present during the French and Dutch referendums last year on the EU constitution, where anti-Turkish sentiment was never far from the surface and mixed with constitutional arguments.  What a tragedy it would be if xenophobic elements in continental Europe had the net result of producing a much more fundamentalist Islamic state on the eastern border of Greece rather than a democratic beacon shining outwards from Europe to those denied the basic freedoms and rights we take for granted. What a mistake of truly historic proportions it would be if, by placating all that is negative in European politics, those in authority delivered future generations into a much more dangerous and destabilised continent."

Cameron insists he was right about Greg Dyke

Even Bruce Anderson thinks David Cameron had a bad week last week.  He cites Liam Fox's failure to undo Des Browne on Monday, Gordon Brown's performance on Tuesday in which he rallied Labour's troops and, of course, Wednesday's Dyke debacle.   Unfortunately Mr Cameron is unrepentant.  In an article for The Guardian the Tory leader insists that he made "the right judgment":

"I'm prepared to take risks in the name of changing our politics - to be less partisan, and to be less arrogant about politicians' ability to improve the quality of people's lives... We could have given the people of London - and Britain - hope that a new kind of politics is possible, one where we don't weigh up every decision purely in terms of short-term party advantage, but try to do what's right for the long term. People know this makes sense. They know that sometimes the other guy might have a point. And that it's often easier to get things done if you work together. People despair at the predictable and juvenile partisanship of Westminster politics, and yearn for a more mature political debate."

It is very unfortunate that the Conservative leader is continuing to defend this sorry business.  While it's true that people would like a less shrill political discourse it is not at all clear that they want this "new kind of politics" if it involves a fundamental narrowing of choice.  Greg Dyke would be better than Ken Livingstone - few candidates could be worse - but he is clearly a man of the left and was rightly criticised for his oversight of the BBC at the time of the Hutton investigation.  A Cameron Government will make many crucial appointments and this affection for Greg Dyke is a worrying omen.

Although the Dyke affair has undermined every Conservative's chance of ousting Ken Livingstone, most Conservatives would still like to be able to vote for a candidate that is genuinely close to their views on tax, transport and crime.  ConservativeHome.com certainly hasn't given up on the belief that a small government party can win in London and across the country if it is patriotic, compassionate and willing to face up to Britain's long-term challenges.  Mr Cameron's charismatic personality gives authentic conservatism an extra chance of victory.

Ahead of the next General Election we should be ambitiously seeking to dominate the political stage as Tony Blair did so potently in his early years but we should also offer thought-through policies that can realise the ambitions.  No more behind-closed-doors deal-making.  There should be no repeat of last week.  Mr Cameron wouldn't have done himself any harm if he'd admitted that and ruled out any further backroom talks with the LibDems.

Scottish Tories are the "middle way"

Cameron defends Party after Scottish opinion polls:

"Tory leader David Cameron today dismissed poll findings suggesting his party is going nowhere in the Holyrood election campaign. He insisted the Tories were running "a very positive campaign" and said: "I don't make predictions."

And Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie said she was "relatively relaxed" about the poll findings. A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times put the Tories at 14% in the constituency vote and 13% in the list vote, equating to 16 seats, while a Scottish Opinion survey for the Mail on Sunday put them on 10% and 11%, equating to 13 seats.

Mr Cameron told BBC1's The Politics Show he was "passionate" about the Scottish Tories doing well.

"The argument in Scotland that I'm making is look, you had a Labour government in Scotland. If you don't want the divorce offered by the SNP, the Conservative party is now a moderate, sensible, centre right party."

He said the party cared about about personal responsibility, strong defence, for those left behind, and the environment. "It's a party there for people in Scotland who want that middle way, if you like," he said." (Press Association)

Deputy Editor

Will the Tories govern alone again?

There is a thoughtful article in tomorrow's Sunday Times from Michael Portillo.  While acknowledging that Cameron's handling of the Dyke affair was clumsy he explores the big reason why it happened - the Tories' belief that they need to form these sorts of surprising alliances if they are to prosper in Britain's new electoral landscape of coalition governments, growing use of proportional representation and the rise of the smaller parties.  ConservativeHome's own belief is that the party would be better attempting to defeat the Liberal Democrats (as the Scottish party are attempting to do) rather than prepare the ground for coalition but the party leadership revealed their instincts this week with the Dyke debacle.

All MEP candidates will be required to commit to leaving EPP

Last night a high level Conservative source contacted ConservativeHome with a 'clarification' of the procedures via which the next slate of regional list MEPs will be selected (if agreed by the Party Board this coming Monday).  These are the crucial facts:

• Only MEPs who irrevocably commit to David Cameron's EPP exit commitment will be entitled to stand again as MEPs;
• Incumbent MEPs will then be assessed by a college of regional Association Chairmen and others (large Associations will have extra representatives on this college) as to whether they should continue as candidates in the top places of regional lists;
• If the college rejects incumbent MEPs they will not be permitted to stand at all;**
• Rank-and-file members will then have an opportunity to re-rank those MEPs who are approved as candidates but only within the top slots*;
• Any retiring MEPs will be replaced by women candidates*;
• Members will then be able to propose rankings for other MEP candidates for the slots outside the top places.

* If, for example, a region has four Tory MEPs and one is retiring, the college will decide if the three existing MEPs should continue to occupy the top three places on the list. If all three are allowed to continue all members will then decide the number 1, 2 or 3 ranking of each candidate.  A woman must then be selected for slot four.  All members will decide which candidates - of any gender - fill slots five and below.

**Our source has contacted us with a slight correction - the regional college won't be able to stop them standing as non-priority candidates.

There may be trouble ahead...

Yates hands cash-for-honours report to Crown Prosecution Service (BBC).

Campaign to protect members' rights yields first results

The lobbying effort against the plan to protect incumbent MEPs is beginning to bear some fruit.  Jeremy Middleton has assured one ConservativeHome correspondent that he will be voting to protect members' rights with regard to the selection of all MEPs.  Thank you Jeremy.  He will be one party board member that won't be vulnerable to a challenge in next year's Board elections.  Emma Pidding has an out of office message on her email system and it warns that she won't be in the office until after Monday's crucial vote.  Hmmm.  No comment has yet been received from Charles Barwell.

MPs Francis Maude, Richard Ottaway, Michael Spicer, Graham Stuart and John Whittingdale all have seats on the Board and some readers might like to lobby them.

This effort to protect incumbent MEPs is, of course, only the latest example of the party leadership's attempt to dilute party democracy.  There was the attempt to strip members of the vote in the election of party leader and the aborted plan from the Party Board to substantially restrict the autonomy of local Associations.  The A-list process has been characterised by restrictions on local candidates, half-women shortlists and, in some constituencies, the exclusion of all members from the decisive final stage of selections.  In unguarded comments to ToryRadio, John Maples gave the 'we-know-best' game away a few weeks ago when he said that he - if he was selection 'dictator' - he could pick better candidates than local members.  Earlier this week we had the Dyke debacle and the behind-closed-doors attempt to impose a non-Tory candidate on London Conservatives. 

The scheme to protect incumbent MEPs and the proposed introduction of the Conservative Party's first all-women shortlist fits neatly into a two year pattern of the party leadership distrusting people if those people are Conservative members.  If we do not continue to fight the centralising instincts of the party leadership we will cease to be a fully democratic party and the party's claim to want localism for the nation at large will look pretty thin.

Links to excellent letters from MEP Watch and CF Chairman Mark Clarke are pasted below.

Another argument for localism

"We need a skilled politician who knows how to make and execute decisions using the advice of the official mayoral machine and the London Assembly. We do not want an empire-building rent-a-quote.  The obvious recruiting grounds are the assembly, the boroughs and Parliament. A candidate needs experience of London electors. It would help if our candidate either had been or still is a councillor or an MP within the London area. He would know part of the electorate well. He would know the local organisations, and be used to the some of the local media.  It would be good if our candidate had a track record of delivering better service for less cost as a leader or committee chairman in a borough council, or in some other elected office. It would be important that the candidate could devote large amounts of time in the year ahead to the task of wooing the electorate, researching and setting out a plan for sorting out London's problems. I don't mind what sex, race, creed or religion the person is, but I do want someone competent."

With those words (in The Telegraph) John Redwood sets out some qualities that the Tory candidate for London Mayor might need.  The trouble with Britain's centralised system of government is that there is very little opportunity for people to acquire real experience of policy innovation and running genuinely independent local councils.  The situation could not be more different in the USA.  Republican voters have a choice between John McCain, Rudi Giuliani, Mitt Romney and one or two others.  What is notable about Giuliani and Romney is that they have serious executive experience.  Giuliani has run New York.  He has driven down crime, managed budgets and cut taxes.  Romney ran a Winter Olympics for Utah and was also Governor of Massachusetts.  We might have less difficulty finding good candidates for high office if we had our own system of seriously devolved power.  Just a thought.

Coming soon: The Conservative Party's first all women shortlist

ConservativeHome has learnt that there is another hugely controversial dimension to the proposed changes to European candidate selection.  In order to address the fact that there is currently only one woman MEP - Caroline Jackson - the National European Forum has proposed a mechanism that will effectively mean that every MEP that is standing down will be replaced by a woman candidate.  This way of filling vacant slots will be the first example of an all-women shortlist in the history of the Conservative Party.

In summary what is being proposed is:

(1) Ordinary members lose their decisive say on MEP candidate selection;
(2) Incumbent MEPs - many of them unsupportive of David Cameron's pledge to leave the EPP - will be kept at the top of regional lists if a committee of party appointees and Association Chairmen agree;
(3) All retiring MEPs can only be replaced by women;
(4) Lower slots on the regional lists will be decided by all members.

Editor's comment: "The Party Board votes on these proposals on Monday.  My prediction is that they will reject the all-women shortlist but keep the dilution of democracy.  This will be presented as a compromise and a sign of a "listening Board."  In truth it will be another sign that the Board is a servant of the leadership, rather than a reliable protector of the grassroots' freedoms."

Maude calls on Campbell to sack councillor

The Conservative Party Chairman Francis Maude has called on the Liberal Democrats to prove their anti-racist credentials by sacking a local councillor who nominated a BNP member as a candidate for the May elections. He said:

It’s alarming that, of the three main political parties, the Liberal Democrats have the worst record in local elections of fielding candidates against the BNP. It is time that they woke up to the danger posed by this extremist party.

The Liberal Democrats have a poor record with regards to challenging BNP candidates. Conservatives are contesting 96.7 per cent of town hall seats against the BNP, with the Liberal Democrats giving the BNP a free run in 129 wards (18 per cent).

Councillor Steve Jones who has already resigned as group leader of the Liberal Democrats in Darlington said that ‘he has no sympathies for the policies of the BNP’. His party has issued a statement describing his actions as ‘an error of judgment’.

Michael Ehioze-Ediae

MPs join protest against scheme to protect incumbent MEPs

At a 1922 Committee meeting of about twenty Tory MPs last night Gerald Howarth MP raised the issue of MEP selection.  He and others expressed their disappointment at the leadership's acquiescence in plans to protect incumbent MEPs by stripping rank-and-file members of their current say in ranking all MEP candidates.  One of the MPs' representatives on the party board said that he had not even seen the proposals and concerns were expressed that Board members would be railroaded into adopting the dilution of party democracy without the proposals being subject to proper scrutiny.  One MP said that any decision to protect many of the existing MEPs would amount to a reward for disloyalty.

Meanwhile Greg Hands MP has written to all Conservative Way Forward members urging them to protest at CCHQ's latest attempt to disenfranchise party members:

"The next meeting of the Party Board will decide how to select Conservative MEP candidates in advance of the 2009 European election. On the last two occasions, all party members were allowed to participate in hustings meetings. It is now being proposed by the National European Forum that this power should be concentrated in the hands of regional sub-committees, composed of Association Chairmen and possibly also Area Officers.  This could result in the decision that the entire membership has taken being overturned by a small number of party officials. CWF has always advocated a role for the ordinary party member, and we hope you will join us in restisting the loss of this democratic right."

Greg urges CWF members to lobby the 'grassroots representatives' on the Board before their Monday 23rd April meeting: Jeremy Middleton ([email protected]), Emma Pidding ([email protected]) and Charles Barwell ([email protected]).

Related link: Five reasons why members should retain the right to rank MEPs.

Questions for Team Cameron over Greg Dyke

Samuel Coates and I are currently in the USA - discussing the next steps of our BritainAndAmerica project with Washington bloggers, politicians and thinkers.  Apologies for the reduced service this week - all will be back to normal very soon.  We have only been able to watch the Greg Dyke business from afar but it has been a pretty disappointing business...

Here are my questions from the affair:

• Why did Team Cameron think Greg Dyke would be a good candidate to represent London Tories and other Londoners who want control of council tax and crime?   Until falling out with Tony Blair over the Iraq war, Mr Dyke was a lifelong Labour supporter and major donor.  Yet David Cameron apparently regarded him as "an ideal candidate".
• What are we to make of the eagerness of David Cameron and Francis Maude to seek a joint candidate with the Liberal Democrats?  Mr Cameron's aides apparently saw it as an "experiment in new politics" (quoted in The Independent).  What other "experiments" are planned and are being hidden from MPs and members?  ConservativeHome has long suspected that much of Project Cameron is about positioning the party for a deal with the Liberal Democrats in the event of a hung parliament.  This hardly discourages us from that theory.
• Where does this leave the other would-be Tory candidates for London Mayor?  The messages being sent out by CCHQ with bungled operations like this - and last year's delayed contest - hardly help them to build credibility.  This is what Ken Livingstone's spokesman said yesterday: "What this shows is that whoever is eventually selected as Conservative party candidate for mayor has absolutely no confidence from the Tory leadership. When David Cameron says he has total confidence in them to run London it will be a total lie."
• Yesterday Greg Dyke appeared to distance himself from any possibility of standing as an independent.  “I won’t be standing. I was approached by one or two people, and we had chats... I have no intention of standing as an independent, because I’d lose. Ken Livingstone would be difficult to stop,” he told The Times.   If the party was going to propose a high-risk, joint candidacy arrangement with the LibDems, were they sufficiently sure of Mr Dyke's commitment to the idea?
• Was David Cameron willing to abandon the proposed primary process if the Dyke-deal had come off?  That is the suggestion in today's Times.

Cameron: BBC and NHS are key reasons for The Union

David Cameron caused some controversy last week when an article for The Telegraph suggested that he thought Scotland could thrive outside of The Union.  Today, in Gretna Green, he is delivering a short speech in favour of the Union.  Here are his key messages:

Security interests: "Over the centuries, Scots have made an outstanding contribution to the UK's military successes, from Waterloo to D-Day, from the Falklands to Afghanistan.  Scotland punches above its weight in Britain's Armed Forces and Britain punches above its weight in the world because of the expertise and bravery of those Armed Forces.  Scotland benefits from the expertise of the Metropolitan Police and MI5 in fighting both terrorism and organised crime."

International weight: "Britain is one of only five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.  We have a seat at the top table and are listened to in a way that other countries can only dream of.  Our ability to influence the European Union derives from our size within it.  Smaller countries frequently complain that the EU is dominated by the bigger countries.  Certainly, the UK would never have achieved its rebate without the institutional muscle that comes from a population of 60 million people."

Shared prosperity: "Britain has the fourth largest economy in the world.  The City of London is overtaking New York as a global powerhouse.  Edinburgh's role as a major financial centre is built on the expertise of its workforce and underpinned by its position in the UK. "

The NHS: "The NHS is one of the greatest institutions created in 20th century Europe.  It is the best of British, created by a Welshman and benefiting enormously from the skill of doctors trained in Scotland's great medical schools, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen."

The BBC: "Another institution we can all be proud of is the BBC.  The British Broadcasting Corporation was founded by a Scotsman and is the most prestigious broadcaster on earth.  People around the world tune into the BBC for news they can trust.  The BBC also reminds us of our common culture.  Programmes like Doctor Who and Mastermind aren't English or Scottish - they're British."

PMQs: Cameron focuses on the pensions crisis and the Prime Minister's successor

David Cameron's first subject of the day: David Cameron joined the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan before raising the pensions crisis. He said the Budget changes were welcome but did not help people who have already retired and that 125,000 people who had paid into company pension schemes had been left with "little or nothing" after their collapse. He asked the Prime Minister to support Conservative amendments to the Pensions Bill to allow pensioners to "receive the pensions they worked so hard for".

David Cameron's second subject of the day: David Cameron challenged Tony Blair to endorse Gordon Brown as his successor. The Prime Minister repeatedly refused, instead praising Gordon Brown's performance in the debate on his record (not a view held universally) and attacking David Cameron's role in Black Wednesday. After listing the reasons why he didn't want Gordon Brown as Prime Minister David Cameron asked the Tony Blair "what does he think is wrong with him?"

Ming Moment of the Day: He said it was a "sad and sombre day" and asked about nurses pay and why they were considering striking. Ming said that the Government has "lost the confidence of health care workers and their patients."

Backbench question of the day: Angela Watkinson asked the Prime Minister to reverse the Government's decision to downgrade the classification of cannabis.

Line of the day: As Labour MPs heckled David Cameron's questions on pensions Cameron said "I hope MPs who are going to retire on fat pensions will actually listen because many of these people are getting nothing."

Andrew Burkinshaw

Paul Goodman leads debate on Integration and Cohesion in Britain

Yesterday Paul Goodman held a debate in Westminster Hall on Integration and Cohesion in Britain, focussing on the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain. As MP for Wycombe Paul Goodman has more Muslim constituents than any other Conservative MP and he has spoken before about the barriers that face Muslims wanting to integrate. Goodman says of the barriers:

They include racism and Islamophobia, lower life chances, intergenerational conflict, the failure of the multiculturalist consensus, foreign policy and, perhaps above all, the impact of ideology. In its most stark form, that ideology is one of terror—hence 9/11 and 7/7. In its less brutal form, it rejects terror in Britain but embraces separation. Separation, of course, inevitably leads to a lack of integration and cohesion and the “parallel lives” of which Cantle [in his 2001 report] warned.

In his speech Paul Goodman asks how we can end the separation that has grown up between Muslims and non-Muslims:

In my view, the origin of such a cure lies in strengthening the unwritten social contract that exists between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain. Under that contract, non-Muslims are obliged to recognise that Islam is now a permanent presence in Britain, that British Muslims have lower life chances than the non-Muslim majority as a whole, and that those life chances must be raised as part of any programme of social justice. In turn, Muslims are obliged to face up to the fact that Dhiren Barot, Richard Reid and the perpetrators of 7/7 claimed to act in the name of Islam, however unjustified that claim is, and recognise that the separatist ideology that I described earlier must not merely be condemned—it must be actively challenged, confronted and rooted out.

Conservative MPs Mark Field, Patrick Mercer and Michael Gove spoke in the debate, as did Liberal Democrat Andrew Stunell and the Minister, Meg Munn. The full debate can be read here.

Andrew Burkinshaw

Immigration could cost Labour election (says Immigration Minister)

The Immigration Minister Liam Byrne concedes today that Labour's failure to control immigration has created greater inequality and child poverty.  He warns that  failure to control immigration could cost his party the next General Election.  You could add higher taxes, higher crime, lost pension savings and the rising cost of living to the list of factors likely to do that.  The Times has the story about Liam Byrne's remarks.

Tory lead steady at 8%

A Populus poll for The Times shows the Tories maintaining an 8% lead over Labour although both parties are down 1% on last month.

The Times also found that the Tory lead would widen to 11% if Gordon Brown was Labour leader (a fall from last month's 13% lead).

The Labour disadvantage would be 12% with David Miliband as Labour leader although Mr Miliband has today told the BBC's Nick Robinson that he will not be a candidate.

Baron Trimble of Lisnagarvey joins the Conservative benches

The Independent reports the news that David Trimble is to join the Tory benches in the Upper House.  ConservativeHome publicly welcomes a great man to the party and echoes David Cameron's "admiration for him".  The former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and signatory to the Good Friday Agreement, he was a deserved winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998.  His liberal interventionist approach to the conduct of foreign policy will be useful within the increasingly 'realist' group of Tory foreign policy thinkers.

Tories make Brown an issue in the local elections

This Freddie Starr-style leaflet will be distributed to voters at train and tube stations this morning by Tory activists.  The party wants to exploit voter anger at Gordon Brown's pensions raid - particularly amongst older voters (always the most likely to vote).  By deploying these leaflets the Tories will also be able to attach Brown to expected poor results for Labour on May 3rd and so further undermine his leadership credentials.  Click on the image to enlarge.