ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Cameron: We won't treat the richest any differently from the poorest

That's essentially the message of a speech - entitled A Day of Reckoning - that David Cameron is giving in London Docklands this morning:

"In the good times, some people working in the financial services industry paid themselves vast financial rewards - salaries and bonuses beyond the comprehension of most of us. Now when it’s all gone wrong, they have been bailed out by the taxpayer. Nurses and cleaners and teachers and many millions of others, working in every part of our economy they will foot this multi-billion pound bill. Well: on behalf of the taxpayer, on behalf of the nurse on £20,000 a year, on behalf of the cleaner on the minimum wage, on behalf of working families worrying this Christmas like never before about what next year will bring I say it is fair and reasonable that those responsible are held to account for their behaviour and that we show clearly that in this country, there is not one rule for the rich and a different rule for everybody else. Fairness also means understanding that the whole financial services industry has had its name blackened – and wrongly. Over a million people work in this industry, most of whom are honest and hard working. It’s in their interests too that we make sure we root out any wrongdoing that may have happened, whoever is involved, however high or well-connected they may be."

Mr Cameron welcomed the recent commitment from the FSA to “bring more criminal prosecutions in the future”:

"The FSA and the SFO should be following up every lead, investigating every suspect transaction. And the government should be urging them on, because we need to make it one hundred percent clear: those who break the law should face prosecution."

The Conservative Party is determined to blunt the two central Labour attacks that the Conservative Party is the do-nothing party during the recession and that it is the party of the wealthy.  I'm told to expect almost daily activity for at least the next month.

Tim Montgomerie

1pm: WATCH highlights of David Cameron's speech

IDS warns that failed asylum seekers are being forced into prostitution

In one of its most controversial reports the Centre for Social Justice will today call for failed asylum seekers to receive support or be allowed to work. 

The think tank founded by Iain Duncan Smith and directed by Philippa Stroud argues that current rules are forcing failed asylum seekers underground, including into prostitution.

Speaking on this morning's Today programme the former Tory leader said that compassion and effectiveness were not alternatives.  By treating asylum seekers badly Mr Duncan Smith said the system was failing everyone.  Only one-in-five failed asylum seekers to the UK return voluntarily to their home countries compared to four-in-five in nations like Sweden.  The cost of a forced return is £11,000; ten times greater than a voluntary return.

IDS issued this statement:

"The British government is using forced destitution as a means of encouraging people to leave voluntarily. It is a failed policy. UK policy is still driven by the thesis, clearly falsified, that we can encourage people to leave by being nasty. The result is that we rely heavily on forcible return, which is both very costly and time-consuming, and engages only a small proportion of those whose claims are refused. This system gives refused asylum seekers good reason to abscond and little reason to engage with officialdom."

The report issued by the CSJ calls for comprehensive changes to Britain's asylum seekers including much more investment in early processing and appeal of cases.  It is a very persuasive read.

Tim Montgomerie

Ken Clarke is a deadly weapon that David Cameron should not use

We've had three opinions polls over the weekend - from ComRes, YouGov and in today's Mirror from Ipsos MORI.  Taken together they point to a hung parliament and in The Sun Trevor Kavanagh raises the prospect of a February election.

David Cameron will give another speech on the economy this morning as he wrestles to regain the political initiative.  In today's Independent Bruce Anderson calls for a big, intellectual speech from the Conservative leader and for broadening the debate to the broken society.  That's good advice.  Some pretty poor advice came yesterday from Michael Portillo in The Sunday Times.  Mr Portillo urged the return of Ken Clarke:

"He has what his party’s front bench apparently lacks: “bottom”, that combination of independent-mindedness, experience and gravitas that makes people listen and trust. There is no doubt that if he became shadow chancellor the Tories’ credibility would soar. His return to the team would wipe the smirks from Labour faces as surely as Mandelson’s reenlistment shook the Conservatives a few weeks ago. Labour could then hardly taunt the Tories as Etonian toffs, for nobody looks less Bullingdon club than Clarke."

Mr Portillo said Mr Clarke was the "deadly weapon Cameron daren't use". Mr Cameron is right not to bring the former Chancellor back:

• Ken Clarke is a big beast who has served the party well but he has also been guilty of considerable disloyalty.  He attempted to sabotage William Hague's 'Save the pound' campaign in the late 1990s, only recently attacked David Cameron's human rights bill as "xenophobic" and opposes leaving the EPP as a "head-banging" policy.
• He would undermine David Cameron's 'change' message - not just presentationally but his ideas are out-dated. He doesn't, for example, support the Tory leader's flagship policies on the family and would resist recognition of marriage in the tax system. As Chairman of the Democracy Taskforce his recommended answer to the West Lothian Question was timid.
• A healthy Chancellor-Leader relationship is vital to the success of any political party. The Osborne-Cameron relationship works. A Clarke-Cameron relationship would be a huge gamble.

More broadly there is no need for panic. I've already set out some reasons why the 'bite of recession' will cause bigger and bigger political problems for Labour and listed the broader political factors that favour the Conservatives.  I sign up to Mike Smithson's rule that the more David Cameron is in the media the better the Conservatives do in the polls.  I also believe that it would be wrong to change George Osborne now that the party has the right economic position.  Business leaders write to today's FT endorsing the Tory idea of underwriting bank lending.  Opinion-formers are also coming over; Saturday was notable for two of the Mail's biggest columnists, Amanda Platell and Peter Oborne, endorsing David Cameron's tough-but-prudent economic stance.  Yet again Michael Portillo offers advice that is best ignored.

Tim Montgomerie

Details of proposed Conservative reforms to Network Rail

The Sunday Telegraph this morning previewed Conservative plans to put representatives of passengers on the board of Network Rail and allow the rail regulator to deprive executives of bonuses in the case of poor performances.

Theresa Villiers has now released the following further details of the proposals:

Reforming Network Rail

• We will create a supervisory board for Network Rail by reducing the size of the existing membership body to 10 to 20 people, with a stronger voice for passengers and train operators.
• The supervisory board will have the power to hold Network Rail’s management to account, including setting the overall strategy for the company and the power to approve and remove senior executives.
• The majority of the board will be made up of independent members (with a strong background in business) and passenger representatives. The remaining members will be drawn from within the rail industry and include representatives of Open Access, Freight and Passenger Train Operators.
• The board will be appointed independently of Network Rail’s senior management.

Government to rule out Royal Mail privatisation

Following an independent study by Richard Hooper, the Government is to rule out privatising the Royal Mail.

An interim report in May stated that "the status quo is not tenable" and that "radical"changes would be necessary.

The final report has now been delivered to the Business Department and it will be published in due course, but the Press Association is already citing "a source close to Lord Mandelson" as ruling out privatisation.

PA quotes the source as saying:

"Our concern is to save the Royal Mail and secure its future, not privatise it. We have a manifesto commitment to a publicly owned Royal Mail and we will not be setting that aside."

Any Conservative reaction will be posted as it emerges.

Jonathan Isaby

Nick Bourne under pressure

Nick Bourne's position as Tory leader in the Welsh Assembly would seem to be increasingly vulnerable if media reports over the last couple days are to be believed.

He would appear to have become especially vulnerable after the publication of Assembly Members' expense claims this week, which showed that he had spent more than £5,000 of public money on his bathroom, as well as buying such items as a trouser press and an iPod on expenses.

Whilst it should be noted that such expenditure is entirely within the rules, BBC Welsh affairs editor Vaughan Roderick wrote yesterday that "more than half" of the 12-strong Tory group at Cardiff Bay now believe that he should stand down.

He pointed out that Mr Bourne has been under some pressure since the autumn after the publication of a dossier - which he had approved - making personal attacks on Wales's First Minister, Rhodri Morgan.

Today, a report in Wales on Sunday states that Cardiff North Assembly Member Jonathan Morgan - widely viewed to be the likely successor to Mr Bourne - is refusing to rule himself out of the running to take over, albeit not until there is a vacancy. He said:

“The group has been very supportive of Nick and I’m assuming that is still the case. I wouldn’t be a politician if I wasn’t ambitious and of course I would consider it, but at this moment there is no vacancy.”

Jonathan Isaby

Sir John Major attacks the Government's handling of the economy

Update: The report on the BBC website includes extensive quotes and has a video of the interview.

---

Sir John Major joined the attack on the Government's handling of the economy this morning, in an interview with Andrew Marr.

He said that we were facing the worst economic situation since the Second Word War and that the Government's actions were now going to make the recession "longer and deeper". He also expressed the view that the unemployment figures were far worse than they appear due to the number of people on long term benefits who could be working and that he expected "an avalanche of job losses" during the first half of next year.

He did add, however, that talking in the same terms as the depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s was over the top, but that depression oratory was being used in order to help ministers justify the high levels of expenditure and borrowing.

"They are over cooking it because they are concerned and they want to justify the amount of debt they are getting into," he said.

Sir John said that the Government was right to recapitalise the banks but declared the VAT cut pointless - "you might as well have burned the money and thrown it away" - and said that he believed savers were currently "appallingly treated" because the amount they are earning in interest has dropped dramatically.

He proposed that the first £5,000 of savings income each year should be exempt from tax and also urged David Cameron to extend his proposed bank loan guarantee to homes as well as businesses.

And he reflected on the difficulty he had in handling the recession in the early 1990s because of a lack of public money to spend:

"We looked particularly heartless just sitting there. We looked very heartless and we paid a heavy political price for it. But we did kill inflation for a very long time."

Jonathan Isaby

Damian Green's case set to be dropped

The last fortnight and a half has been a very long one for Damian Green and his family.

It was back on 27th November that the shadow immigration minister was arrested and questioned for having received and then made public leaked information from the Home Office, as a squad of anti-terror police raided his Commons office and scoured his homes, seizing papers, telephones and computer equipment in the process.

Today, there are reports in the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times which state that the police are preparing to drop the case against him, not least because of the "bungled and possibly unlawful way in which his House of Commons office was searched".

ConservativeHome has previously made it clear that we believe Damian Green was acting in the public interest and guilty of nothing more than doing his job, so any suggestion that the case is to be dropped must be welcomed.

However, it may not be until he is due to answer bail in February that he is officially given the all clear. For the sake of him, his family and the wider political process, the sooner this can be done the better.

And only then will Damian Green be able to give a full account of events, which will doubtless raise a further raft of questions about how an Opposition MP came to be treated in this way.

Jonathan Isaby

6% Tory lead in new YouGov poll

Further to the ComRes survey, news of a second poll out tomorrow; it's a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times:

Comparisons are with the YouGov poll taken on the day of the Pre-Budget report, meaning an increase in the Tory lead from 4% to 6%.

Fieldwork was conducted on Thursday and Friday.

These numbers would leave the Conservaitves 20 seats short of an overall majority, according to Electoral Calculus.

New ComRes poll has Tory lead remaining at 1%

UK Polling Report has news of a poll in tomorrow's Independent on Sunday:

The changes are compared with the ComRes poll in the Independent on 2nd December.

The fieldwork for this latest poll was done on Wednesday and Thursday.

Electoral Calculus suggests that these latest figures - on a uniform national swing etc - would give Labour a majority of 20.

Update: More information on John Rentoul's blog

Should MPs be preparing for such a long Christmas recess?

The Daily Telegraph reports this morning that when the Commons rises and MPs return to their constituencies on Thursday, they will enjoy their longest Christmas break away from Westminster in a decade.

With Parliament not returning until January 12, that makes a 24-day recess.

On the one hand, the libertarian-minded among us who favour a small state will welcome the idea of nearly a month going by without our politicians being afforded the opportunity to ban things, interfere, regulate and so on.

And MPs obviously have valuable constituency work to be getting on with as well.

But they are also uniquely placed to hold the Government to account, as pointed out by two sources quoted in the Telegraph article.

Says Tory MP, Peter Luff:

"We still need to properly debate the economic situation. There are so many issues, so much legislation that needs scrutiny, and all we get is a longer holiday."

And Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers Alliance:

"The record length of MPs' holidays is utterly at odds with the situation of ordinary people this Christmas. Whilst everyone else works longer and longer hours to survive the recession, it is frustrating to see Parliament shutting down. Given the huge quantities of taxpayers' money put at risk by the recent bailouts, we need our representatives to be scrutinising the Government as closely as possible, not shutting up shop."

They both make very pertinent points.

Furthermore, whilst this Government is proud to have abolished all but the very occasional late night sitting of the Commons on the grounds of being "family friendly", people need reminding that it has also brought in timetabling of every Bill put before the Commons - which means that reams of legislation is no longer given proper scrutiny by MPs. It is often now the House of Lords which is better placed to hold the Government's proposals to account as goes through new laws line by line.

And just the other day, for example, a time limit was imposed on the debate on the situation surrounding the Damian Green arrest. Why?

Don't we need to ensure that MPs have sufficient time to fulfill that scrutiny role before extending their absences from Westminster?

Jonathan Isaby

Choose Brown's 'We Not Only Saved The World' gaffe as your mobile ringtone

A fun initiative from CCHQ:

More from Conservatives at Myxer

Alternatively click here.

Video: Watch the original gaffe.

Voters reject green taxation (again)

First Canada, now Manchester.  78.8% said no to the proposed congestion charge which would have funded greater investment in public transport.

Another bad day for the EU

Yesterday was a triple whammy of a bad day for the EU...

ONE: THE IRISH PEOPLE WERE TOLD THEY HAD TO VOTE AGAIN ON LISBON
It's far from clear that Dublin's unpopular government can persuade the Irish to change their vote but William Hague noted the command to vote again as dangerously undemocratic:

"Trying to force the Lisbon Treaty down the Irish people’s throats again is not only a dangerous distraction from that agenda, it is profoundly undemocratic. It is no wonder that the EU is seen as increasingly unaccountable and out of touch if it won’t listen to what people are actually saying. Gordon Brown goes to this summit without any democratic mandate on the Lisbon Treaty. If our unelected Prime Minister insists on forcing the Irish people to vote twice, the case for letting the British people vote once will be morally unanswerable.”

TWO: ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE WILL BE (AT BEST) DILUTED AND DELAYED
The EU likes to lecture the rest of the world on climate change but after years of failing to meet its Kyoto targets it is dangerously close to failing to agree new targets for reductions in its carbon footprint.  If France and Britain cannot persuade Italy and Poland to make economic sacrifices for the sake of the planet then there is next-to-no chance of the much bigger and more important task of persuading India, China and other developing nations.  Ruth Lea warns that Britain is in danger of unilateral economic disarmament on climate changeism:

"Italy’s Sylvio Berlusconi has generally undermined the EU’s climate change policies by saying “our businesses are in absolutely no position at the moment to absorb the costs of the regulations that have been proposed.”  If these positions are maintained, Britain’s hairshirt adherence to draconian carbon reduction policies would mean the country was isolated in its, ultimately futile, attempt to control global man-made carbon emissions – of which Britain accounts for less than 2%."

THREE: THE EURO IS CAUSING SERIOUS ECONOMIC TENSIONS
Forgetting for the moment Germany's "extraordinary" attack on Gordon Brown's fiscal stimulus there is the more important issue of what the euro is doing to certain EU nations.  Individual nations are lacking the monetary policy flexibility that, George Osborne noted, is available to Britain.  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is one of a very few commentators (Richard North being another) who have connected Greek rioting with the strains of the eurozone.

***
I'd probably say the decision of Declan Ganley's Libertas to contest the European Elections was also a fourth bad thing.  The constant splintering of what could loosely be called the Eurosceptic movement is its greatest weakness.

Tim Montgomerie

Jeremy Hunt MP takes further step towards heart of Project Cameron as party's 'online spokesman'

Talking to ConHome, Jeremy Hunt said:

"David Cameron is absolutely determined that the Conservatives will be the most technologically literate of all parties at next election. That requires a root and branch reform of our campaigning. Online campaigning is essential to reaching younger voters who don't have tribal loyalties of many older voters. It is a huge challenge for us to match what America's political parties did in the presidential elections. Having seen the online team that has been assembled I am hopeful that we'll be able to stay ahead of the game.  I'm really looking forward to my new role."

This new role for Jeremy Hunt is confirmation of the Tory leadership's high view of him.

Alongside Eric Pickles and Chris Grayling he is a hot tip to be the next Party Chairman if Caroline Spelman is moved or resigns.  The Observer's Gaby Hinsliff reports that Mrs Spelman may receive an "unsatisfactory acquittal".  The length of the inquiry into Mrs Spelman's employment of her former nanny and secretary is of enormous frustration to the Tory leadership.  With CCHQ ready for an election as early as next month - and more possibly by April - David Cameron may now decide it's too close to an election to change Chairman.

> Video profile of Jeremy Hunt

What is the 2009 equivalent of Labour isn't working?

The Conservatives will win an early election if they can convince the British people that Labour's borrowing is irresponsible. Although speeches, telephone number statistics and op-eds are essential parts of the persuasion process the most decisive political victories have also been associated with iconic images that resonate with the public.

In 1979, Labour's record on jobs was captured by Saatchi & Saatchi's Labour isn't working poster:

In 1992, voter worries about Labour's tax plans were solidified by the tax bombshell campaign:

We now need something for Gordon Brown's debts.  What should it be?  It could be a poster or it could be a short YouTube.  Here are two inspirations for you:

If we can get some good ideas on this thread ConHome will translate one of them into 'the real thing'...

Tories prepare to 'protect' youngest single mothers from Labour

The Daily Mail calls it "a startling reversal of positions for the two main parties" but notes that the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Chris Grayling, is "uncomfortable" about Labour's intention - announced yesterday - to force single mothers to seek work once their youngest child reaches twelve months of age.

Mr Grayling told The Mail:

"Nobody could accuse me of being soft on welfare reform but there is a real issue about the welfare of children early in life. The big problem is the availability of the right kind of childcare."

The Conservatives would rather Labour focused efforts on getting the much larger number of people on incapacity benefit into work.  In an echo of the bipartisanship that David Cameron showed towards Tony Blair's 2006 education reforms, the Conservative frontbench nonetheless promises to help Welfare Secretary James Purnell pass the vast bulk of his measures.

Janet Daley is unimpressed with Mr Purnell's package.  She believes the proposed reforms are "over-hyped" and should be more closely modelled on the USA where the work requirements on single mothers, in particular, were much tougher and "the rate of unmarried births fell like a stone".  The Mail leader-writers also protest the flimsiness of Mr Purnell's insistence that "every claimant must do 'something'." "That may only include updating a CV or 'finding out about childcare'," they complain. The Mail leader concludes:

"The timing, too, leaves a lot to be desired. What a farce that ministers did nothing when jobs were readily available, but now seek to get the long-term unemployed, including 100,000 drunks and drug addicts in receipt of Incapacity Benefit, back into the workplace at a time when there are no jobs."

PMQs: Brown makes 'We not only saved the world' gaffe

EDITORIAL VERDICT: Clear win for David Cameron. Brown was put on the defensive over underwriting bank lending. DC is determined to make it clear that the Conservatives are not the 'do nothing' party on the economy. But PMQs won't be remembered for the serious exchanges but for Brown's 'We not only saved the world gaffe'. Thanks to Crown Blogspot it's already on YouTube. Watch it here.

Highlights, not verbatim:

12.24pm: Replying to a question from on the programme that will broadcast an assisted suicide, the Prime Minister says he has always opposed legislation to introduce assisted dying. Programmes have a duty to cover these sensitive issues without sensationalism.

12.15pm: Clegg raises the case of a single parent who came to his constituency surgery with young children [before he could go any further there is much laughter - you can guess why] facing legal action because of Brown's "cruel, bureaucratic and confusing" tax credits system. He calls for a new system of simple and fixed payments.  A fixed system, says Brown, would mean that people would not receive extra help when they hit severe difficulties.

12.12pm: Brown is on the wrong side of maths, counters Cameron. Labour is only supporting 0.2% of potential lending to business. Brown has brought Britain to the brink of the deepest recession in the G7. Brown says Tories are not fit for government because they are trapped in the 1980s.

12.10pm: The key issue, reiterates Cameron, is to get bank lending flowing again. That's the Bank of England Governor's view. The VAT cut is pointless. Will the Prime Minister endorse our National Loan Guarantee Scheme? The IoD, CBI and FSB all have. On the day that Labour is copying Tory welfare ideas this is another idea that the Government should copy. Brown says that Labour already operate schemes that underwrite financing to businesses. Nothing will help the economy, the PM concludes, without a supporting fiscal stimulus. The Tories are on the wrong side of history.

12.08pm: If things are going so well why is the Council of Mortgage Lenders talking about about "conflicted" government policies? Brown says Tories would let recession take its course.

12.06pm: David Cameron says all over the country there are businesses having overdraft facilities withdrawn. The world is NOT copying the details of the Government's recapitalisation plan. The Government is lending to banks at 12% but insisting that they lend at 6%. Brown responds by defending his fiscal stimulus. The Tories are clinging to the failed policies of the 1980s, he says.

12.04pm: David Cameron asks about getting bank lending flowing again. Recapitalisation's main aim was to get credit flowing again and it has failed. Brown replying accidentally says "we not only saved the world"! Hysterical laughter from Tory benches.

Tim Montgomerie

Do we need a 'no cuts here' list?

I am told that last evening's gathering of the shadow cabinet was "sobre" as the implications of David Cameron's message on public spending sank in.  The FT reports that David Cameron has launched a "tough" review of public spending as part of a hardening of overall economic policy.  The Times publishes an insidery story of how the Tory policy was changed. The Mail leader-writers welcome the replacement of "the touchy-feely environmentalist" with the new austere David Cameron.

Having campaigned for this very policy ConHome obviously welcomes the new stance but a question for you on electoral tactics: Do we need to identify some public spending commitments that are 100% protected from economies?

On Saturday's ConservativeHome, Dr Rachel Joyce identified her public spending priorities.  They included a promise to protect all doctors, nurses, police officers and teachers in "frontline" positions.  She also called for special honopuring of the Military Covenant and investment in apprenticeships.

I have mixed feelings about such a list.  Part of me says, yes, it will blunt the nastiest of Labour attacks but I also worry that it will just focus more attention on those areas that we might be vulnerable to economies.  I'm also unsure whether we should make a commitment on anything.  There may well be overstaffing in certain frontline areas.  What do you think?

How can you be a journalist and a politician and still be loved?

It's hard to watch this Clarkson meets Boris video and not think that the Mayor of London is something of a political superstar.

Tim Montgomerie

It appears that David Cameron met José Manuel Barroso last week

A fascinating post from Nick Watt on the Guardian blog this afternoon:

"Amid little fanfare last Friday, Cameron travelled to Brussels to meet José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. Barroso is hoping for a second term as commission president from next summer; if Cameron is elected prime minister in a spring 2009 election, his support would be crucial."

This is indeed the first I have heard of the visit, which took place the day before the party leader's visit to Belfast, which happened amid a considerable fanfare.

I don't recall seeing any notice about the Brussels trip among the many press releases and operational notes which the party sends out daily, although am happy to be corrected if I am wrong.

Nonetheless, I am curious. I've put in a call to Mr Cameron's spokesman and will let you know what I can find out about their encounter.

Jonathan Isaby

9.45pm update:

I got to speak to aforesaid spokesman at the Policy Exchange Christmas Party, who said that Mr Cameron had gone over to Brussels for a series of private meetings firstly at Nato with the Secretary-General and UK Permament Representative, where issues such as Afghanistan were discussed; he then went for a 45-minute meeting with Mr Barroso, after which he did apparently say a few words for a waiting BBC camera. DC's spokesman said that she would find the transcript of what he said and send it to me - and  I shall publish it if and when it arrives.

Conservative MPs' Christmas reading list

There was much excitement over the summer about the reading list which Conservative MP Keith Simpson circulated from which he hoped colleagues would select their holiday reading.

So you may be interested to see the below, his Christmas reading list for Conservative MPs.

He emphasises that it is merely a "list of suggestions and there is no three line whip of compulsory reading with a Q and A exam when we return in January".

• Angus Hawkins - The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby, Achievement, 1851-1869 (Oxford University Press, £30.00)
• David Torrance - George Younger: A Life Well Lived (Berlin £30.00)
• Sir David Mitchell - From House to House: The Endless Adventure of Politics and Wine (The Memoir Club £18.00)
• Bernard Donoughue - Downing Street Diary, Vol II (Jonathan Cape £30.00)
• David Marquand - Britain Since 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy (Weidenfield and Nicholson £25.00)
• Giles Radice - The Tortoise and the Hares: Attlee, Bevin, Cripps, Dalton, Morrison (Politico’s Publishing Ltd £25.00)
• Chris Moncrieff - Wine, Women and Westminster: Behind the Scenes – Stories of MPs at Play over 50 years (J R Books £14.99)
• Matthew Parris and Prue Mason - Mission Accomplished!: Things Politicians Wish They Hadn’t Said (J R Books £8.99)
• Chris Patten - What Next? Surviving the Twenty-First Century (Allen Lane £25.00)
• Hugo Young - The Hugo Young Papers: Thirty Years of British Politics – Off the Record (Allen Lane £30.00)
• Niall Ferguson - The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (Allen Lane £25.00)
• David Loyn - Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred years of Foreign Engagement in Afghanistan (Hutchinson £18.99)
• Hew Pike - From the Front Line: Family Letters and Diaries 1900 to the Falklands and Afghanistan (Pen and Sword £19.99)
• Conor Foley - The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War (Verso books £14.99)   
• Richard Dowden - Africa Altered: States, Ordinary Miracles (Portobello Books, £25.00)
• Doris Kearns Goodwin - Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Simon and Schuster £11.00)
• Simon Schama - The American Future: A History (The Bodley Head £20.00)
• Robert Reich - Supercapitalism: The Battle for Democracy in an Age of Big Business (Icon Books £12.99)
• Alice Schroeder - The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Bloomsbury £25.00)
• Bob Woodward - The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006 – 2008 (Simon Schuster £18.99) (This book complements his three previous works, Bush at War (2002), Plan of Attack (2004) and State of Denial (2006)).
• Bartin Gellman - Angler: The Shadow President of Dick Cheney (Allen Lane £25.00)
• James Harding - Alpha Dogs: How Spin Became a Global Business (Atlantic Books £22.00)
• Anthony J Badger - FDR: The First Hundred Days (Hill and Wang £16.99)
• Milton Friedman and Anne Jacobson Schwartz - The Great Contraction 1929 – 1933 (Princeton University Press, £11.00)
• Anthony Trollope - The Way We Live Now (Oxford Paperbacks, £7.99)
• Celia Haddon - The Joy of Cats (Hodder and Stoughton £9.99)

Simpson, a military historian, adds the following note at the end of the list in order that readers can decide over Christmas whether they are positionalists or manoeuvrists...

"Positional and Manoeuvre Warfare
Generally speaking positional warfare is one dimensional and about occupying ground and is mainly attritional.  Manoeuvre warfare is about operating in three dimensional space and mystifying and misleading your opponent.  Naturally, in warfare there will be times when you need to be a positionalist, not least to draw in your enemy and wear him down.  But the manoeuvrist approach is much thought of by today’s military who appreciate that our terrorist opponents certainly favour it as a method of waging war.
Naturally, you can’t draw exact parallels between military operations and politics but there are some interesting similarities, not least in balancing means and ends."



Is the Damian Green affair about to take a more sinister twist?

One shadow cabinet minister told me earlier that it was "past time" for the Conservative Party to stop "fretting" about the Damian Green affair and focus on the economy - as David Cameron did this morning - but a blog from Richard Benyon MP suggests that the Green affair may be far from over:

"My gut feeling tells me that the Damian Green affair will expose an interesting further abuse of power. I suspect the Police have been accessing the House of Commons server. Fascinating, I hear you say. Well hang in there with me and you will see where this is going. Accessing the server is no different to searching my office. On this system will be every email I have ever received or sent through my office or when working from home, on my Parliamentary email. If they need a warrant to search Damain’s office they sure as hell need one to follow an email trail through the server and the House of Commons computer system. It is for this reason that I asked the Speaker in a Point of Order last week where the server stood in relation to the Damain Green affair and something called the Wilson Doctrine.  The latter was a protocol agreed in the 1960s about the bugging of MPs. I have just heard that the Speaker will make a statement on this matter at 3.30 pm this afternoon."

I'll update this post once the Speaker has spoken...

3.35pm: The Speaker has told the Commons that no access was given to the server and no access was taken.

Tim Montgomerie

Every shadow minister is instructed to find savings

Last week ConHome wrote:

"Before we're willing to accept tax rises from an incoming Tory government we need to be convinced that everything possible has been done to end the misspending of this incompetent Labour government."

There may be no 'Letwin review of waste' but speaking to the LSE this morning, David Cameron signalled - for the first time - that the Conservatives were determined to bring public spending under control.  Here are three highlights from his remarks:

Lower spending is the only way of avoiding higher taxes: "Borrowing is now going beyond acceptable limits. Taxes are already too high – and Labour’s plans for even more taxes will act as a drag anchor on recovery. They’ll put people off from investing here and help to destroy jobs not create them. So the choice is clear, and it’s a tough one – we need to restrain public spending... I can announce today that in order to keep spending at a responsible level and to ensure the quickest possible end to the recession and the strongest possible recovery, we will not match Labour’s new spending plans for 2010 and beyond."

Every shadow minister has been charged with finding wasteful spending and redundant programmes: "I have asked every shadow minister to go through their budget line by line, to root out wasteful spending, and to abolish programmes that have served their purposes and are no longer necessary.  We are calling on the best private sector expertise to find ways to save taxpayers’ money and improve service delivery."

The importance of transparency: "We are developing a systematic programme to improve the way the Government spends its money and we will ensure that we are held to account.  Last year, we introduced a Bill in Parliament to force the Government to list on a public, easily searchable website, every item of public spending over £25,000. Be in no doubt: the next Conservative government will usher in greater transparency and accountability. There will be nowhere to hide the foreign trips or office re-decorations at the taxpayers expense, no secret books to store those salary perks and expensive unnecessary training."

David Cameron steps up his attack on Labour's handling of the economy

As some interpret today's narrowing of the Conservative poll lead as a grateful public showing its appreciation to Labour for the Pre-Budget Report, David Cameron is today ratcheting up his attacks on the Government's handling of the economy.

On this morning's Today programme, he announced that, having studied the figures in the PBR, the Conservatives are now in a position to say that the party would not stick to Labour's spending plans for 2010. He attacked the Government's decision to borrow more and cut VAT now and "whack up taxes later" as both "profoundly wrong" and a "massive mistake".

He added that by borrowing a further £20 billion when we were already at the limits of what is acceptable created a "real danger" of putting "the whole economy at risk" with our public finances potentially in a situation comparable to that of Italy.

Mr Cameron added that there was now a "real choice" facing the British people over how to handle the economy and that the only way to avoid the risks posed by Labour's policies was to have an election now and turf them out of office.

He will be setting out his position in a speech to the London School of Economics in which he will contrast Labour's short-termism with his own "responsible" determination to "get a grip" on public spending.

Here is a key excerpt of the speech which has been released in advance:

"A very clear choice is emerging in British politics today. It is about how we deal with the greatest economic problem to confront this generation - the recession and the record level of public debt.

"Labour's response is to ignore the fact that we're already borrowing at record levels, deliberately borrow another £20 billion for short-term giveaways today - and leave worrying about the debt until tomorrow.

"The Conservative response is to recognise that we cannot go on as we are: that when you're already borrowing so much it is wrong to deliberately borrow even more. Instead we should get spending under control to set our economy on a sustainable path. This is a very big and profound choice.

"I think everyone knows that fiscal responsibility is right for our economy tomorrow. My argument this morning is that it's also right for today."

Jonathan Isaby