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Conservatives are the progressives now, say Clark and Hunt

"Instead of leading Britain deeper into debt, a progressive government must return the financial system to its true purpose: to be a responsible provider of investment in wealth-generating activities. It must attack the root causes of broken-society issues, so reducing the mushrooming costs of social breakdown. Most of all, it must ensure that any economic recovery is sustainable. The last decade has shown that fostering dependency on the state is as unsustainable and damaging as relying on trickle down to deliver social justice. In all areas of policy, the progressive party isn't the one that peddles dependency on government, but the one that seeks to strengthen the people and institutions of this country from within." - Greg Clark and Jeremy Hunt writing in the Guardian

Reshuffle speculation continues

"Alan Duncan and other key party figures who missed the Conservatives' recession tour of Britain have been targeted for dismissal or demotion in the shadow cabinet reshuffle. Mr Duncan, the shadow business secretary, has borne the brunt of David Cameron's anger in private over his absence from Tuesday's meetings across the country to promote Tory policies to help families and business in the economic slump. Mr Duncan, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary skiing team, was already in Davos in Switzerland for the annual parliamentary skiing holiday. Last night he was back in Britain having cut short his trip." - Daily Telegraph

Osborne attacks Darling over growth forecasts

"Alistair Darling has admitted that Britain is “far from through” the recession and hinted that the Government is preparing to ditch its forecast for a recovery in the second half of this year." - Times

"It appears that Alistair Darling is already trying to wriggle out of the economic forecasts he made just weeks ago which, as we pointed out at the time, were more optimistic than most commentators believed. It's an admission that he sees what the country sees: Labour's policies for the recession are not working." - George Osborne quoted in The Independent

Tories discover £132million "invisible army of Whitehall civil servants"

"Taxpayers are footing a bill of more than £100million for the salaries of nearly 5,000 bureaucrats with no job to do, the Tories claim... In total, 15 departments said they employed 4,634 staff - one in 100 of all civil servants - without an official job... More than half of the staff were at HM Revenue & Customs which is employing 2,874 "pre-surplus staff". This is defined as staff "whose post or work is no longer being carried out". The answers from other departments show that staff with nothing to do are described as members of "People Action Teams", "Redeployment Pool", "Priority Movers", "Corporate Pool" or "Career Transition Centre" - Daily Telegraph

Andrew Mitchell accuses DfID of trying to usurp Foreign Office powers

"The Department for International Development has usurped the power of the Foreign Office and would be reined under a Conservative government, The Independent has been told. The shadow International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said DFID had begun to encroach on the work of other departments and to come "perilously close" to setting its own foreign policy, a role he said should be reserved for the Foreign Office. He said the Foreign Office will be given much greater influence over the use of overseas aid should the Tories win the next election." - Independent

Tories to switch track on rail

"The Conservative party looks set to reverse one of its highest-profile transport policy stances of recent years by accepting the railway industry’s structure should remain largely as it is. The change, expected in a policy document on the railways, reverses the stance taken in July 2006 when Chris Grayling, then transport spokesman, called for an end to the separation of track and train operations." - FT

Fraser Nelson wants to hear more from the Tories on foreign policy

"If the Conservatives were in a more assertive mood, they could spell out why this conflict has such implications for British foreign policy... Mr Cameron has been quiet on Israel, and no policy is discernible from what William Hague has had to say. Last week Cameron promised to protect defence spending from the cuts he will have to make in government. But this still leaves him far from an answer to the question Mr Blair posed before leaving Number 10: is Britain to have a war-fighting or a peace-keeping military?" - Fraser Nelson in The Spectator

Scotland "to escape Tory cuts"

"Scotland will escape the worst of the spending cuts imposed by a future Conservative government, the Scottish Tories claimed last night... A Scottish Tory spokesman said last night that the plans had been drawn up in such a way that Scotland would only have to find £28 million of cuts – far short of its £500 million population share." - Scotsman

Labour Assembly Member instigates investigation into Boris over "Greengate" - Daily Telegraph

Treasury denies it plans to "print money" - BBC

Further interest rate cut expected today - Daily Mail

Nick Clegg: Give fathers a year's paternity leave - Daily Mail

And finally... Gordon Brown warns his Cabinet to get in shape

"Prime Minister Gordon Brown has warned Cabinet ministers face a visit from TV fitness guru Mr Motivator if they fail to keep up their new year's healthy living resolutions... Mr Motivator, best known for his appearances in colourful leotards on GMTV in the 1990s, burst into Downing Street to promote the campaign following the launch of the Government's own anti-obesity initiative earlier this week. Mr Brown told him: "I'll tell the Cabinet Ministers that you're after them - you're coming!" - Daily Telegraph

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Posted on 08 January 2009 at 08:59 in January 2009's newslinks | Permalink | Comments (3)

Wednesday 7th January 2009

4.30pm Local Governmen t: Grammar Schools are safe with us:Kent Council replies.

3.30pm WATCH How George Bush's personality helped shape his presidency

3pm Tim Montgomerie on CentreRight: I've given my last penny to World Vision

1.15pm

12.30pm Charlie Elphicke on CentreRight: In Praise of the Conservative Transport Team

Noon: WATCH Prominent British Jews warned they could be targeted over Gaza

11.30am Andrew Lilico on CentreRight: The Fed is now discussing the introduction of a price-level target

11am Local Government: Bristol Council orders boys club to change "discriminatory" name or lose funding

10.15am Parliament: John Bowis opposes EU ban on incandescent light bulbs

9.45am Local Governmen t: Bristol Council orders boys club to change "discriminatory" name or lose funding.

9.30am Julia Manning on CentreRight: Obama's GOATs

ToryDiary: Shadow Cabinet return for Ken Clarke increasingly on the cards

Mark Field on Platform: Tales from the front line

Seats and Candidates Search for 100 Peers: Ruth Lea

Seats and Candidates: TV fisherman Jimmy Buchan selected for Banff and Buchan

Local Government: Boris biffs the gloomadon poppers

CentreRight:

Taxpayers' Alliance welcomes David Cameron's tax cut for savers...

"On Monday, the Conservatives announced plans to cut taxes on savers and pensioners. Under their plans, basic rate taxpayers would not be taxed on savings interest and pensioners would see their income tax personal allowance rise by £2,000. All this would be paid for by cutting the real terms growth in spending by a number of government departments to 1% in 2009-10, with only health, schools, defence and international development kept to Labour spending plans... While it is possible to do a lot more, it would provide a lot of people with some welcome relief during the recession." - Matthew Elliott writing for Comment is Free at the Guardian website

> Monday's ToryDiary

...but Simon Heffer is still waiting for radical Tory policies

"Even radicalising their economic policy now would entail an element of followership, since the public have found a desire for radicalism that precedes that of the Conservative party. So now Mr Cameron must catch up with a country fed up with being bled white, and appalled at the beggaring of their children and grandchildren by Mr Brown's addiction to debt. He must then lead them further down that path. This requires him to stop pacifying, nourishing and propitiating Mr Brown's client state, almost none of which would vote Conservative even if a gun were held to its head." - Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph

John Redwood: Another interest rate cut would be a mistake

"As someone who called strongly for interest rate reductions a year ago to stave off recession, I now feel equally strongly that base rate is more than low enough. The MPC has not given the lower interest rates the year or so they need to feed through to the system. If this is a normal cycle, and if the banks have now been saved, in due course the stimulus of the much lower interest rates will work. It is important not to overdo it." - John Redwood writing in the FT

Nick Herbert attacks hushed-up plans for bail hostels

"A secret leaked memo last night revealed 200 bail hostels for dangerous criminals are being opened in residential streets across Britain without any consultation with the public... The Tories, who obtained the protocol, said the Ministry of Justice – which handed the contract to ClearSprings – was guilty of devising a plan to keep the public in the dark. Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Herbert said: "The Government has failed to provide enough prison capacity so they’ve devised a covert plan to set up what amount to mini open jails in residential areas while avoiding any consultation with the public. Placing offenders in residential properties causes immense aggravation when neighbours suddenly discover what’s going on, only to be told that they are powerless to stop it and the local community didn’t even need to be consulted." - Daily Mail

Shadow minister Alan Duncan's skiing trip leaves Tory chiefs red-faced

"David Cameron was embarrassed last night by the decision of his business spokesman to go on a skiing holiday rather than touring Britain to learn about the recession. As his colleagues fanned out across Britain to promote the Conservative party’s policies for business and families, Alan Duncan was in Davos in Switzerland on the annual MPs’ skiing holiday... Mr Duncan said last night that he was on duty over Christmas and so was having his break now... He said that he has his own separate programme of meetings. He had already conducted two nationwide tours and was delighted colleagues were playing a greater role in his area. He is also meeting the Swiss Chamber of Commerce during the holiday." - Times

Richard Spring leads delegation advising the President of the Maldives

"A delegation of senior Tories flew to the Maldives on Tuesday to help prepare the island nation's new president for the country's first-ever multi-party democratic parliamentary elections next month. Mohammed Nasheed, a one-time Amnesty International "prisoner of conscience", spectacularly beat his former jailer and Asia's longest-serving ruler, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in the Maldives' first democratic election in October. But now his Maldivian Democratic Party faces its first test next month, with all the seats in the People's Majlis, or parliament, being contested. The Tories played a key role in Mr Nasheed's defeat of Mr Gayoom, who had been in power for 30 years, and the new president has called on Richard Spring MP, vice-chairman of the Conservative party, to lend advice on how the MDP can capture a majority in the February elections". - Daily Telegraph

The Guardian questions the value of politicians' January tours...

"Nowhere in the country is safe from the political roadshow in these, the dog days between Christmas and parliament's return... Strategists start with the itinerary, then try to manufacture activities to fill it and statements to justify it, as if Gladstone had found himself in Midlothian, and only then begun to think of something to say. Mr Brown wants to get the cabinet out of London, but the result is the same people sitting in a different room and, in the case of a session in Leeds last November, a £200,000 bill left behind for policing. Mr Cameron's visit to Manchester this week (like William Hague's to Tyneside and George Osborne's to Cardiff) has been declared a tax-cutting roadshow, but is really a publicity-boosting one." - Guardian editorial

...as Robert Goodwill says Labour should fund the costs of holding Cabinet meetings outside London

"While it is important for Cabinet ministers to visit Yorkshire and find out about particular issues, holding the Cabinet meeting here was a bit of a gimmick. I can understand them wanting to show their presence in Yorkshire for political reasons. But the cost of hosting it, given the increased security, is something that should be borne by Labour rather than taxpayers." - Shadow minister for Leeds, Robert Goodwill, quoted in the Daily Mail

Government may increase basic income tax threshold to £10,000 - Mirror

Andrew Pelling stopped and searched for taking pictures of a cycle path - Daily Mail

Met police officer numbers will not be cut, insists Boris's deputy - Guardian

Brown begins three-day tour of England and Wales - BBC

Scottish Tories slam SNP over prison row - Scotsman

Alistair Darling interviewed - FT

MI5 chief Jonathan Evans interviewed - Guardian | Times

And finally... Cameron and Brown contribute to charity cookbook

"Gordon Brown would whip up a "Chequers steak pie" for the Scottish athlete Eric Liddell, immortalised in the classic film Chariots of Fire, while David Cameron would take the time to slow roast a shoulder of lamb for Victoria Cross recipient Johnson Beharry. The prime minister and Conservative Party leader have revealed the recipes they would serve up to personal heroes for a charity cookbook designed to raise money for Help the Heroes, a charity set up to help wounded military personnel... Brown appears to be suddenly and strangely busy as a food writer. This is the third contribution to a charity cookbook revealed by the prime minister this week." - Guardian

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Posted on 07 January 2009 at 08:57 in January 2009's newslinks | Permalink | Comments (20)

Tuesday 6th January 2009

5.15pm Tim Montgomerie on CentreRight: "A shadow cabinet full of men married to other men or moonlighting in lucrative directorships will alienate voters"

4.45pm Paul Goodman on CentreRight: Britain's religious leaders need to discourage global tensions boiling over here

4.15pm WATCH Ten minute defence of Israel's actions from New York's Mayor, Mike Bloomberg

3.45pm Parliament: Should Parliament be in recess for so long over Christmas?

3.30pm Seats and candidates: Leaked Tory memo hints at extra care for female and ethnic minority candidates

3.15pm Parliament: Is lobbying regulated adequately?

3.15pm Andrew Lilico on CentreRight: Polling evidence on the teaching of creationism in schools

3pm ToryDiary: 'Spelman in the clear'

2pm Peter Whittle on CentreRight: Cormac Murphy O'Connor's views are as crazy as his name

On Local government today:

ToryDiary:

Eamonn Butler on Platform: Alan Walters provided an intellectual underpinning for Margaret Thatcher's economic policies

Seats and candidates: Search for 100 Peers: Rod Bluh

International: Merkel agrees to €50 billion stimulus package

Graeme Archer on CentreRight: "I was so incensed that there could be people alive who could not understand Thatcherite logic (control money supply, defeat inflation, ditto Scargill, lower taxes, Laffer curves, the lot), incensed in the way only a 15 year old can be, incensed to the extent that I would lie awake at night, grinding my teeth, aghast at the absurdities broadcast by The World Tonight, that I joined the North Ayrshire Young Conservatives. And then spent 23 years losing, gradually, bit by bit, almost all of that youthful certainty..."

"More than 20 million savers and pensioners would be better off under a £4.1 billion package of tax cuts unveiled by David Cameron" - Telegraph

"At last! Cameron pledges to help 20m 'innocent victims' of recession" - A big Daily Mail welcome to Tory tax announcement

"The Mail warmly welcomes his proposals. For isn’t it downright immoral that prudent savers are suffering, while the Government spends billions on bailing out reckless spenders and borrowers?" - Mail leader

"Tory leader David Cameron wants to scrap tax on savings for poor pensioners. This is a trend to be encouraged." - The Sun Says

The Telegraph: Labour should pinch Tory ideas on saving

"This is an important step in the right direction which will, we hope, lead to even more radical measures to limit the reach and cost of the state. Clearly, Mr Cameron is in no position to enact these measures – yet. It is not, however, unknown for Labour to steal the Tories' best policies. Well, there's a Budget in a few months – and these plans are well worth pinching." - Telegraph leader

Cut taxes now and spending (a lot more) later

"The idea behind the proposal – cut taxes and pay for them with large-scale cuts to public spending – is quite right. The timing is wrong. The tax cuts should come first, alongside a proposal to make more swingeing cuts to the state in 2010 or 2011 when the recession is over." - Richard Fletcher in The Telegraph

Polly Toynbee: Labour won't be able to tell people that Keynesianism worked

"The Confederation of British Industry, the International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development all urge Keynesian policies, with Barack Obama leading the way. Labour's serious problem is that no one will ever be able to prove whether what they did worked: if the recession is less deep, were these debts really necessary?" - Polly Toynbee in The Guardian

Despite sharp rhetoric there aren't yet big differences between Labour and the Conservatives - Must-read from Steve Richards in The Independent

On debt and against the bishops Gordon Brown is on the wrong side of moral arguments - Iain Martin in The Telegraph

The similarities between David Cameron and Alex Salmond - Alan Cochrane in The Telegraph

Scottish Tories recruit STV journalist Michael Crow as new Strategy Director - The Herald

Wiki profile | Watch him in action here

Commenting on the appointment, Andrew Fulton, Scottish Conservative Chairman, said: “I am delighted Michael has agreed to come on board as our Director of Strategy and Communications. As a journalist for fifteen years Michael brings with him a huge amount of media and political experience. He has worked for STV at both Westminster and Holyrood and is well respected by members of all political parties and his colleagues in the media.”

Nick Clegg's troubles

"Nick Clegg presided over a recent Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet meeting that one participant compared with “a village fête in the pouring rain where everyone fixes smiles like the sun is shining”." - Alex Barker in the FT overviews difficult times for the LibDems

Declining US confidence in Britain's Armed Forces is the biggest threat to the special relationship - Rachel Sylvester in The Times

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Posted on 06 January 2009 at 08:21 in January 2009's newslinks | Permalink | Comments (11)

Monday 5th January 2009

5.30pm WATCH: David Cameron announces tax reliefs for savers

4.30pm CentreRight updates:

Douglas Murray invites you to throw your shoes at Annie Lennox during her next concert.
Matt Sinclair notes a quote from Charles Krauthammer: "For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians."

2pm WATCH: George Bush Snr tells Fox News that he'd like Jeb Bush to run for the White House

1.15pm Tim Montgomerie on CentreRight: The Daily Mail's new 'Debate' blog

1pm Andrew Lilico on CentreRight: "Private capitalism, as we have come to know it - a system with private sector banks as major directers of business finance - has ceased."

Noon ToryDiary: Conservatives announce £4.2bn tax cut for savers

ToryDiary: Sometimes I want to shake the Prime Minister says David Cameron

Michael Fabricant MP on Platform: I have long defended the BBC but the World Service's coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict means I can no longer do so

Roger Evans on Local government looks at Why some councillors find it hard to leap into parliament

Seats and candidates: Search for 100 peers: Mimi Harker

Dan Hamilton on CentreRight: The EPP is to blame for putting Britain’s Working Time Directive opt-out in peril

WATCH: Video from Israel makes the case for acting against Hamas' rocket attacks

Shadow Cabinet revolt emerges over Cameron's plans to restore Ken Clarke to frontbench -Telegraph

> A ConservativeHome poll shows Tory members support a return for Clarke by 50% to 41%

The Conservatives must persuade the electorate that Brown is wrong about Big government - Janet Daley in The Telegraph

Recession could last until 2011 says Brown - Independent | The Sun

The Conservatives must usher in a new Age of Thrift

"Half the UK workforce has little or no savings. That's more than 13m people. Given the urgent need for financial stability – and the demographic pressures we face – that fact is a national disgrace. Messrs Cameron and Osborne know nothing of financial insecurity in their own lives – and never will. But they need rapidly to start realising how insecure the general public now feels. The Tories, quite simply, must call for, and usher in, a New Age of Thrift. Spend less. Save more. End excessive consumption. It sounds like a tough political sell. And yet, it's what the vast majority of the public now wants to hear. If the Tory leadership knew more about the way ordinary people think, they'd have worked that out for themselves." - Liam Halligan in The Telegraph

MPs seek tougher controls on ex-ministers' choice of financial interests - BBC | Times

Scottish Tories call for tougher literacy and numeracy testing in primary schools - BBC | The Herald

Pact with Conservatives puts Ulster Unionists at the centre of power - Johnny Andrews in the Belfast Telegraph

Labour minister backs £4.5bn rail hub for Heathrow - Guardian

The Times: Britain should stay outside the Euro

"The strongest objection to joining the eurozone, however, is political. EMU involves giving up monetary independence while retaining control over public finances. There is an unresolved tension in that arrangement. National governments are free not to comply with EMU's fiscal rules, but they would thereby undermine an arrangement designed to establish price stability." - Times leader

Sexual health clinics could soon be open in every secondary school and college - Daily Mail

Obama's choice of Commerce Secretary steps down after ethics questions - Telegraph

Obama's stimulus includes $300bn of tax cuts - New York Times

And finally...

A correspondent to The Herald provides a list of jobs that might really give William Hague and all MPs an insight into "the realities of life in both the public and private sector ": "Classroom assistant, hospital cleaner or porter, burger slinger in a major franchise, shelf-stacker or checkout person in a supermarket, street sweeper, parking attendant, prison visitor or call-centre employee."

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Posted on 05 January 2009 at 08:40 in January 2009's newslinks | Permalink | Comments (8)