5pm Andrew Lilico on Comment: Abandoning all respect for property rights won't end happily
1.15pm ToryDiary: Hindu Voters = Natural Conservatives
12.15pm ToryDiary Hard-working children deserve a summer holiday
11.30am Lord Lexden on Comment: If we study how Conservatives honoured Disraeli, we will learn how they can honour Margaret Thatcher
ConservativeHome leads with two items drawn from a new Lord Ashcroft poll:
Iain Dale's Friday Diary: Amidst the silence of St Mary's Undercroft, I touched Margaret Thatcher's coffin – and said thank you
Local Government:
The Deep End: The lost tribes of British politics – day five: the palaeo-conservatives, Blue Labour and the Red Tories
UK and IMF square up for high noon on austerity as George Osborne defends Plan A
"The Chancellor is said by aides to be prepared to “aggressively” defend his
policies when an IMF team arrives in London to make an annual assessment of the
British economy, and is prepared to defy their recommendations if necessary. Mr Osborne fears that an anti-austerity faction is winning
an internal IMF power struggle and that the Fund will hand the opposition
Labour party a propaganda tool by formally urging him to relax his fiscal
plans. – Financial Times (£)
> Yesterday: ToryDiary – Yesterday’s jobs figures were foreseeable but still troubling
Michael Gove says that long
school summer holidays should be consigned to history
"The
Education Secretary said it was wrong that terms were still scheduled for a
time when children were needed to help out on farms and most mothers
stayed-at-home. And
he warned of more strikes ahead, accusing unions of lacking ambition and
putting the needs of teachers before those of children in their care. –
Daily Mail
Fraser Nelson: could the Education Secretary’s schools
revolution be just another false start?
"Mr
Gove was simply saying aloud something that most of the Cabinet wonder in
private: that if the bookmakers are right, and Mr Miliband wins the next
election, will the Coalition have a legacy? Some Cabinet members refer to a
“2015 strategy”, which is nothing to do with an election and everything to do
with tying the hands of a future Labour administration. What defensive
mechanisms are in place, to defend the best of the Coalition’s achievements?
With education, another question looms: what if Mr Gove were to be moved to
another department? Would his reforms continue? – Daily Telegraph
Hunt pledges to halt health tourists
"A plan being drawn up by Jeremy Hunt would only allow people entitled to live in the UK to get full NHS numbers. Foreigners who are not British residents would instead get temporary numbers that only allow access to emergency care. It comes weeks after a top surgeon warned health tourists are costing the NHS billions a year." – The Sun
Reckless to May: You've surrendered to Europe over Abu Qatada
"In a heated exchange during a Home Affairs
Committee hearing, the MP for Rochester and Strood told her: “The reason
we have not been able to get rid of Abu Qatada is because you have
refused to test the law on this. “The problem is
you are refusing to seek to send him back because you prefer to put
yourself down before Strasbourg and have this continuing craven
surrender to the European court when even our own court says under the
European Convention he can be sent back.” – Daily Express
Loughton to Cameron (via the House Magazine): Number 10 is "unhelpful" and Cameron "oblivious"
"Mr Loughton, who lost his job in last September’s reshuffle, disclosed the
shortcomings in the way the Prime Minister’s officials and closest advisers
and operate in an interview with the House magazine. “I’m sure he was quite oblivious to some of the things that were going on and
there should be much more regular meetings between ministers and Number 10
and the PM,” he said." – Daily Telegraph
Lord Ashcroft's latest evidence of Conservative failure with ethnic minorities
"Lord Ashcroft said: ‘We must do better than this – both because we should be a party for the whole country, and because we will find it increasingly difficult to win a majority without them…he released details of a poll showing that ethnic minority voters share the Tory creed that ‘if you work hard, it is possible to be very successful in Britain’. But when asked which party shares their values, they opt for Labour by a margin of more than two to one." – Daily Mail
> Today:
Labour bets the house with pledge to
outspend Tories: Miliband rejects lesson of 1997
when Tony Blair promised to match the Tories' budget limits
"Labour is preparing to fight the 2015
election on a bold but risky pledge to spend more than the Conservatives. Ed Miliband and Ed Balls will reject the
more cautious approach – adopted by Tony Blair in 1997 – of sticking to the
Tory government’s public spending limits in favour of a “new economic
settlement” for Britain." – The Independent
Lord Howe: Thatcher was like Napoleon…
"He cited Napoleon saying that the greatest happiness to befall any
politician was that 100 years from their death they would still have
enemies. “Margaret would hope for and expect no less,” he wrote in an
obituary for The House Magazine. Lord Howe said that
it remained “a source of deep sorrow” that her “misjudgments” on Europe
and the poll tax had cost her the support of her Cabinet." – The Times (£)
…But as Cameron prepares to launch the Conservative local election campaign, a Cabinet Minister says that he must ditch modernisation and go Thatcherite
"Mr Cameron won the leadership promising to modernise the party, but one
Cabinet minister said it should now “move on” to more “traditional”
Conservative issues such as welfare reform and immigration control. “The
'toxic’ issue has been neutralised,” the minister said. “Now we can move on
to the red meat Conservative issues.” – Daily Telegraph
Samuel Brittan: There IS no such thing as society
"Thatcher meant, I believe, that people should first try to solve their own problems and those of their families and friends, and only as a last resort rely on government. The government is simply a mechanism with which people can help each other and force would-be free riders to make a contribution. I interpreted her remarks as an expression of methodological individualism (although I pity any speech writer who sought to persuade her to say those words)." – Financial Times
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