Cameron to herald “land of opportunity” and declare “profit is not a dirty word”…
“In his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, the Prime Minister will contrast Tory support for aspiration with Labour’s threats of state control. “It is businesses that get wages in people’s pockets, food on their tables, hope for their families and success for the country,” he will say. “Profit, wealth creation, tax cuts, enterprise: these are not dirty elitist words.” – The Times (£)
- “David Cameron will promise to turn the UK into a “land of opportunity”, when he gives his closing speech to the Conservative Party conference later. He will pledge to improve education, reform welfare and enable businesses to create jobs as the economy recovers.” – BBC
- “What matters is the effort you put in, and if you put in the effort you’ll have the chance to make it,” Mr Cameron will say. “There is no short cut to a land of opportunity. No quick fix. No easy way to do it. You build it business by business, school by school, person by person.” – Daily Telegraph
- “Mr Cameron once promised to “let sunshine win the day”. For most voters a break in the clouds of decent duration would count as a good start.” – Editorial Daily Express
> Today: ToryDiary: Homes, jobs and savings for all – a message we want to hear from Cameron today
…but is attacked for using a break maker
“The flustered Tory PM revealed just how far removed from everyday life he is after being forced to admit he had no idea about the cost of bread. He said he could not put a price on a value sliced loaf – because he has a breadmaker. And the Eton-educated toff even admitted he uses posh flour costing more than £4 a bag. His comments came just 24 hours after the Mirror revealed in a shock poll that thousands of children are going to school too hungry to be taught.” – The Mirror
- “Told by presenter Nick Ferrari that the true cost was about 47p, he added: “Look, I’m trying to get my children to eat the sort of granary – and they take it actually, they like my homemade bread.” – The Guardian
- “This is the thing. Breadmaker bread is terrible. Electric breadmakers that claim to make bread as good as an artisan loaf, or what you could make at home with nothing more than an oven and a bit of elbow grease, are up there with those little tubs of UHT skimmed milk mixed with vegetable fat that claim to taste like fresh milk, or the margarine that can’t believe it’s not butter.” – Xanthe Clay Daily Telegraph
- “Mrs Cameron has already won acclaim for her cookery skills after she was pictured baking for Red Nose Day with the couple’s two older children in the Downing Street kitchen, which has recently been refurbished at a cost of £25,000. Labour rushed out a poster to highlight what it said was evidence that Mr Cameron was out of touch.” – The Times (£)
Gove steps up attack on The Blob…
“To the Education Secretary, the Blob is everywhere: in classrooms, universities, town halls, Whitehall, teaching unions, threatening to smother his school reforms with the sticky goo of oppositionist inertia. Certainly, those he calls the Blob have been active of late: writing to The Times yesterday demanding a halt to his reforms, calling last month for children to start school at 6 or 7, penning more letters earlier in the year attacking the new curriculum.” – The Times(£)
> Yesterday: ToryDiary: Michael Gove’s moral crusade for better education
…and blasts school strikes
“Michael Gove accused teaching unions of adopting a ‘twisted, militant logic’ to justify strikes that closed nearly 3,000 schools yesterday. The Education Secretary said it was bizarre that the NUT and NASUWT were striking over plans for performance-related pay that will see the best teachers paid more.” – Daily Mail
- “In Manchester Gove had introduced George Parker, a former teaching union official in Washington DC, who told the party members that
unions were unwilling to improve education through the adoption of performance-related pay… Among the speakers that shared a platform with Gove was Jo Morey, a mother from Bedford who burst into tears describing the opening of a free school in the town. She was followed on stage by her son Cashal, a student at Bedford Free School. “I’ll try not to cry now,” he said.” – The Guardian
- “Lindsay Johns protested that it was “massively condescending” to believe that children can only respond to Shakespeare’s plays if teachers are able to present them as “achingly cool”.” – The Independent
Hunt to make health regulator independent
“NHS inspectors will be given Bank of England-style independence, the Health Secretary said yesterday. Sharpening his attack on Labour for “covering up poor care”, Jeremy Hunt promised that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) would be given statutory independence to prevent political meddling in its inspections. Labour angrily denied the claims, accusing Mr Hunt of “desperate tactics”. ” – The Times(£)
IDS says we can learn from the Germans
“Later he told BBC Radio 4 that Britain could learn a lot from Germany when it comes to “profiling” unemployed people and identifying which need the most help to get back to work. He said: “This is learning from other people, it’s learning really from what the Germans do in profiling. I think we have been very poor at that in Britain. We tend to see everybody who is unemployed as just the same person and they are not.” Mr Duncan Smith has visited Germany to study its welfare reforms.” – Daily Express
> Yesterday: ToryDiary: My job hunt hothouse for workless people
Plea for UKIP supporters to return to Conservatives
“In an LBC interview, Mr Cameron said he regretted once describing Ukip supporters as “fruitcakes”, saying that he now needs to win those people back to the Conservatives. “Now is the time to go to those people who have gone to Ukip. I am appealing to them very directly.” – Daily Telegraph
Maria Miller denounces online porn
“An impassioned attack on the ‘pernicious effect’ of online porn was delivered by the Culture Secretary yesterday. Maria Miller warned that young boys who see explicit images risk growing up with a warped idea of how to treat girls.” – Daily Mail
- “A new £10 million fund is to be set aside to mark the UK’s most historic events, Culture Secretary Maria Miller has said. Speaking at The Conservative Party conference in Manchester this morning, Ms Miller said that Britain should not be ashamed about its role in the world and that the fund would be used to ensure the country’s history is told “generation after generation”.” – The Independent
Cameron would welcome return of Boris to Commons
“The Mayor admitted he was still “fudging” over whether he could return to the Commons in 2015, although he spoke last month of his regret of not being in the chamber in August when MPs debated military action in Syria. Mr Johnson was mobbed by activists and television crews in Manchester as he made his annual visit to the conference.” – The Independent
- “Something disconcerting has happened inside the Tory party. Peace has broken out between Boris Johnson and David Cameron. ..The British press cannot be expected to accept this outbreak of harmony without making determined efforts to destroy it. We thrive on rifts and rivalries.” – Andrew Gimson The Independent
- “Parties engaged in civil war don’t win elections. In that respect the Tories look better placed than Labour. Unity has been a theme of their Manchester conference. Boris has his arm around Dave. Dave has his arm around Boris.” – The Sun Says
- “David Cameron said he would ‘warmly welcome’ Boris Johnson back in Westminster ‘whenever’ he wants, with the promise of a top job in the Cabinet to follow. The Prime Minister’s intervention cleared the way for the Mayor of London to stand as an MP at the next election and puts in prime position to succeed Mr Cameron as Tory leader.” – Daily Mail
Today: Columnist Henry Hill: Boris leads the charge for metropolitan English devolution
Tories need the migrant vote
“A new study by the British Future think tank puts the problem in even starker perspective, showing that if just one in three ethnic minority voters had backed the Conservatives in 2010 the party would have won a majority government.” – Ian Birrell The Guardian
Osborne defends private schooling for his son
“He confirmed that he was sending Luke, his son, to a private school. “My son went to the school I went to. We thought that best for him . . . I’ve never tried to hold up my children as a symbol of my politics.” Mr Osborne’s office has previously confirmed that Luke Osborne attended Norland Place School in Kensington, where the Chancellor went before going to St Paul’s.” – The Times(£)
Ed Miliband v Daily Mail row continues
“Aged 45, Ralph Miliband wrote of his disdain for the British Establishment, saying it included: ‘Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, the great Clubs, the Times, the Church, the Army, the respectable Sunday papers … the House of Lords … social hierarchies, God save the Queen.’ ” – Daily Mail
- “The furious public argument between the Labour leader and the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, came against the backdrop of a possible government decision next week whether to reject the form of newspaper self-regulation being proposed by the industry.” – The Guardian
- “Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP, highlighted the newspaper’s support for fascism in the 1930s under the great-grandfather of the present proprietor. He said: “It’s odd for a newspaper to judge a man on the basis of the history of his family when that newspaper is owned by a family that did more to pursue the Nazi cause prewar than any other organ.” – The Times (£)
- Stalin’s Gulags and his left wing British apologists – Michael Burleigh Daily Mail
- Whether he hated Britain or not Ralph Miliband was one of the cold war bad guys – Benedict Brogan Daily Telegraph
- Labour demands apology – BBC
- Ed Miliband’s populism makes him the Tories’ Red Peril – Daily Telegraph
> Yesterday: Left Watch: For Ralph Miliband – like any Communist – British values could only be an anathema
News in brief
- David Cameron: “I am a feminist” – The Guardian
- Tory membership declining – Daily Telegraph
- Fewer complaints about water companies – BBC
- Lord Freud wants Pay Day lenders access to bank accounts restricted – The Guardian
- US shutdown halts Obama’s Malaysia trip – BBC
- HS2 “will boost economy by more than £15bn estimate” – Daily Telegraph
- Are lobbyists taking over Party Conferences – BBC
And finally…Kinnock ejected by stewards from his seat at Craven Cottage
“Neil Kinnock, the former leader of the Labour party, was ejected from his seat at a Barclays Premier League football match after upsetting fans with his goal celebrations. Lord Kinnock, 71, could not restrain himself when his beloved Cardiff City took the lead against Fulham at Craven Cottage on Saturday.” – The Times(£)