5.30pm CentreRight: Charles Tannock MEP on the importance of the next European elections and Samuel Coates on five political lessons from social psychology
3.45pm ToryDiary: Stephen Crabb MP questions Jacqui Smith’s openness to deporting gay Iranian asylum seekers
3.30pm PlayPolitical: Miliband comments on Tsvangarai standing down and Ricky Gervias provides the voiceover for a short campaign video about the Burmese regime
1pm ToryDiary: Highlights from Cameron’s monthly press conference
ToryDiary: The statement Boris should have made: I will not throw a good man to the wolves
9.30am Douglas Carswell MP on CentreRight: Why I want Obama to win
Local government: Councils are using surveillance powers to stop misuse of disabled parking badges and against littering
Nick Gulliford on Platform: The Government could be doing much more to encourage strong relationships
On CentreRight:
- Cameron Watt highlights a speech by Iain Duncan Smith about social housing’s role in creating "social apartheid"
- Alex Deane on the extreme left-wing politics between the anti-BNP protestors
"Boris Johnson aide forced to quit as race remarks stir new storm"
"One of Boris Johnson’s most senior advisers was forced to resign last night after he plunged the Mayor of London into another racial controversy, saying that immigrant blacks could leave if they did not like the Tory administration." – Times
OUR REACTION: Reason and fairness are the first casualties when someone is accused of racism
Brown blames Margaret Thatcher for social immobility
Gordon Brown will today blame Margaret Thatcher for Britain’s low rates of social mobility and accuse the former Conservative Prime Minister of creating a lost generation by "denying many children the chance to progress" – Telegraph
Growing number of Tories facing ethics questions
Liam Fox faces questions for failing to double register donations – Times
The Mirror lists five shadow cabinet ministers facing questions: Alan Duncan, Liam Fox, Philip Hammond, Andrew Mitchell and Caroline Spelman.
"MPs could be handed an annual lump-sum allowance worth more than £20,000 to pay for their second homes, travel and other costs without having to provide receipts, under plans to be unveiled this week." – Telegraph
"MPs could receive pay rises of about £40,000 a year in return for scrapping their controversial second homes allowance." – Scotsman
Has Michael Gove declared peace with grammar schools?
Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail: "Mr Gove insists that his words betoken no change to that policy. But choosing Mr Brady’s constituency to declare that it would be ‘foolish not to learn’ lessons for the state system from the success of grammars (and other good schools) was surely not accidental. Mr Brady clearly thinks the gesture signals a new willingness at least to discuss whether it is practical to allow an element of selection in schools. If so, this is not before time."
Janet Daley: It wasn’t decontamination wot did it
"Now for the second myth of the past year: that the success of the Cameron Conservatives is attributable to the great modernising project in which they "detoxified the Conservative brand" and "reinvented the party’s image". (Or is it "reinvented the brand" and "detoxified the image"? Whatever.) Let’s get one historical fact absolutely straight. What transformed the party’s standing and turned the opinion polls on their heads was George Osborne’s announcement at the last party conference that the next Conservative government would cut inheritance tax." – Janet Daley in The Telegraph
Tories must break strikes or strikes will break them – Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun
"The staffing problems that do exist in the public sector are not there because national pay scales are too meagre but because collective bargaining prevents the government offering more money to people who are good at their jobs, who have specialised skills or who live in expensive areas." – FT leader
Darling wants everyone to limit pay rises to 2% – Guardian
Reduce taxes to tackle rising energy bills – Telegraph leader
Conservative MP David MacLean seeks mass cull of grey squirrels – ePolitix
Iran is safe for discreet gays – Independent
Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary and visit PoliticsHome.com for breaking political news and views throughout the day.
Please use the thread below to provide links to news topics likely to be of interest to ConservativeHome readers and to comment on political topics that haven’t been given their own blog. Read our comments policy.
Share this article: