8.30pm ToryDiary: Boris says Labour has lost the moral authority to govern
5.15pm ToryDiary: Brown to write letters of personal apology to the targets of McBride's smears
4.15pm Tim Montgomerie on CentreRight: Sky's political blogs aren't pulling their punches
1.30pm WATCH: Nadine Dorries says Gordon Brown is ultimately responsible for Damian McBride's behaviour
1pm Four years of ConservativeHome
10.30am WATCH: Nadine Dorries MP tells Sky News that she is talking to lawyers about Labour attempts to smear her
ToryDiary: The winners and losers from Fawkes v McBride
Local government: Town halls should prepare to tighten their belts
Martin Sewell on Platform: We must trust the professional judgments of those involved in child protection (and not shackle them to procedures designed to protect the bureaucracy)
Ridley Grove on CentreRight: The Right should not get too close to Guido Fawkes
Cameron demands apology from Brown
"Gordon Brown was coming under intense pressure last night to apologise personally for the 'e-mail smears' scandal. David Cameron was said to be 'absolutely furious' that the Prime Minister had failed to make clear there was no truth in the allegations about senior Tories which a key aide planned to make public." – Daily Mail
"To the Prime Minister's left, right and at his feet, the bully boys sit around the fire wondering whose life and career they can destroy next. And whilst they fiddle and concentrate their efforts on ensuring Gordon Brown retains office at whatever cost, Rome burns." – Nadine Dorries MP in The Independent
> Yesterday's ToryDiary: Pressure builds on Brown to apologise for the McBride affair
Jackie Ashley: Gordon Brown's vicious side is now clear to the whole country
"It's too late for the prime minister to shrug off McBride with expressions of surprise and horror, as if he'd been walking around with a portly vulture on his shoulder for years without noticing. McBride was as inner circle as it gets. If the prime minister didn't know what he was up to, he should have done." – Jackie Ashley in The Guardian
Are there more damaging McBride emails to come?
"There are rumours of further e-mails that could be used to embarrass not only government figures but journalists as well. Members of the media are said to be named in e-mails from Mr McBride, which could raise questions over how close some journalists became to No 10." – Sam Coates in The Times
Iain Dale offers some advice to Gordon Brown
"If Gordon Brown really wants to bring about a new era at Downing Street, he can do several things – take away Alastair Campbell's pass which gives him free access to the building; reshuffle Tom Watson out of Number Ten; but most significantly of all, tell Derek Draper his services as editor of LabourList are no longer required." – Iain Dale in The Telegraph
Alastair Campbell: Tories don't want the debate to be about policy
"David Cameron and George Osborne are unfit to govern, not because of any old photos, real or imagined, or visits to clinics, but because they don’t know what they want to do with power and are simply hoping Labour hand it over on a plate. They are never happier than when talking about process and personality, as a means of avoiding policy and principle, so Mr McBride has played right into their hands, even if Iain Dale is going over the top in trying to say it makes Gordon Brown look like Richard Nixon." – Alastair Campbell in The Times
In the Daily Mail Peter Obone says Alastair Campbell is the real author of Labour's
squalid style of politics.
Lance Price: The tittle-tattle of blogs
"When you are in government, seeking to defend your record and persuade a sceptical electorate of your fitness to carry on, the risks of engaging in the kind of tittle-tattle favoured by many blogs will always outweigh any possible advantages. It is frustrating seeing yourselves slagged off with apparent impunity on a minute-by-minute basis, but getting down and dirty with your opponents is no solution." – Lance Price in The Guardian
Why Conservative blogs are proving ever more popular – Matthew Taylor in The Guardian
"The other most successful British blogs are also on the centre-right. They are independent in that they are not owned by large media companies, and are very often simply the product of an inventive brain, good contacts and access to a laptop." – Iain Martin in The Telegraph
"Labour lacks the high-profile equivalent of a Conservativehome – a site for party activists that focuses at least as much on policy discussion as gossip. Somewhat ironically, it is this void that Mr Draper was drafted in to fill with Labourlist – an initiative now overshadowed by a misconceived attempt to wage a dirty political war using the web." – Jean Eaglesham in the FT
David Cameron's plan to trim the House of Commons by 10% is welcome but should go further – Telegraph leader
Union members should be comfortable with the Conservative Party
Richard Balfe, the Conservative Party's envoy to the trade union movement, told The Times: "There is no plan in the Conservative party to repeal any of the trade union rights. If there were, Peter Mandelson could be relied on to do that for us. He is no more friendly to trade unions than any average Tory minister from the past. If you look at David Cameron’s policies on parental leave and family friendly issues we will probably be in the market for extending trade union rights in that area.”
The Times also publishes a feature on Richard Balfe's work: Why some unions still see red when wooed by Richard Balfe
Alan Johnson to warn that Tory plans could produce indebted hospitals
"Johnson will say: "David Cameron says he cares about the NHS but the danger is in the detail." The plan, he says, puts essential NHS services at risk of repossession. "The Tories talk tough on controlling debt but their own plans would risk unleashing billions of pounds of uncontrolled debt into the heart of our NHS, with nobody to step in if hospitals went bust". Under Cameron, hospitals "would be used as collateral for raising unlimited debt"." – Guardian | FT
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged to ensure every young person has done 50 hours of voluntary work by the time they are 19 years old – BBC
Speaker Martin under fire for £8,000 taxpayer-funded 'jolly' with his wife to Dubai – Daily Mail
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