Britannia Radio

Monday 29th September  Britain's leading conservative blog Conference Monday's top features ToryDiary: Tories promise 45 minute rail link to Birmingham (but not until 2027) Bob Neill MP on local government: Local policies for local people Louise Bagshawe on CentreRight: Is the ICC big enough? Watch: Highlights of first day of Tory Conference Watch: You can't tax and regulate your way out of recession says Boris AmericaInTheWorld: Can American support for embattled allies risk war as well as prevent it? Today's newslinks Conservatives promise UK GI Bill "Service men and women will go into schools to mentor young tearaways, while troops will receive free teacher training and university tuition." - Telegraph | BBC Boris Johnson promises to freeze his share of London council tax "This year the precept stands at £309.82 for an average, Band D home - a rise of 152 per cent since 2001 - amounting to nearly half of the £681 bill in the borough of Wandsworth, and just under a quarter of Hackney's charge of £1,308.27." - Telegraph Boris jokes at expense of George W Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger - The Sun Tax and spending debate "Criticism of George Osborne, shadow chancellor, will be restricted to a few of the more extreme "usual suspects" at fringe events, a leading potential rebel forecast. "I'd be very surprised if we have grown-up serious people agitating this week," he stated. But he warned "the debate on tax has not really kicked off yet . . . it will come in time, particularly if our poll lead starts to slip badly". Another senior rightwinger echoed this sentiment, angered by Mr Cameron's assertion yesterday that the debate on whether to offer tax cuts had been closed." - FT Osborne's Office of Budget Responsibility could be used to counter the tax-cutters - Fraser Nelson, Spectator "Will Conservative reforms of education and welfare - central parts of Mr Cameron's platform - still be affordable with the Tory leader insisting (correctly) that his first priority is to reduce debt?" - Times leader "But if we’re all going to be pulling in our belts and finding savings, why not start with the bloated public sector. Six million people — one in four of the workforce — are employed by the State, some as little more than interfering busybodies. Thousands of diversity officers, smoking police and five-a-day diet advisers are effectively “the hidden unemployed” — paper-carrying drones whose absence would go unnoticed. Entire Whitehall departments have no useful purpose — not least the DTI, which Labour itself came close to scrapping." - Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun City regulation "David Cameron backed curbs on City bonuses as part of a crackdown on financial regulation, but pledged to avoid “bashing the financiers” rhetoric, as he sought on Sunday to regain the political initiative in the markets crisis." - FT Tories under fire for accepting cash from City 'wolves' who made a killing from financial crash - Daily Mail Capitalism is under attack - and Cameron is steadfast in defence - Janet Daley in The Telegraph "When Gordon Brown talks of the age of irresponsibility, he is not the answer to the age of irresponsibility; he is its definition." - Guardian report on William Hague's speech to Conference Let Parliament debate the British bailout - Telegraph leader 'It's not policies that the Tories need, but a bit of gravitas' - Bruce Anderson in The Independent "I accept Cameron does good mood. He smiles at the right time, frowns at the right time, wheels out his family at the right time, keeps his head down at the right time. But this is the week the hiding from policy will have to stop, and the reliance on style has to give way to a focus on substance." - Alistair Campbell in The Sun William Rees-Mogg: The best Tory team for fifty years "In most of his recent speeches and interviews, David Cameron has spoken about the significance of the Conservative team. His young group at the top of the party are indeed “the brightest and best” the party can produce. Mr Cameron himself is only 41; his Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is only 47, with four year's experience as Leader of the Opposition behind him; his Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, is only 37; the Tories' one-man think-tank, Michael Gove, is another 41-year-old. One might have to go back to 1951 to find a comparable team." - William Rees-Mogg in The Times Our main sites

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