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Thursday 16th October Today's top ConservativeHome features ToryDiary: Beat recession with 2% interest rates urges John Redwood Parliament: MPs might meet in QEII Centre during £350m renovation of Parliament Philip Walker on Platform: The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - echoes of the slave trade? Sir Cyril Taylor on Local government: How to really look after "Looked After Children" Seats and candidates: Finalists for Nuneaton International: Europe's centre right leaders back second term for Barroso Dan Hamilton on CentreRight: It all started with FannieMae Today's main news stories Michael Gove highlights educational inequality "The extent of educational inequality in England is laid bare today with figures showing that in one area of the country barely 3 per cent of children achieved five good GCSEs last year. In the highest-performing area 100 per cent of children achieved five good GCSEs, against a national average of 45.8 per cent." - Times Fraser Nelson: The Tories need an economic narrative "As Enoch Powell once observed, the electorate like a tune they can whistle and Mr Brown’s genius has always been to give them that tune. His ‘no more boom and bust’ motif has been replaced by ‘we all got the American blues’. The Tories have not yet composed a tune with which to compete. From the wreckage of his economic bubble, Mr Brown has blown a new political bubble and is floating gleefully inside it. It is no good for Mr Cameron to grumble that it can’t last. The thing about bubbles is that one never can tell when they will burst." - Spectator Good and bad economic news "The number of people out of work rose at the fastest rate for 17 years during the three months to the end of August as the economy teetered on the brink of recession." - FT "Petrol falls below £1 per litre for the first time since December and food prices tumble" - Daily Mail Frank Field: Labour have failed on welfare "300,000 new dealers under 25 have had to enrol twice on the course, 88,000 have enrolled for a third time, and more than 25,500 have started the scheme four or more times. The number of young people not in employment, education or training is at a record level, and 27,000 households with children have joined the workless roll since 2005. Half of all participants on the new deal for lone parents are repeating the scheme. So what of the other half of the welfare reform strategy, tax credits? This has cost taxpayers £69 billion, and yet most claimants, so to speak, have not followed the money into work. My feeling is that these credits have played an important part in raising the incomes of people already in work, but not in inducing a mass exodus from the welfare rolls.' - Frank Field in The Telegraph DFID under fire for wasting aid money "Millions of pounds of British aid to poor and war-torn countries has been wasted because of mismanagement and corruption, an official report reveals today. An investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO) found a series of expensive blunders by the Department For International Development (DFID)." - Independent Salmond predicts Glenrothes victory as SNP gather in Perth for Conference - BBC Conservative support down in Wales - Western Mail Sarkozy "seething" with Brown's leadership of Europe's response to financial crisis - Independent Sarah Palin seen as beacon of hope for Republicans as Obama heads for landslide win - Telegraph And finally... the Prescotts were never invited to Chequers by the Blairs ""We never got close to the Blairs," [John Prescott] says in a new BBC2 programme called Prescott: The Class System And Me to be broadcast on 27 October. He adds: "It just didn't happen. We were not their set; certainly we were not her set." - Independent | Sun Reflections on Canada's General Election International: At least Conservatives have won one North American election Douglas Carswell MP on CentreRight: "Sure, the Tories now hold office again in Ottawa. Yet a couple of days listening to state officials over here  convinces me Conservatives don’t hold power. Gramsci-like, the left’s long march through Canada’s institutions is triumphant. And unless Canada’s Tories recognise that the status quo is an anti-conservative ratchet, their victory last night means they’re treading water, at best.  They'll lose, even if they win the occasional election." Matt Sinclair on CentreRight: A referendum on green taxes returns a clear result Our main sites

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