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Monday 1st December 2008Britain's leading conservative blog Today's top ConservativeHome features Richard Bacon on Platform: The Speaker has let us down in something of incalculable importance ToryDiary: Should Conservatives back more power for Holyrood? Lord Hanningfield in Local Government: How we are helping Essex through the recession AmericaInTheWorld: George W Bush - I want to be remembered for liberating fifty million people International: Canada's Left seeks to unite to topple Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government Weekend highlights from ConservativeHome City of Durham selects youngest ever Tory parliamentary candidate: "19-year-old Nick Varley, who was selected yesterday [Saturday] to contest City of Durham at the general election, becomes, I believe, the youngest ever Conservative candidate to be standing for a parliamentary seat at Westminster." Mark Wallace asks why only Hammersmith and Fulham is cutting council tax: "There is an arrogant consensus across vast swathes of local government that council tax rises are inevitable – desirable, even – and the people will just have to put up with it... The H&F success story arms all of us with the necessary weapons to demand better, wherever we live." Ben Rogers on the Damian Green arrest: "I am usually very cautious about comparing incidents in this country with those in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. I work with dissidents from countries like Burma who have experienced the very worst possible violations of human rights... However, the arrest of Damian Green has caused me to reconsider that rule." Paul Goodman blogs from Delhi: "I wrote yesterday that parts of the Indian media are claiming that responsibility for the Mumbai atrocity lies with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.  This is now the consensus view here - and also in Britain, as far as I can see. It may be wrong, or at least not the full story." Today's newslinks Police accuse Damian Green of orchestrating up to 20 leaks "Detectives accused Damian Green of "grooming" a young civil servant during questioning over the leaking of up to 20 Home Office documents, according to a senior Conservative... In a welter of briefings from police, ministers, civil servants and Commons officials, the most incendiary came from a senior Conservative who said that Mr Green was accused of "grooming his contact" during his nine-hour detention on Thursday. "Damian was very angry at this clear attempt to provoke him and did not reply. As a party we want to make it clear that this was grossly inappropriate but symptomatic of the cack-handed way the police have conducted this investigation." - Times Doubts raised about what Jacqui Smith says she knew "Miss Smith stubbornly refused to condemn the treatment of David Cameron's migration spokesman, insisting that Ministers' first duty was to 'uphold the independence of police'. She also denied knowing that the Home Office leak inquiry was targeting a Tory MP... Miss Smith's denial of any advance knowledge was swiftly challenged by Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve, who came close to accusing her of lying. Mr Grieve said: 'The most important is about what the Home Secretary knew. 'I found her answers extremely unconvincing. I think she knew that there was an MP involved in this investigation and she just decided to sit back on her hands." - Daily Mail Speaker will address Commons on Wednesday... "Michael Martin, the speaker of the House of Commons, is to make a statement to MPs about the arrest of Damian Green amid Tory suggestions that the parliamentary authorities were misled by the police." - Guardian ...as David Davis rallies support for a challenge to Martin's authority... "David Davis has placed himself at the head of a cross-party campaign to challenge the Speaker over his role in the police raids on Damian Green. The Tory bruiser has set up a Commons showdown on Wednesday - when MPs gather for the first time since Mr Green's arrest to debate the Queen's Speech." - Daily Mail ...and a senior Labour backbencher says that  heads should roll "If the Speaker has doubts he should consult privy councillors rather than take the decision on his own... If not, then the Commons must assert its rights on behalf of the people who send us to Parliament." - Denis Macshane writing in the Daily Telegraph Harman voices her concerns over Green arrest... "Harriet Harman yesterday broke Government ranks to join a chorus of concern at the arrest of Tory MP Damian Green in connection with a leak inquiry. She said there were some "very big constitutional principles" that needed to be safeguarded, including MPs' right to do their jobs without interference from the law." - Daily Express ...as Trevor Kavanagh admits he has now been converted to the cause of civil libertarianism "I used to think ID cards were a good thing. Along with CCTV cameras and DNA databanks. Even, at a pinch, 90-day detention. What law-abiding citizen could object to these new weapons against terrorists, rapists and murderers? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Not any more." - Trevor Kavanagh writing in The Sun Bruce Anderson: Parliament's rights are under threat "As we learned about the harassment of Damian Green and his family, a lot of us wondered whether we were still living in Great Britain, or whether our country, which was once synonymous with its people's freedom, had ceased to exist." - Bruce Anderson in The Independent Jackie Ashley: Jacqui Smith failed in her first duty "At the heart of the government's dismal mishandling of the Damian Green affair is its woeful failure to grasp the proper relationship between elected authority and the police. Again and again yesterday, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she knew nothing, because it was "right" that the police should be "independent"... Smith should have found out what was being contemplated by the police and then intervened to stop it. Far from being "Stalinist", that would have been the proportionate, liberal and sensible thing. Having failed to do that, she should then have apologised to Green." - Jackie Ashley in The Guardian > Yesterday's ToryDiary coverage of Jacqui Smith's refusal to apologise and the TV interviews done by Dominic Grieve and Harriet Harman You're off your heads, Tory peer tells advocates of greater tax powers "The former Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth made a scathing attack yesterday on the Calman Commission's investigation into extra powers for the Scottish Parliament, claiming that those pursuing the notion were "off their heads". Lord Forsyth of Drumlean dismissed the idea of the devolution review being carried out at a time of economic turmoil. "I think it's amazing when the house is on fire that people are wondering if it might be a good idea to raise more taxes in Scotland," he said. "I think they are off their heads." - Times Swedish schools expert tells Tories: You're not going far enough "The Conservatives will be warned today they would be wrong to refuse to allow Swedish-style independent "free" schools to make a profit out of private education. That would be "a terrific mistake", said Mikael Sandstrom, the Swedish Prime Minister's senior adviser. "The profit motive is good for making schools less selective." - Independent Labour creates 'Soviet' boroughs where half of residents work for the state "An analysis of Government figures has shown 10 areas where more than 40 per cent of the workforce is employed in the public sector. It suggests that the 1.3 million jobs created in health, education and public administration between 1998 and 2006 is helping mask the loss of 1.1million jobs in traditional industries." - Daily Telegraph Mandelson oversees rewrite of Queen's Speech "The Queen's Speech is being hastily rewritten to put fighting the economic crisis at the heart of Gordon Brown's last full programme before a General Election. Peter Mandelson - until recently a Government pariah - is overseeing final work to 'recession proof' Wednesday's announcements so they do not include moves that might harm business or the consumer." - Daily Mail Jose Manuel Barroso: UK "closer" to joining the Euro "The UK is "closer than ever before" to joining the euro, according to the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso. Speaking on a French radio show, he said British politicians were considering the move because of the effects of the global credit crunch." - BBC "Dark comedy" portrays Thatcher funeral - Telegraph Condoleezza Rice in London today - BBC Cost of Bloody Sunday Inquiry reaches £250million - Independent And finally... the latest initiative to tackle binge-drinking "Forget tougher sentences and more bobbies on the beat, the latest weapon in the war on drunk yobs is... bubble blowing. Revellers at pubs and clubs will be handed bubble-blowers with the aim of channelling over-boisterous behaviour into harmless fun... But the latest initiative has been condemned as a 'nursery school gimmick' and a waste of taxpayers' money." - Daily Mail Our main sites Homepage. ToryDiary. Seats and candidates. Local government. Parliament. Platform. CentreRight. International. PlayPolitical videos.

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