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Wednesday 21 January 2009Britain's leading conservative blog Today's top ConservativeHome features ToryDiary: Who else should be in the shadow cabinet? All Tory MPs will be ordered to fight Labour attempts to keep expenses secret Dominic Raab on Platform: Exposing this Government's assault on our historic liberties Seats and candidates: Search for 100 Peers: Professor Karol Sikora Andrew Lilico on CentreRight: What Gregory House has to teach us about the banking crisis Tom Greeves takes the BBC to task for its coverage of Obama's Inauguration The BBC should learn that it's rude to interrupt. Meanwhile, David Cameron attempts to claim similarities between the Obama and Tory messages. Today's other newslinks The Financial Times welcomes Ken Clarke's return "George Osborne, shadow chancellor, has not had a good war. Mr Clarke, by contrast, has sounded less shrill and more weighty. Of course his title cannot be “shadow shadow chancellor”, but he will surely make his presence felt well beyond his formal responsibilities. Already he has warned that standing on a platform of tax cuts would be asking for trouble. This is a bracing dose of realism." - FT leader  Unemployment increase today will take total close to two million - Sky Treasury minister warns that banking crisis could last for ten years - The Sun ...but the Commons fails to debate the economic crisis: "The last time MPs debated the state of the economy was on November 26, when the Conservatives forced an emergency three-hour debate on Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report. In the intervening two months, the value of the pound has plunged, tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, Woolworths has gone bust and the Government has been forced into a second, colossally expensive bail-out of a crippled banking system. Voters are rightly furious at the behaviour of the banks and the billions in taxpayers' money being poured into them. Yet the people who are paid to give voice to that anger, Members of Parliament, have been largely silent. The failure of the House of Commons to rise to the challenge of our most serious post-war economic crisis has been shameful." - Telegraph leader Simon Heffer warns Gordon Brown that voters' rage is coming "The public has rumbled Mr Brown, and he is the focus of their anger. As worse horrors occur in the months ahead voters will have more yet to remember him by. He can, in his dishonourable way, avoid accountability for another 16 months if he wishes. Yet the longer he waits to take his punishment, the worse it will be. If he doubts that, let him ask John Major." - Simon Heffer in The Telegraph Nick Clegg: Prepare to scrap the pound - FT "In an interview with the Financial Times, he said public opinion could “turn on its head” and swing against the pound as the “sheer brutality” of the crisis prompted the public to yearn for the stability offered by the eurozone." Labour MPs blame Tories for Commons vote that interrupted Obama's big speech - Guardian Gordon Brown's hope of early summit with Obama fade - FT | John Kampfner "He may be the President who contains America's overseas adventures to ensure that what it starts, it can finish, who manages its transition from sole superpower to the sharing of world leadership, who understands the constaints imposed on the state and public purse by the colossal financial crisis that is engulfing us, who prefers moderation to the enumeration of a new doctrine. Mr Obama's election has widely been seen as ushering in a new era of ambition and optimism. Prepare for quite the opposite." - Daniel Finkelstein in The Times Home Office distances itself further from Damian Green raid "The top Home Office civil servant warned the Metropolitan police they had better have sufficient evidence when officers told him they intended to search the offices and homes of Conservative MP Damien Green as part of a Whitehall leak inquiry. Sir David Normington told MPs at the Commons home affairs committee yesterday he was "extremely surprised" when Scotland Yard rang to tell him the search of the shadow immigration minister's parliamentary office was under way and in a second phone call that he had been arrested." - Guardian Public Accounts Committee seeks transparent criteria for selecting peers - BBC Tessa Jowell’s estranged husband ‘took $600,000 bribe from Silvio Berlusconi’ - Times Our main sites Homepage. ToryDiary. Seats and candidates. Local government. Parliament. Platform. CentreRight. International. PlayPolitical videos.

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