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Thursday 12th March 2009Britain's leading conservative blog Today's top ConservativeHome features ToryDiary: Andrew Mitchell wants Britain to stop sending financial aid to China Roger Helmer on Platform: The whole climate alarmist scare is a media-driven frenzy Seats and Candidates Search for 100 Peers: Stanley Fink Local Government: Warwickshire Council plans speed cameras without warnings Harrow Conservative councillor expelled Lib Dem leader of Cornwall Council quits after no confidence vote JP Floru on CentreRight: Brown and the EU must be blamed for the increasing number of jobs going abroad WATCH: Thousands united in yesterday silent vigils in Northern Ireland Sky News's highlights of yesterday's PMQs Today's other newslinks Coverage of yesterday's announcement that Conservative MEPs will leave the EPP before June's European election "Yesterday, Shadow Europe minister Mark Francois confirmed the Tories would withdraw from the EPP when the European Parliament dissolves ahead of the elections in June... Many Tories have been uncomfortable about aligning themselves with the EPP, which wants to see Europe adopting common immigration, defence, and foreign policy, and is opposed to Britain having a referendum on the EU Treaty." - Daily Mail "The Conservatives have been threatening to quit the EPP since David Cameron became party leader in 2006, with Hague regarded as an arch-exponent of a policy that critics and the opposition see as a move voluntarily pushing the party to the fringes of European politics." - Guardian "The move – fulfilling a pledge made by Mr Cameron in his successful campaign to be Tory leader – will delight the predominantly eurosceptic party faithful. Political rivals accused Mr Cameron of a move that could jeopardise Britain’s interests if his party won national power." - FT > You read this news first here on ConservativeHome yesterday morning David Cameron thanks the Commons for its messages of sympathy... "Grieving David Cameron returned to the Commons yesterday to thank wellwishers in the wake of son Ivan’s death. The Tory leader told hushed MPs he and wife Samantha received thousands of messages of support from the public. And he thanked PM Gordon Brown for his comments that “came straight from the heart” two weeks ago when Ivan, six, died. He added: “It meant a great deal to Samantha and I.” - The Sun ...and demands an inquiry into Binyam Mohamed's allegations of torture "David Cameron has called for a senior judge to investigate claims that British intelligence agents colluded in the torture of terrorist suspects. The Tory leader's intervention piles further pressure on the Prime Minister, who has refused to sanction a full judicial inquiry into accusations involving former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed... "We all want to eradicate the potential stain on Britain's reputation, but the question is whether an investigation into criminal conduct by the Attorney General is enough," he said. "We need to look at what procedures and processes are in place to ensure that Britain cannot knowingly or unknowingly be implicated in torture." - Independent > Yesterday's ToryDiary on a subdued PMQs Owen Paterson: "The actions of a small number of violent criminals must not be allowed to provoke anyone to undo the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland" "Despite the progress that has been made, Northern Ireland still has some way to go before normal security arrangements are appropriate. Parts of Northern Ireland remain more divided than ever. I have seen peace walls being extended in contentious inner city areas. Gangs are involved in extensive fuel smuggling, drug running and racketeering. So-called ‘loyalist’ paramilitaries have yet to decommission and remain involved in criminality... An unrepresentative minority of dissidents are determined to undo the good work of the past fifteen years. It is incumbent on us all to respond to these shocking murders by going about our business normally but with increased vigilance; there should be no sudden or precipitate changes in policy. The good work of recent years must continue." - Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson writing on the Daily Telegraph website IDS advises US Republicans on how to rebrand "Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative party leader, has briefed influential Republicans on how their party can fight back by learning from David Cameron's Tories. In an address to the Heritage Foundation, one of Washington's pre-eminent conservative think tanks, entitled "Conservatism and Society", he argued that there were "compelling parallels" between his party's predicament in 1997 and the Republican party's current situation. Mr Duncan Smith said that Conservatives after 1997 and Republicans now both had "reputations for sleaze, incompetence and narrowness of interest" while there was more than a passing similarity between Tony Blair and President Barack Obama." - Daily Telegraph Tory Primary result in Bethnal Green and Bow overruled "Tories hoping to snatch Left Wing MP George Galloway’s constituency in London’s East End at the next General Election have scrapped the results from the open ‘primary’ they held. A ballot of local party members failed to endorse the candidate selected at the earlier open ‘primary’ meeting... The association was hit by “concerns over organisational issues” in the run-up to the primary held at a church hall in Stepney’s Commercial Road. So party officials declared the result null and void." - East London Advertiser > Yesterday's Seats and Candidates post on the Bethnal Green and Bow non-selection Edward Leigh brands offender tracking project a "spectacular failure" "A 'masterclass in sloppy project management' led to the failure of a huge government computer system designed to track inmates through the prison and probation system, it was claimed yesterday. Public spending watchdogs attacked spiralling costs and delays in the National Offender Management information system (C-Nomis). The £234m system had been designed to track offenders "end to end" through prison and the probation service. But within two years the C-Nomis project was two years behind schedule and its cost increased to £690m, the National Audit Office found. Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said the project had been a "spectacular failure". -Independent Review of creative industries to form basis of Tories’ election manifesto "David Cameron wants to outflank Labour on new technology and make the UK the "creative industries capital of the world" if the Conservatives win the next General Election. Tory HQ believes that the recent report on Digital Britain from Communications Minister Lord Carter lacked proper detail and ambition... One Tory source said: "Just as London beat off the competition to become the leading financial centre, we believe Britain can become the creative industries' capital of the world"... The review of the creative industries, announced by Mr Cameron in January, will be launched next month and will form the basis of the Tories' election manifesto." - The Herald Tories suggest shifting some NHS funding to social care budgets "Redirecting NHS funding to social care budgets should be a key part of the government's upcoming green paper, shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien has insisted. However, Mr O'Brien stressed that shifting NHS funding to social care was not a Conservative policy commitment." - Local Government Chronicle Fraser Nelson: Our newly nationalised banks are being politicised "The worlds of banking and politics have collided, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that we have just witnessed what the financiers call a reverse takeover. The money flows suggest that it is not the taxpayers owning the banks, but the banks who own the taxpayers. Their losses are now our problem. As John Redwood puts it, Britain has become a mammoth bank attached to a struggling medium-sized government. And this, lest we forget, is what David Cameron will inherit." - Fraser nelson writing in The Spectator Iain Martin: Gordon Brown broke Lloyds, and it should break him "The catastrophe at Lloyds-HBOS is the ultimate New Labour scandal. It has the lot: cronyism, back-scratching, destructive micromanaging by Gordon Brown and an unimaginably large loss of public money... Brown wanted to avoid the collapse of HBOS because it could have taken him down with it. And Sir Victor [Blank] can only have wanted to be helpful and become, in the process, a titan of finance. Protestations about the public interest are hokum. Now we are left holding a bill of £80 billion or more for their selfishness and ineptitude. The term "national scandal" suffers from overuse, but if this is not one worthy of the name, I do not know what is." - Iain Martin in the Daily Telegraph New report from Lord Laming on child protection will suggest there was insufficient action on his previous recommendations - Guardian Mandelson admits that negotiations over help for carmakers have gone too slowly - Times A school playing field was sold every day last year - The Sun Brown looks to Obama to rescue a demoralised Labour Party - Times