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Thursday 7th May 2009Britain's leading conservative blog Today's top ConservativeHome features ToryDiary: Are we all liberals now? Any questions for William Hague? Babz Normile on Platform: Heathrow expansion will provide a runway to recovery for British business Mike Dolley on Seats and candidates: How the Conservatives are winning the support of the voters of Gibraltar International: Could the British Conservatives have better friends than Australia's Liberals? Jonathan Isaby on CentreRight: The interview that Westminster villagers think may be proof that Brown HAS flipped Local government: Cllr Barry Dare, the Conservative Leader of Gloucestershire, on five ways to improve his county - including fewer councillors Queen's portrait to go up at Tower Hamlets Town Hall Oxfordshire Conservatives have launched their manifesto for the County Council elections Highlights from ConservativeHome yesterday... Iain Murray on CentreRight: Mrs Thatcher has NOT endorsed the climate change lobby Local Government: Eric Pickles predicts "big Tory gains" at the local elections WATCH: Gordon Brown fails to see the funny side of Tory MP Stephen Crabb's question at PMQs about "a senior Whitehall boss" throwing around mobile phones Seats and Candidates: Banff and Buchan Tory candidate calls on Alex "Three Jobs" Salmond to stand down from Westminster and create a by-election Parliament: Government sends two ministers and 45 officials to conference on climate change Today's other newslinks David Cameron defending his austerity regime: There's nothing compassionate about waste or ID cards "'The commitment that we have to public services and the NHS and not balancing the budget on the backs of the neediest, these are really important. But there's nothing compassionate about waste. There's nothing compassionate about ID cards, or a ContactPoint database (containing details of 11million children), or any number of pointless Government projects. I do not think anyone believes that the Conservative party will walk on by. I have suggested a huge number of important schemes that would help people.' " - the Conservative leader quoted in the Daily Mail Axeing the ID cards scheme will save at least £1.3bn - Daily Mail DNA profiles of innocent people will continue to be held for up to a decade on a database used to fight crime - Sky News Tory benches launch sustained attack on Brown during yesterday's PMQs "The strongly personal attacks on Mr Brown were unusual even by the rowdy standards of Westminster, but Mr Cameron's team want to keep up pressure on the prime minister, stoking Labour dissent over his leadership. The premier's team believed the attacks went too far, and the prime minister pointed out that neither Mr Cameron nor his MPs wanted to ask questions about any substantive issues." - FT | Yesterday's ToryDiary Mandelson renews his 'Tories are belittling Britain' attack "The Business Secretary hit out after Tory leader David Cameron accused Labour of “running our country into the ground”. Lord Mandelson accused him of trying to win votes by undermining confidence in Britain." - Quoted in The Sun | Mandelson's original attack "“We seem to be seeing a deliberate political or media ploy to move us from recognising how severe and painful the present recession is, to believing that we can never recover or be as strong again,” Lord Mandelson stated. “This attempt to make us feel worse about ourselves may have an understandable electoral motivation. But its effect, if we are not careful, will be felt beyond politics.”" - Lord Mandelson quoted in the FT Government recession schemes show no sign of working says Treasury Select Committee - Independent "Alistair Darling’s Budget forecasts that the recession would end this year and the economy start growing again were attacked yesterday by the Labour-controlled Treasury committee as not “realistic”. The bipartisan committee, which monitors economic policy, questioned whether the new higher tax rate of 50 per cent was an effective way to raise money and warned on the lack of restraints on public spending." - FT 'Boris The Radical'? "And one has to concede that some of the ideas that emerge from City Hall are more daring and original than much of what comes out of Tory Central Office. Boris, who led Tory opposition to a third runway at Heathrow, has proposed a new airport in the Thames estuary - an idea that appeared barmy at first but seems less so the more one thinks about it. (It is also not Tory policy.)  He has unveiled a plan to put thousands of bikes out for hire to Londoners. His latest thought is to rebuild London Bridge so that it is lined with shops and houses, as the old version was before it was torn down 178 years ago." - Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail Hague’s EU policy would be suicidal for Britain - David Miliband in The Spectator Put more women on boards of big banks, urges Harriet Harman - Telegraph Derek Draper quits LabourList - Guardian | Daily Mail | Iain Dale broke the story yesterday It's GCSE economics: high taxes don't work - Eamonn Butler in The Times Schools minister Jim Knight is reprimanded after arriving late for a Parliament debate - ePolitix Matthew Parris on Labour's rhetorical trickery "They never spent. They only invested. Through all the years when this Government was spraying public money around, Gordon Brown led the way in calling the splurge “investment,” never “spending” - to the point when one backbench poodle, worried about hospice provision, invited ministers to “invest in the dying”. Now it's over. Now come the cuts. A bottle of champagne, then, to the first reader to provide me with documentary evidence of a Cabinet Minister proposing to “cut investment”. I invest, you spend, he wastes money. I make efficiency savings, you cut spending, he cuts investment." - Matthew Parris in The Times And finally: David Cameron's bike stolen again... ...but Desmond Swayne MP comes to the rescue, giving the Tory leader his own bike: ""His need was greater; the party would have expected nothing less," said Swayne in The Guardian