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Tuesday 30th June 2009Britain's leading conservative blog Which Labour laws should a Conservative government repeal? Should the NHS be immune from spending cuts? What should the Conservatives do if Lisbon is ratified? Should candidates adopted for hard-to-win seats be freed to apply for easier-to-win seats? Click here to answer these and other tracker questions in June's ConHome survey. Today's top ConservativeHome features ToryDiary: Why do European political leaders continue to lecture British Conservatives about leaving the EPP? What Labour laws should a Conservative government repeal? (and other questions we'd like you to answer) Seats and Candidates: ConservativeHome research highlights the likely surge in female Tory MPs at the next election About ConservativeHome: ConHome is the top blog choice for Tory MPs and candidates Humfrey Malins MP on Platform: Only comprehensive reform of Young Offender Institutions will cut re-offending rates Local Government: Nick Seaton welcomes David Davis's reignition of the grammar schools debate Greg Hands MP on CentreRight: Obama goes to Moscow next week. Will Brown ever make it? WATCH: David Cameron challenges Brown in the Commons:  "When is someone going to tell him he has run out of money?" Today's newslinks "Deceit over cuts will lead to riots", says David Cameron "Britain faces “riots on the streets” if Gordon Brown’s “dishonesty” over public spending enables him to win the next election, David Cameron said. The Conservative leader’s warning added to the escalating row over the Government’s spending commitments as the Prime Minister attempted to relaunch his premiership with a series of policy announcements. Mr Cameron accused Mr Brown of “deceit, dishonesty and deception” after Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, admitted that the Government would not publish a spending review before the next election. In what was the Tory leader’s strongest attack yet on Mr Brown’s integrity, he all but called him a liar." - Daily Telegraph "This ramshackle, paralysed and incompetent Government is now either utterly delusional about the frightening scale of our economic crisis. Or it is taking the entire nation for fools." - Sun editorial "The struggle between Labour and the Conservatives about the future of public spending has been pretty unedifying. Ever since Andrew Lansley, Shadow Cabinet health secretary, made clear the inexorable fall in government spending from 2010 on, the public has been assaulted by the extraordinary spectacle of both front benches pretending that public expenditure will not be reduced in the years ahead." - Tony Travers writing in The Times "Yesterday Gordon Brown delivered the much-hyped preview of his legislative programme to be unveiled in the autumn. When the Queen's Speech is re-announced in October or November it will preview the dividing lines of the election campaign which will be held the following year. That is a lot of previews. Or to put it more starkly: the longest election campaign in recent history began yesterday." - Steve Richards writing in The Independent > Yesterday's ToryDiary on David Cameron's monthly press conference > Yesterday in Parliament: David Cameron taunts Gordon Brown about his "relaunch without a price-tag" Voters trust the Tories to make spending cuts "As the need for spending curbs moved to the top of the political agenda, ComRes asked people which party they trusted most to decide where public spending cuts should be made: 31 per cent said the Tories, 21 per cent Labour and 14 per cent the Liberal Democrats. Some 16 per cent trusted no party, 10 per cent said they didn't know and 7 per cent named other parties." - The Independent > Last night's ToryDiary: Conservatives 11% ahead in ComRes/Independent survey Cameron tells Shadow Cabinet to give up their second jobs "David Cameron has told his Shadow Cabinet members that they will be required to give up all outside interests by the end of the year. The Conservative leader published a list of payments to his senior colleagues yesterday, before new rules that require the disclosure come into force tomorrow. Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, tops the list of earners, disclosing that he works for “an hour or so” a week writing a column in The Times, for which he is paid £5,000 a month." - The Times William Hague forced to quit JCB role - Birmingham Post "If you are one of those scandalised by the idea of MPs having outside interests, then you will regard Mr [Ken] Clarke's resignation from the board of The Independent as an act which will bring unquantifiable benefits to the public. I can't see it, myself... One of the great virtues of MPs having outside interests is that they potentially have the courage and independence that comes from not being financially dependent entirely on the goodwill of their party leader, via the unwilled generosity of the taxpayer." - Dominic Lawson writing in The Independent > Yesterday's ToryDiary: Shadow Cabinet to give up all outside interests by the end of December Michael Gove brands Labour's new plan to punish disruptive pupils' parents a gimmick "Giving schools new powers to punish the parents of disruptive pupils would be a sham, it was claimed last night as it was revealed that head teachers have completely failed to use existing sanctions... Tory schools spokesman Michael Gove said: 'Ed Balls has refused to give teachers the powers they need to deal with violence and disruption. His new gimmicks will not solve the deep problems we have with bad behaviour in schools'." - Daily Mail Do not count on the Tories winning the election just yet "The electoral position of the Tories is significantly weaker than that of Labour 12 years ago. Opinion polls have the Tory vote hovering between 36 and 40 per cent. This is nowhere near Labour’s poll position in early 1995, close to 60 per cent. The polls then probably overstated Labour support but the fact remains that the Conservatives have yet to win over the majority of voters... We are not saying that the Tories cannot win the general election. But it is by no means as certain as many assume." - Niall Ferguson and Glen O'Hara in The FT Welsh Tories under fire over taxpayer-funded stay at luxury hotel "Nine Tory AMs spent more than £6,500 of taxpayers’ money on a “fact-finding” trip to Brussels, staying in what bills itself as the city’s best luxury hotel. Details of the trip emerged with the publication of AMs’ expenses for 2008-09 by the National Assembly yesterday." - Western Mail SNP anger at Tory vow on Trident "A row broke out yesterday after Conservative leader David Cameron said maintaining Britain's nuclear deterrent would be "non-negotiable" for a future Tory government. The SNP said the decision – effectively giving the green light to the next generation of Trident nuclear submarines – meant an "obscene" amount of money would be spent on weapons of mass destruction." - The Scotsman IPPR reports proposes slashing defence spending by £24 billion - BBC Margaret Thatcher heads home after two weeks in hospital "Baroness Thatcher returned home yesterday after more than two weeks in hospital. The former Prime Minister, 83, who broke her arm in a fall earlier this month, left Chelsea and Westminster Hospital by a back entrance. She appeared briefly at the front door of her home in Belgravia, central London, to cheers and applause, before she was escorted indoors by a female helper." - Daily Mail > WATCH: Baroness Thatcher arrives home from hospital in good spirits The Queen publishes her annual accounts "The Queen has been forced to raid her savings to shore up the crumbling royal palaces, it was revealed yesterday. According to her annual accounts, she had to take an unprecedented £6.4million out of a special reserve fund to boost her Civil List earnings." - Daily Mail "Will David Cameron, should he form a Conservative government after the next election, give the Queen a pay rise? ...When those who voted for him are facing a life of pay cuts and punier pensions, would a Conservative government have the stomach to sign a much fatter cheque to the Queen and risk accusations that you need only to scratch the modernising veneer to reveal the traditional Tory party beneath?" - Times editorial > Jonathan Isaby on CentreRight: The Queen costs us each a mere 69p a year "Expenses row" Labour MP recovering from heart attack - Telegraph