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Wednesday 15th July 2009Britain's leading conservative blog Today's top ConservativeHome features ToryDiary: Chris Grayling promises a “21st-century clip around the ear” for the "Nokia generation" Stephan Shakespeare on Platform: Cameron must not be like Boris Dan Hannan MEP on Platform: We can be very proud of our new leader in the European Parliament Seats and candidates: Potential members of the new parliamentary intake coming from an ethnic minority Andrew Stephenson's PPC Diary: Eleven months until Pendle can vote Labour out! CentreRight: Stephan Shakespeare has another go at explaining the Post-Bureaucratic Age: No more milkman Melanchthon on the Church of England and homosexuality Local government: Adoption failure rate is only 2% WATCH: The BNP get a cold welcome to the European Parliament Today's other newslinks Tory MEP Edward McMillan-Scott expelled after poll rebellion "A senior Tory MEP was expelled from the party on Tuesday night after winning election to the post of European Parliament vice-president against the Conservatives' official candidate." - Telegraph > Yesterday evening's ToryDiary: Michal Kaminski MEP elected leader of European Conservatives and Reformists Quentin Letts: George Osborne is stuck in oppositional mode "The problem with his performance was that it was predictable. Its tone, scornful, sardonic, rushed, was unremittingly negative... He is stuck in oppositional mode. He is so consistently, vigorously rude about the Treasury that it has become slightly tiresome. As David Cameron once said, maybe he needs to let in the sunshine. Mr Osborne’s crossness is in contrast to the controlled demeanour of the Chancellor. Mr Darling is like one of those airline pilots who manages to keep his voice level, even while disaster is unfolding all around the cockpit." - Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail "Osborne said that lending in the economy was lower than expected because half of the government’s financial assistance schemes were not working." - ePolitix Theresa May: Unemployment to cost taxpayers £11bn pa - Telegraph Ken Clarke speech will accuse Brown of a "lack of candour" on public spending - BBC Mandelson concedes that Britain faces ten years of spending squeeze "Of course, there will be pressures on spending until 2011 and constraints for the next decade," the business secretary told a Westminster lunch. But he argued that a Labour government would protect frontline services, such as police and hospitals, while a Cameron administration's "mixture of indifference and dogma" would erode the public sector. "That is going to be absolutely the fulcrum of the coming election battleground." - FT Only Lord West is left as a 'G.O.A.T.' after Lord Darzi quits as health minister - BBC Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley MP commented: "This was surely coming for a long time. Ara Darzi's laudable focus on quality was increasingly at odds with the Brownite fixation with targets and command and control". Elderly face £20,000 bill in plan to defuse population timebomb "Elderly people could be compelled to pay up to £20,000 to insure themselves against the cost of being cared for at the end of their lives. The proposals are designed to replace a system that the government describes as unjust with one that is "fair, simple and affordable for everyone"." - Guardian Alan Johnson: I won't cap immigration - Daily Mail Max Hastings leans towards abolishing Trident "Exponents of maintaining Trident and a successor rely overwhelmingly upon traditional arguments about the deterrent as a statement of Britain’s place in the world, its claims upon a seat at the top table. It would be foolish to dismiss this argument, not least because it may well prevail. But it begs the insistent question: can Britain afford such a gesture in our newly straitened circumstances, and at the expense of other, much more utilisable, elements of national security?" - Max Hastings in the FT And finally... Photograph of Cameron playing football with youngsters in Kennington - The Sun Highlights from yesterday ToryDiary: 'Through the keyhole' into David Cameron's Commons office Seats and candidates: Totnes Tories shortlist three candidates ToryDiary: Whatever happened to The Telegraph's coverage of the Conservatives?