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Monday 3rd August 2009Britain's leading conservative blog

Tory Chairman predicts SEVENTEEN more Tory MPs will retire Eric Pickles expects SEVENTEEN more Tory MPs to step down Today's ConservativeHome features ToryDiary: Hague, Grieve and Hammond are top rated members of Cameron's team Jonty Olliff-Cooper & Max Wind-Cowie on Platform: There is nothing incompatible about progressive ends and conservative means Local government: Pickles attacks paying Council Chief Executives more than the Prime Minister Swindon council switch off speed cameras Ridley Grove on CentreRight: A right-winger's case for Cameron WATCH: General Mike Jackson hurls phone out of studio after it rings twice during BBC1 interview Today's other newslinks George Osborne warns against return to "business as usual" among UK banks "We warned weeks ago that another unacceptable round of bonuses were on their way. The banks should watch out they don't misuse Government support - it's designed to facilitate lending, not mega pay deals. The Government, who own half the banking system, should realise that actions speak louder than words." - Quoted in the Daily Mail Cameron backs troops surge if focused on faster training of Afghanistan's military - BBC Eric Pickles predicts nearly 20 more retirements from Tory MPs - Guardian | Seats and candidate blog Michael Gove will launch online archive of exam papers to highlight changing standards "The Conservatives are to set up a digital library of past papers in a bid to allow the public to decide for themselves whether A-Levels, O-Levels and GCSEs have been "dumbed down" to improve results." - Independent | Guardian "The Government treats exam papers like state secrets and refuses to publish them. This is wrong and a Conservative Government will create a free online library of all exam papers and scripts so there is full transparency and academic scrutiny of our exam system.” - Michael Gove quoted in The Times In a wide-ranging interview with Ben Brogan Michael Gove opraises David Davis, defends Tory policy on grammar schools, extols school uniforms and tips Liam Fox to be a future PM - The Telegraph In his weekly Times column Michael Gove bemoans the decline of historical literacy: "One of the many malign consequences of the accelerating decline in the study of history is that we have lost meaningful standards of comparison for current events. Discussion of politics is impoverished because people rarely draw parallels with any event much before 1979. A recent survey of history students at one of our best universities revealed that fewer than one in ten could name a single 19th-century Prime Minister." Tories say reduction in NHS national tariff could save billions - Times "Hospitals will receive less money for operations and treatments under Conservative plans to squeeze the NHS budget, The Times has learnt." > Yesterday evening's ToryDiary: David Cameron defends NHS and overseas aid pledges "Cameron to run UK like Tesco" - The Sun | FT Theresa May warns of renegotiations of multi-billion pound welfare-to-work contracts - FT Conservatives consider product placement on TV, selling of Radio 1, increasing the amount of advertising on ITV and collecting the BBC licence fee through council tax bills Reports in the FT and Daily Mail. Tory peer John Taylor faces second day of media scrutiny for suspicious expense claims - Daily Mail ...or as Daily Mirror put it: Tory lived six years with dead mum. We should be protecting Gary McKinnon, not catapulting him across the Atlantic - Boris Johnson in The Telegraph Cameron "will have to tell [his party] that tolerating Lisbon is the price it must to pay for power" - Julian Glover in The Guardian Edwina Currie blasts Harriet Harman "Her obsessions are those of an over-educated, well-off, middle-class woman who has no worries about where her money is coming from: our pockets, of course. She should go and talk to real working women, or a mother whose school-age children carry knives for protection, or elderly women scared of contracting MRSA in hospital, or the mother of a young rifleman going to Helmand. Then tell them that she, Harriet, should be running the country." - Former Tory MP Edwina Currie in The Times > Yesterday on CentreRight: Prescott slams Harman for her "men cannot run things on their own" remark Harman versus Mandelson is about the fight for Labour's future - Independent Labour MP Eric Joyce attacks MoD's appeal on veterans compensation for putting "bureaucracy over bravery" - BBC Immigrants who want to take on British citizenship will have to earn points to qualify under new Government plans - Sky 'Unsustainable' social security spending 'equal to a quarter of goverment's budget' - The Telegraph reports a Centre for Policy Studies study that recommends a single agency and form for benefit applicants Bruce Anderson: Assisted suicide, the Church of England and ethical debate in Britain "Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is said to be clever. The main evidence for this is his ability to dress up accessible thoughts in incomprehensible prose. Not many years ago, if a question such as attempted suicide had arisen, everyone would have wanted to know what the Archbishop thought. Now, no one is interested, and he is probably too busy anyway, writing another speech about homosexual clergy. He must be the most ineffective Archbishop of all time. Under his lack of leadership, his Church is giggling its way to oblivion." - Bruce Anderson in The Independent Mixed messages on drink and drugs are the road to social ruin - Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail