ToryDiary: Guardian and Independent ignore Kaminski's rebuttal of smears against him
Howard Flight on Platform: The number of independently-minded MPs of stature can be virtually counted on one hand
Local government: In the second of his six part series on localism, Lord Hanningfield of Essex County Council wants the power to hold quangoes to account
Local government: Osborne looks to Conservative councils for inspiration
International: CDU poster features busty Angela Merkel
Tim Montgomerie on CentreRight: How I became a Conservative
WATCH: George Osborne predicts that Brown will have to admit that spending cuts are coming
"In an interview with The Independent, he said he had been alarmed after a two-day visit last month to Srebrenica, where 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were massacred in 1995. Meetings with community leaders had demonstrated to him that the country was being "pulled apart"."
Liam Fox blasts failure of EU nations to deliver on promises to Afghanistan "European leaders pledged to deliver an extra 5,000 soldiers at a Nato summit in Strasbourg in April... EU countries have sent an extra 2,301 troops in recent months - but brought another 600 home... Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said it was shocking that our European allies have failed to deliver on their promises. He added: "The Government talked up these additional troops after the Strasbourg summit as a great achievement. If we are still missing two-thirds of the troops promised, then the Government needs to explain what went wrong and stop making excuses for our allies. I am afraid that this is another example of Europe promising more than it can deliver."" - The Sun
Scottish FA and Rangers FC among Scottish sporting bodies backing Tories' 'Tickets for Troops' initiative - Scotsman
Telegraph: George Osborne paves way for Tory tax rises"The Shadow Chancellor declined to rule out increasing VAT and said he will go into the next general election without offering voters "cast iron" promises on individual taxes." - Telegraph
Osborne promises to break State monopoly on free education - Times
"My Shadow Cabinet colleagues Andrew Lansley and Michael Gove have set out in increasing detail how we will move quickly as a new government to let new providers offer taxpayer-funded choice to parents and patients, and how the corollary of this choice will be new professional freedoms for the dedicated people who work in these services. We will sweep away the target culture and the stultifying Whitehall-knows-best centralisation." - George Osborne in The Times
> Yesterday's ToryDiary: George Osborne's reforms won't avoid the need for painful adjustments
Willetts blames Labour as unemployment among young people hits 20%
"David Willetts, the shadow Innovations, Universities and Skills Secretary, blamed the failure of Labour's flagship New Deal scheme for the current crisis. He said the number of 16- to 24-year-olds joining the dole queue was even rising during the boom years. "It shows there has been something structurally wrong with how Labour has dealt with this problem," Mr Willetts said. "This recession is turning into a disaster for young people. After Gordon Brown's promises on the New Deal, it is a bitter irony that young people are suffering." - Independent
Crime and booze and drug addiction will soar in a "second wave" of recession - The Sun
Hague leads tributes to retiring Ancram"Former Tory leader William Hague paid tribute to Mr Ancram for his work on the Northern Ireland peace process. Mr Hague, now the shadow foreign secretary, called Mr Ancram - who has also done that job - a 'much-valued colleague' who had performed a crucial role as party chairman during the difficult years after the heavy 1997 election defeat." - Quoted in the Daily Mail
> ConservativeHome broke the story yesterday morning.
No criminal inquiry into the men who made fortunes from MG Rover - Guardian
Simon Heffer turns his fire on Labour for its failure to plan"If you ignore the plight of farmers, you end up with little food. If you don't build nuclear power stations, the lights go out. If you don't build a rigorous culture of excellence in schools, they turn out uneducated pupils. If you don't build new roads and railway lines, you can't shift people and goods around the country efficiently. If you don't have a strict immigration policy, you have infrastructural meltdown and the emergence of Nazi-style political parties. Above all, if you choose not to regulate banks adequately, then they fail, and if you choose to allow well over a trillion of debt, much of i t owed by the Government, the country goes broke." - Simon Heffer in The Telegraph
Jill Kirby identifies the factors that will help us predict which children are at most risk from abuse "There are background factors common to children on the register: having a mother who was a teenage lone parent, the presence of an unrelated male in the household, a history of domestic violence, a parent with a criminal record or a histor y of mental illness and substance abuse." - Jill Kirby in The Times
English-speaking pupils are a minority in inner-city London primary schools - Daily Mail
And finally..."David Cameron is being stalked by killer slime. The Tory leader is on holiday in Brittany where hundreds of beaches are closed because of deadly sulphuric gas being given off by rotting seaweed." - The Mirror
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