ToryDiary: Iain Martin becomes Deputy Editor of Wall Street Journal Europe
Caroline Boin on Platform: How taxpayer-funded foreign aid is being used to spread government-endorsed ideology
Local government: Poundbury takes a pounding
Local government: Ex-Gurkha wins by-election for Tories in Kent
WATCH:
'The public will not accept for much longer that our losses [in Afghanistan] can be justified' - Eric Joyce in The Independent
Nigel Farage to quit as UKIP leader - BBC
> Yesterday Mr Farage announced his intention to stand against Speaker Bercow at the General Election
Met chiefs insist they are in charge after Boris Johnson aide claimed Conservative oversight - Guardian
George Osborne attacks Alistair Darling's support for a further stimulus "There's a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Alistair Darling's argument. He says that he expects, as we do, that Britain will come out of recession this year and yet he wants to go on with large increases in public spending next year, when he knows the country cannot afford it. His position has everything to do with the politics of a looming election and nothing to do with the economic interests of the British people." - The Shadow Chancellor quoted in The Independent
Allister Heath in City AM attacks Gordon Brown's surrender to the French and Germans on "crude" controls of bank bonuses
Andrew Lansley asks for cost of NHS job cuts report that Labour immediately rejected "Labour now claim to have rejected these ideas, but why were they spending taxpayers’ money on management consultants to draw up this report if they had no intention of using the findings? Labour need to come clean on how much money they have wasted on this whole exercise.” - The Shadow Health Secretary quoted on PoliticsHome.com
Competition between hospitals has CUT inequality - FT
"The time for creative thought about the costs of the NHS is not nigh. It is here." - Times leader
David Cameron promises inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber - Daily Mail
Labour appointees run the quangocracy and the Tories must dismantle itWriting in The Spectator Dennis Sewell lists the ex-Labour ministers given plum places in the quangocracy: "David Clark got the Forestry Commission, Chris Smith the Environment Agency, Geoff Rooker the Food Standards Agency. Larry Whitty, the party’s former general secretary, is chairman of Consumer Focus (where Dame Suzi is a fellow board member — that freelance consumer consultancy experience came in useful after all). Baroness Morgan won a seat on the board of the Olympic Delivery Authority, Lord Warner went straight into a paid NHS chairmanship. The list seems endless."
> Tim Montgomerie on CentreRight: "Labour's twenty year rule of appointment-land will mean they'll lose office but not power next year"
Ministers should attend soldiers' funerals - The Western Mail reports on David Davies MP's Platform piece of yesterday
Tories need to share Murdoch view on BBC - Amanda Andrews in The Telegraph
Jeff Randall: Cameron has most to lose from election debate"Mr Cameron has most to lose from engaging in a debate. He is so close to No 10, he can smell the leather chairs in the Cabinet room. The soft option would be to try to slip into power, taking no chances, leaving his adversary to drown in the red ink of ballooning government deficits and unemployment bills. That he seems prepared to take up the challenge of a televised shoot-out is to his credit, and a sign of growing confidence." - Jeff Randall in The Telegraph
Andy McSmith predicts that the Greens will make a breakthrough at the General Election - Independent
Financial market reform is at heart of Barroso's bid to be re-elected Head of EU - Guardian
New German election poll suggests Angela Merkel's support falling and Right and Left parties tied - Telegraph
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