Britannia Radio

Today's top ConHome features

ToryDiary:

• If Labour are now the anti-banker party, the Conservatives must be the job-creating, growth party
  
• Boris warned about sending political messages to his 59,000 followers on Twitter

Shane Frith on Platform: Conservatives should not be attacking supermarkets, but seeking to further deregulate that sector

Cllr Matthew Laban on Local government: Let Councils use the private sector to tackle homelessness

J P Floru on CentreRight: Have you been stopped under the Anti-Terrorism Act?

WATCH: The BBC's preview of today's pre-Budget report ends with some footage of the Tory debt clock, projected on to Battersea Power Station

Today's other news stories

David Cameron set to back windfall tax

"Conservative leader David Cameron has given his strongest signal yet that he will back a windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses as he outlined his party’s plans for the City. Cameron, speaking ahead of the government’s pre-Budget Report, also warned a Tory administration would not automatically mean an easier ride for bankers. Cameron said: “It is not necessarily true that all windfall taxes will lead to damage. I believe in normal times the most important thing about a tax system is it should be consistent. “But we don’t live in normal times. It’s not acceptable to see taxpayers E2�� money going into banks and to see too much of that money being paid out in bonuses.”" - City AM

Windfall tax on bank bonuses set to be centre-piece of Darling's Pre-Budget Report - BBC

Brown threatens transactions levy on top of pre-budget report super-tax on bonuses - Guardian

Darling will axe corporation tax rise for small firms - Daily Mail

Allister Heath uses his Editor's Letter in City AM to warn that "everybody will be hit by the war on banks".

The City is in my blood, says David Cameron

"David Cameron attempted the balancing act yesterday of wooing the world’s most powerful bankers while assuring Middle England that he would not give that most hated profession too easy a time. Speaking to a gathering of top financiers, the Conservative leader told them: “My father was a stockbroker, my grandfather was a stockbroker, my great-grandfather was a stockbroker.” The City, he assured them, was in his blood." - The Times

Fiscal hawk, Alan Budd, nominated by Cameron to run proposed Office for Budget Responsibility

"David Cameron on Tuesday appointed an economic hawk to oversee the Tories’ new fiscal watchdog, designed to police “pro-growth and anti-deficit” measures in an incoming Conservative government’s first emergency Budget. Sir Alan Budd, a former chief economic adviser to the Treasury and member of the monetary policy committee, would oversee the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the party said." - FT

A massive bureaucracy/ quangocracy is resisting public spending cuts - Simon Jenkins in the Guardian

One in ten people living in Britain were born abroad

"The proportion of the population that is foreign-born has almost doubled in the past two decades to 11 per cent, or 6.7 million people. At the same time, almost a quarter of babies born in England and Wales had foreign mothers. This is also a record, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figures indicated that, in 2008, some 11 per cent of the population was born overseas, up from about 8 per cent in 2001 and 6.7 per cent in 1991... Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said: “This government has never had any control over immigratio n numbers. Some government insiders have said this was a deliberate plot, others claim it was just a mistake. “Either way, they have left our borders unprotected. It is one of the biggest policy failures of the Labour years."" - Telegraph

Theresa Villiers stands firm after BA launches full-blown attack on Tory policy towards third runway

"British Airways' chief executive, Willie Walsh, has rounded on the Tory party in the wake of the Committee on Climate Change report into aviation, and warned that it will make the "biggest mistake ever" if it blocks a third runway at Heathrow... Walsh's comments follow the publication today of a report by the government's advisory panel on climate change, which makes the case for a third runway by admitting that British airports can handle up to 140 million more passengers a year by 2050 without breaching emissions targets. But the shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers, said the Tories stood by their policy and warned that a third runway would exact a "horrendous price" on the environment." - Guardian | Times

Allison Pearson: Cameron is right and Harman is wrong on marriage

"I happen to think David Cameron is doing something that is as brave as it is unfashionable. He's saying something because he believes it's right - especially for children - not because it's what people want to hear. He's telling the men and women who are financially worse off because they're married that they are not fools to try to stick together. 'No one needs a Tory tax incentive to value their marriage,' says Harriet Harman. Perhaps not. But anything that makes marriage and long-term commitment look attractive to people has got to be worth a try." - Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail

"Searching for the causes of social breakdown, the CSJ organised a YouGov poll of 50,000 people, asking them about their family background and the problems they faced. "We found that if you don't grow up in a two-parent family you are 75% more likely to fail educationally, 70% more likely to become addicted to drugs, and 50% more likely to have an alcohol problem," Stroud says. "If we are going to be responsible about the development of social policy, we need to be allowed to go where the evidence takes us, which is that the best outcomes for children are within stable, healthy married relationships." - Guardian

> Yesterday's ToryDiary: Marriage is special says Cameron, but promises support for every family

Daniel Finkelstein: Tories are too dependent upon David Cameron

"A major vulnerability for the Conservatives is dependence on David Cameron. Almost all the gain the party has made has depended on public acceptance that he, personally, is a different kind of Conservative. Other top figures need to be seen as Cameron Conservatives too." - Daniel Finkelstein in The Times

Critics round on Hague for staying silent about trip to "corrupt" Turks and Caicos Islands - Independent

Heart and cancer survival rates among worst in developed world in Britain - Daily Mail

Bercow's "lust for publicity" makes him unfit to remain Speaker - Bernard Ingham in the Yorkshire Postt

Does Obama have it in for Britain?

Barack Obama has failed to mention the special relationship between Great Britain and America in any of his speeches both before and after becoming President of the United States - Nile Gardiner in the Daily Mail

Highlights from yesterday's ConHome

ToryDiary posts:

• Tories project £5,500 per second debt clock on to Battersea Power Station
• The tide of defections is all in the Tories' favour

Local government: Labour councillor defects to Croydon Conservatives

ThinkTankCentral: Profile of Civitas

AmericaInTheWorld: Obama's pragmatic foreign policy reminds Jerry Seib of the approach pursued by the first George Bush