ToryDiary: "I messed up... I misdescribed our family policy," says Cameron during Today programme interview
On LeftWatch we present the frontpages of the morning newspapers in all their glory
Peter Hitchens on Platform: Today's Conservatives are doing nothing to overturn Marxist victories on the nation state, the law, education and the family
Seats and candidates: More and more Tory candidates are making campaign videos
Local government: Council leader propose "Magna Carta for Localism" and £21 billion could be saved handing over Quango functions to Town Halls
Ben Rogers on CentreRight recommends This month's StandPoint magazine
WATCH:
"Dumping Gordon Brown as Labour leader would boost the party's support by just five per cent, a major poll for The Sun reveals. Almost three fifths of voters - 58 per cent - say a new Labour leader would not affect their choice of which party they would back in the General Election." - The Sun
> Yesterday evening's ToryDiary
"Indeed, Mr Brown is at least as unpopular now as Mr Major was at this stage before the 1997 election – shortly before he led the Tories to catastrophic defeat. Mr Brown's current satisfaction rating of 28%in the latest MORI poll is slightly less than the 30% John Major scored in December 1996. Similarly his latest YouGov rating of just 23% is a little short of Mr Major's equivalent reading of 25%." - John Curtice in The Independent
"Gordon Brown is secure as prime minister as Labour has reached a "settled view" he will lead them into the election, Lord Mandelson has said. He was speaking after a day of drama in which two ex-Cabinet ministers called for a secret ballot of Labour MPs to decide on Mr Brown's leadership. No ministers and only a handful of Labour MPs publicly supported the move." - BBC
Night of long silence as Cabinet damns Gordon Brown with faint praise - Times
"The Government's responsibility in its dying weeks is to dedicate every ounce of energy to fighting the recession. If it cannot be bothered to do that, then it has no right to be in office." - The Sun Says
"Conservative MPs were laughing in the lobbies of Westminster today, as they joked that Labour was staging a replay of the dying years of John Major's premiership." - Guardian
The only certainty about this plot: it will damage Labour - Steve Richards in The Independent
The Guardian produces a timeline of yesterday's SnowStorm Plot.
Anatole Kaletsky: Voters will see through Labour on the deficit"What most voters focus on is not economic theory or even competence, but broader issues of trust, judgment, character and ideology. If they are told by Labour that the Government can go on borrowing forever, while they hear from the Tories that money borrowed in a crisis eventually has to be repaid, they will not feel the need to consult economic textbooks to decide who is telling the truth." - Times
The Treasury Select Committee pressures Alistair Darling over spending cuts "The Treasury Committee gave warning that Labour may not be able to sell all the Government bonds it is planning to issue to fund Britain's record deficit. Placing fresh pressure on Chancellor Alistair Darling to provide more details on how Labour would halve the £178bn deficit, the committee called for greater clarity "sooner rather than later"." - Telegraph
"The policy should certainly not be extended after February, when it is meant to end. Unless the economy suddenly starts to tank again, the Bank should limit itself to using interest rates as the main tool of policy. These should be hiked by a symbolic 0.25 per cent to signal the start of the recovery and with it the gradual normalisation of economic policy (to do so at today’s Bank meeting would be too soon but this should happen by March)." - Allister Heath in City AM
Britain DID make pact with Basra militants before pulling out"Britain negotiated a ceasefire with insurgent militants in Basra before pulling troops out of the city, the Iraq inquiry was told yesterday. A senior Ministry of Defence civil servant said that officials held talks with leaders of the al-Mahdi Army militia about a truce from spring 2007... There were persistent reports at the time that the British military had struck a deal with the al-Mahdi Army including transferring 60 prisoners to Iraqi custody in return for safe passage out of the palace. The Ministry of Defence at the time denied that there was any deal." - Times
Iraq Inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot is being paid £13,000 more than the Prime Minister - Daily Mail
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