ToryDiary: The Parliamentary Conservative Party of 2010 should reinvent itself as a centre for policy development and for modelling the best of political campaigning
James Clappison MP on Platform: Hamas are the real Gazan problem
Tobias Ellwood MP on CentreRight: What General Petraeus told MPs this week about developments in Afghanistan
International: Will Holland's new PM turn to Geert Wilders as a coalition partner?
On Local government:
"David Cameron’s pledge to end Britain’s cancer drugs lottery faced its first test yesterday from a dying mother who is desperate to see her son start school. Nikki Blunden, 37, was recently given just three months to live following a scan... Last week health chiefs denied her the potentially life-extending drug Lapatinib for “clinical and cost-effectiveness” reasons – despite it costing less than the treatment she has been receiving... In April, Mr Cameron outlined a plan for a cancer drugs fund with £200million being used to provide more people with drugs. “We want to get drugs toge ther more quickly,” he said. “In the UK today there are thousands of people who want a certain cancer drug, whose doctors tell them they should have one, who don’t get it.” The Department of Health said the cancer drugs fund would be launched next April which is too late for Mrs Blunden." - Express
Tories set up new inquiry into Stafford hospital scandal - Independent
Andrew Lansley will scrap the four-hour waiting time targets in A&E departments - Guardian
Extra Scottish health spending fails to produce results"The Centre for Public Policy for Regions (CPPR) praised “rapid” falls in Scots’ deaths rates from cancer, heart disease and strokes over the past decade. But the think tank said this huge improvement had been replicated in England, meaning “there has been no narrowing of the relative health gaps” with Scotland. This is despite there being 30 per cent more staff in the Scottish NHS than the English version and up to £267 per person more being spent on the health service north of the Border." - Telegraph
David Willetts hints that university students will face higher fees "In an interview with The Guardian, David Willetts warned that the cost of hundreds of thousands of students' degree courses was a "burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled". Willetts said he did not want to pre-empt the recommendations of Lord Browne's independent review into whether fees should rise from £3,225 a year. But he added that students should consider university fees "more as an obligation to pay higher income tax" than a debt."
Iain Duncan Smith takes early axe to Labour job schemes - FT
CBI calls on Osborne to cut 50p tax rate and dilute plans to hike CGT - Guardian
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development predicts 750,000 job losses in public sector, causing total unemployment to hit three million - Guardian
"Royal Mail could be sold off in one of the biggest-ever privatisations of a public service, it was reported last night. Ed Davey, the Postal Affairs minister, said the Government was considering a £9billion stock market flotation to raise money for the beleaguered company." - Daily Mail
Tebbit attacks Obama over BP "Lord Tebbit has hit out at Barack Obama’s anti-BP rhetoric calling it ‘despicable’ and adding to pressure on David Cameron to intervene. The Prime Minister is facing growing calls to defend the British-based multinational amid claims that it is being made a scapegoat for the Gulf oil spill. Lord Tebbit, a former trade and industry secretary, suggested the U.S. President was attacking BP to distract from his administration’s impotence in the face the disaster." - Daily Mail
"Countries should believe in free markets and treat all firms equally, regardless of origin; yet this is clearly not happening in BP’s case. There comes a time when personal attacks, bullying and threats of part-nationalisation towards a UK firm and UK citizens should start to ring alarm bells – that time is now, especially given that the US authorities seem to be believe that they can decide BP’s dividend policy and in Obama’s case, talk of “kicking ass” and suggest Hayward be fired (this matters: BP’s payouts represent £1 out of every £7 made across UK listed companies and the firm is also one of Britain’s biggest taxpayers). The Foreign Office should acknowledge the spill has been a disaster – but it should also tell the Americans that they need to calm down." - City AM leader
> Yesterday's ToryDiary: Should Cameron defend BP?
The Cameron-Obama relationship - Benedict Brogan in The Telegraph
The Times welcomes Coalition's decision to publish child abuse reports"It is easy to call for transparency in government from the safety of the opposition benches. It is far harder to follow through that commitment while in office. So the coalition is to be congratulated for delivering on its promise to publish the full reports of the official investigations into recent cases of child abuse. If we are to avoid repeats of tragic stories such as those of Baby Peter and Khyra Ishaq, the full details must be made public." - Times leader
Ross Clark welcomes Coalition policy on 'garden grabbing'"Yes, garden grabbing should be stopped. The proper place to build homes is at lower densities on agricultural land. Thanks to EU subsidies, much of this land is sucking wealth out of the economy. Allowing more of it to be turned over to housing and businesses, on the other hand, would create wealth, as well as giving people what they want." - Ross Clark in The Times
The five things Mr Cameron MUST learn from Lady Thatcher "'Is he one of us?' Lady Thatcher would ask her inner circle of a rising middle-rank Minister. By contrast, her party didn't need to ask whether she was one of them. She shared its members' instincts, and at party conferences would embarrass Willie Whitelaw, her first Home Secretary, by applauding party members who spoke in support of capital punishment. Cameron, by contrast, has always regarded much of his party as a millstone around his neck, a dead weight that's cost it three election defeats." - Paul Goodman in the Daily Mail
Electoral reform is the dark cloud on the coalition's horizon - James Forsyth in The Spectator
Cameron will fly the St George’s Cross above 10 Downing Street during the World Cup - Express
Simon Hughes has won the contest to be deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats - BBC
"There has been speculation that Mr Hughes, who did not take a role in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, could become a figurehead for those in his party unhappy with the alliance." - Telegraph
Morrison joins Tesco in backing end to cut price alcohol"Wm Morrison has joined Tesco to support minimum pricing on alcohol in an effort to counter problem drinking but wants ministers to achieve this through duty rather than setting unit prices on drinks. The fourth largest supermarket chain has written to Theresa May, the home secretary, to say it supports efforts to "tackle the misuse of alcohol" in society. It is the second big grocer to take a stand on the issue as momentum builds for a clampdown on spiralling alcohol abuse. Earlier this month, the government's medicines advisory body also called for a ban on cut-price alcohol." - FT
And finally... Choir boy snoozzzzes during speech by Prezzzzident Obama
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