Britannia Radio

Today's major ConHome features

ToryDiary: Downing Street ready to revisit Cameron's pledge to wealthier pensioners in order to fund welfare reform

Jeremy Hunt MP on CentreRight: England hosting the World Cup would be a £3bn boost for the nation

Alistair Thompson on Platform reflects on the last government's decision to pay a young disabled man to visit a prostitute: Labour’s moral recession is worse than the economic one

Cllr Colin Barrow of Westminster City Council on Local government: The extra powers that would be handed down to the Foundation Councils idea that he introduced yesterday.

Gazette: "Magnificent" James McGrath credited with big role in Australian election result

Karl McCartney MP names Tony Benn as the non-Tory he most admires in ConHome's Twenty Questions: "Tony Benn - he speaks his mind as he sees it and believes exactly what he says.  I don't agree with him much politically, but respect his honesty and loyalty to his beliefs. He life and words inspire many I am sure."

Today's other newslinks

Government holding confidence building talks with more moderate trade unions

"Tory sources said the party had been successfully "building bridges" with senior trade unionists in recent months and pointed out that several ministers, including Oliver Letwin, Philip Hammond and Francis Maude, have either met trade union leaders or addressed TUC events. They said they were "highly optimistic" that a meeting could be arranged between the Prime Minister and Mr Barber towards the end of the year." - Independent

"The headlines about an "autumn of discontent" over public spending cuts have already begun. For once, a season of industrial strife predicted by the media may really happen because deep and painful cuts are inevitable. However, behind the scenes, more moderate voices in the trade union movement are also being heard. The pragmatists are arguing that the unions have got to learn to live with the Coalition Government and that talking to it is more in their members' interests than screaming from the sidelines." - Andrew Grice in The Independent

Criminals who confess in the police station will serve shorter sentences than those who wait until they appear in court, under cost-saving reforms -Times (£)

Renewed pressure on Health Secretary to increase availability of cancer drugs - Daily Mail | Express

Andrew Lansley launches non-emergency alternative to 999 - Daily Mail |Video of Mr Lansley explaining initiative

Record political donations in run up to election

"The Conservatives attracted the most during the three months from March to June, taking in £12.3m, the Electoral Commission reports. This was followed by Labour on £10.9m and the Liberal Democrats, who received £2m in donations. The overall figure beats the £20.6m given in the first quarter of 2005, just prior to the previous election." - BBC

Tories' take £500,000 from the City boss who calls himself 'Keyser Soze' after movie villain - Daily Mail

YouGov's tracker poll finds dissatisfaction with Coalition equals satisfaction for first time

YouGov also finds the parties on Conservatives 41%, Labour 39%, Liberal Democrats 12%.

"The Liberal Democrats will be ‘hammered’ at the next local elections, Nick Clegg has admitted as the Government faces fresh criticism from his party. The Deputy Prime Minister conceded that he will be punished at the ballot box because he has signed up to the Tories’ plans for massive spending cuts." - Daily Mail

"As he prepares for his conference, Mr Clegg is in a lonely position. He does not deserve the opprobrium being hurled his way. But he needs to worry less about the role of deputy prime minister and more about finding issues that he and his party can proclaim as their own. He tried last week with a speech on social mobility but it could easily have come from Mr Cameron and, besides, it takes decades to measure the success of reforms in this area." - Ian Birrell in the FT (£)

"Clegg's agile positioning in the aftermath of the election is undermined almost fatally by his apparently enthusiastic support for the risky spending cuts that define the Coalition" - Steve Richards in The Independent

David Burrowes MP seeks special protection for war memorials

"A senior Conservative MP has written to Cabinet ministers asking them to introduce new laws to protect the memorials following a series of high-profile court cases after sites were vandalised or desecrated... At the moment, war memorials receive no special protection and vandals can only be sentenced to less than six months in prison by a magistrate." - Telegraph

Coalition's abstinence plans to get drug addicts clean could fail because of the public's "extreme prejudice" towards them - Telegraph

> Yesterday's ToryDiary: Coalition will cut drug substitutes bill in radical plan to encourage freedom from addiction

Andy Burnham wants taxes on homes, wealth and land - Express

"The U.K. opposition Labour party is engaged in a fresh battle over the issue which dominated the election campaign that saw the party turfed out of office after 13 years: how far and how fast to reduce the U.K.'s £155 billion ($241 billion) budget deficit. Amid a tight campaign to become the next Labour leader, the five candidates have split on the deficit issue, with some now opposing the pre-election Labour government's promise to halve the deficit over four years." - Wall Street Journal (£)

And finally... Jan Moir decides that politicians should never wear jeans

"Jeans can send out a powerful egalitarian message  -  but are far more likely to be a sartorial deathtrap for politicians. They are the one item of clothing that can reduce the high and mighty to the depths of style despair. Should politicians even be allowed to wear them in the first place?" - Jan Moir in the Daily Mail

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