Britannia Radio

Today's top ConHome features

ToryDiary: The Cameron-Murdoch relationship didn't win the last election for the Tories. It helped lose it.

Mark Fox and Paul Goodman interview Liam Fox: The Secretary of State defends the decision to replace the Harrier, operations in Libya and his reforms of the Ministry of Defence

Graham Brady MP on Comment: It's time to stop aviation taxes flying out of control

Local government: Southampton Council "plans to cut a quarter of its workforce"

WATCH:

• Cameron has mislaid his sense of morality in case of Rupert Murdoch, says Peter Oborne
• Murdoch buying BSkyB "won't wash with public" in current circumstances, says Ed Miliband

Today's newslinks

David Cameron to unveil blueprint for public services

"At a speech in London, the PM will vow to end the "take-what-you're given" culture, and deliver "more freedom, more choice and more local control". He wants to allow companies, charities and community groups to bid to run everything from local health services to schools, libraries and parks." - BBC

David Cameron is expected to restate his desire for local communities to have more power over decisions which affect them. He will say: "Total public spending increased by 57% in real terms from 1997 to 2010. But on no measure can we claim that things have improved by more than 50%. It's about ending the old big government, top-down way of running public services... The old dogma that said Whitehall knows best – it's gone." - Independent

"Under the plans, communities will be allowed to set up neighbourhood councils to commission services on a hyper-local level, individuals will get more personal budgets to buy their own services and the use of payment by results will be expanded to encourage markets to develop across the public sector." -Guardian

• Public services White Paper is proof that Tories and Lib Dems are still capable of working together - Julian Glover in The Guardian

Cameron ready to sink BSkyB deal until 2014

"Downing Street revealed the Prime Minister wants to prevent the tycoon buying out the television company until criminal proceedings have concluded into the News of the World hacking scandal. That could delay the £10billion takeover bid until 2014 and the Prime Minister's aides hope it will completely put an end to the politically toxic deal, which has exposed Mr Cameron’s close links to Mr Murdoch's News International empire." - Daily Mail

British government lawyers are drawing up plans to block Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy out the broadcaster BSkyB - Reuters

• The Times (£) suggests that Nick Clegg will vote with Labour against takeover.

Huhne claims Clegg told Cameron of the ‘very serious risks’ of taking on Andy Coulson - Metro | Telegraph

• 'The pillars of the establishment are tumbling' - Nick Clegg in The Independent

Ashcroft will publish evidence of Tom Baldwin's dirty journalism within days- Telegraph

Guardian's Peter Wilby fears Daily Mail will be main beneficiary of News International's decline

"The main beneficiaries of the NoW's demise and the weakening of Murdoch's other papers (particularly the Times) will be the Daily Mail and its Sunday sister, which today distributed money-off coupons "to ensure you have a great newspaper to enjoy on a Sunday". The Mail, with its suburban, curtain-twitching prurience, is in some respects worse than Murdoch's tabloids, which are at least fairly honest about their mission to titillate. It is every bit as hardline and influential on law-and-order issues as the Sun. It has been a consistent enemy of liberal policies on, for example, abortions. It remains deeply hostile to scientists warning of global warming, while all Murdoch's papers – thanks mainly to his son James – support green policies. If there were ever a British Tea Party, the Mail would be its house journal." - Peter Wilby inThe Guardia n

This is a chance to escape Murdoch’s embrace - Alastair Campbell in the FT (£)

It's not just News international; Government charged with being too close to Google

"Freedom of Information requests [reveal] that the company secured more than 20 meetings in the last year with senior politicians, including David Cameron and George Osborne, and Downing Street advisers." - Telegraph

Economic storm clouds gathering...

1. Britain's economy shrank in the past three months, top City experts are warning - The Sun
2. Business confidence in the manufacturing sector has plummeted to a two-year low - Express
3. Oxford University's Centre for Business Taxation warns that the government’s policy of cutting capital allowances given hope of making Britain more attractive for manufacturers - FT (£)
4. Will euro debt crisis swallow Italy next? Fears Rome will follow Athens, Dublin and Lisbon - Daily Mail

> On ToryDiary yesterday Tim Montgomerie set outthree flaws in George Osborne's economic policy.

David Wighton in The Times (£) welcomes a "seismic" shift in Tory industrial policy; away from laissez-faire and towards protecting domestic suppliers - The Times (£)

Dismissing scare stories about green energy, Huhne says cleaner power sources will get cheaper - BBC

Goverment set to invest £7 billion in low-carbon technology - Telegraph

"Cheap energy is the elixir of economic growth. It was Newcastle’s cheap coal that gave the industrial revolution its second wind — substituting energy for labour drove up productivity, creating jobs and enriching both producers and consumers. Conversely, a dear-energy policy destroys jobs. Not only does it drive energy-intensive business overseas; according to Charles Hendry, the Energy Minister, the average British medium-sized business will face an annual energy bill £247,000 higher by 2020 thanks to the carbon policy. That’s equivalent to almost ten jobs it must lose, or cannot create." - Matt Ridley in The Times (£)

Coalition in Brief:

• Michael Gove today publishes guidance for teachers on how to deal with bad behaviour with news that 1,000 children are excluded each and every day - Daily Mail
• Lack of discipline has betrayed our children as Gove gives teachers back classroom control -Daily Mail leader
• Prisoners most likely to reoffend are deliberately excluded from Kenneth Clarke's rehabilitation revolution - Express
• Senior BMA officer says patients could die because of rising NHS waiting lists for tests and treatment - Guardian
• Britain will Support South Sudan - William Hague for Huffington Post UK

Tom Richmond: Cameron must focus on the substance

"After 10 years of “spin” and PR stunts by Blair, voters do not want to know whether their Prime Minister went running in his football team’s shorts. They want to know what he is doing to make Britain a better place, and what he is doing to prevent the policy muddles, u-turns, splits and so forth that are beginning to define the coalition." - Tom Richmond in the Yorkshire Post

Sir John Major says Holyrood should be handed extensive new powers in order to put a stop to Alex Salmond’s independence agenda

"The former Prime Minister has intervened in the growing debate about Scotland’s constitutional future by saying that the country should have full powers over raising all the money it spends, while continuing to share foreign, defence and macro-economic policy making with the rest of the UK." - Times (£)

By emphasising Margaret Thatcher's individual qualities the new film about her time in office continues the current artistic trend of reducing politics to the personal - Ben Walters in The Guardian

And finally... Boris Johnson declares his love of... paintballing - Telegraph

Highlights from the weekend

ToryDiary:

• How many Conservative MPs will fall for Miliband's ploy next week?
• Away from Hackgate there is the small matter of the British economy
• Cameron may have been lucky with his opponents but events have certainly tested him
• An issue which will provoke more e-mails, phone calls, letters and surgery visits for MPs than any media scandal or Government enquiry
• "Robert Mugabe would be proud of David Cameron for undermining three centuries of press freedom"
• Peter Oborne manages the impossible in 48 hours

LeftWatch: Ten Questions to Ed Miliband about phone hacking and Tom Baldwin

Also on LeftWatch:

• "What's in a name? That which we call a Rose."
• Saturday's newspapers and Labour's big beasts respond to Lord Ashcroft's attack on Ed Miliband's spin doctor

WATCH: Chris Huhne: Clegg raised the hiring of Andy Coulson with the Prime Minister

James Morris MP On Comment: We mustn't sub-contract "niceness" to the Lib Dems

Also on Comment, James Gray MP : What are MPs for? Is not the increase in casework distracting us from our parliamentary duties?

Local Government: Labour Party museum fined for not displaying EU logo