ToryDiary: Tory members give Sayeeda Warsi a big thumbs down Tim Loughton MP on Comment: National Citizen Service – the power to transform our nation’s young people Local government: Eric Pickles publishes local councils' assets map Parliament: Lord Heseltine and Baron Moore are two Tory peers never to have given a speech in the Upper House Bleak economic news dominates the headlines "Chancellor Boy George is living it up in Beverly Hills, home of the Hollywood stars. He’s staying with his family in the sumptuous £1,000 a night Mr C hotel, the latest venture of posh restaurateurs the Cipriani brothers. He can afford to. He’s the millionaire heir to a family fortune." - Mirror PM and Chancellor plan to cut top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p "Treasury analysis shows that Labour’s decision to raise the top rate of tax from 40 per cent to 50 per cent on those earning £150,000 a year or more has generated up to £2.4billion a year. But in an illustration of the way high tax rates encourage the better-off to dodge tax altogether, officials found that 70 per cent of that money, around £1.65billion, would be collected anyway if the top rate was 45p in the pound." - Daily Mail But, notes The Times (£): "Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, said yesterday that the tax “would need to be replaced with something else — primarily something associated with wealth or high-value property”. Nick Clegg has suggested that he wants to look at the way council tax and stamp duty are structured." The ringfence to be put around Britain’s retail banking operations will be far stricter than many bankers had anticipated - FT (£) Coalition's 'Green Growth' paper announces intentions on environmental taxes "A paper published today by the environment, energy and business secretaries makes it clear the government intends green taxes to grow as a percentage of overall revenues. “The government will increase the proportion of tax revenue accounted for by environmental taxes targeting measures to maximise opportunities for green growth in the UK,” says the paper, titled “Enabling the transition to a green economy”." - FT (£) Labour ridicules David Cameron's NHS structure - Guardian Councils must publish lists of their assets to show which ones can be sold instead of cutting services - BBC What's on the Coalition's new petitions site? "Early frontrunners included the legalisation of cannabis, the continued broadcast of Formula One on terrestrial television, the absolute right to self-defence within one's home, and an end to the ban on gay men giving blood. Other petitions launched yesterday proposed policies such as restricting food for prisoners to just bread and water, the re-nationalisation of the railways, and for Britons to be forced to drive on the right-hand side of the road." -Independent > WATCH: Sir George Young talks to the BBC about the new parliamentary petitions web initiative The Cameron government "has gleefully torn up the regulations in place down the years to "protect and cherish"" the English countryside - Terence Blacker in The Independent Michael Gove is "too interesting to reach the top" The Economist's Bagehot: "Mr Gove paints on a vast canvas. Some cabinet members lack strong views even on their own portfolios. Mr Gove has them on education but also on foreign policy, where he is an out-and-proud neoconservative and the Tories’ biggest supporter of Israel; and on home affairs, where he is diamond-hard on crime and terrorism—though liberal on immigration. Hawkishness was his motif as a newspaper columnist: he is the most successful scribbler-turned-politician since Nigel Lawson, a former chancellor." Daily Mail welcomes Boris Johnson's pledge to end free plastic carrier bags in London - Daily Mail leader (scroll down page) Britain covered up our involvement in torture; now we must expose it - Peter Oborne in The Telegraph Our defence budget is more than adequate for a medium-sized European country - John Kampfner inThe Independent Hugo Rifkind meets Kwasi Kwarteng MP to discuss his new book, Ghosts of Empire - Times (£) Liberal Democrats to debate decriminalisation of drugs at their party conference - BBC "The call for the inquiry serves a wider purpose for the Liberal Democrats who need to restore their radical credentials with younger voters alienated by the party's support for trebling of tuition fees. The motion states: "Individuals, especially young people, can be damaged both by the imposition of criminal records and a drug habit and that the priority for those addicted to all substances must be health, education and rehabilitation"." -Guardian Labour bigwigs will stay at budget hotel during their Liverpool party conference - The Sun Alex Salmond sent Rupert Murdoch a series of admiring letters offering him free theatre tickets and, at one point, referred to him as “Sir Rupert” - Times (£) 71% of Britons say there are too many migrants - Express LeftWatch: The most sense ever written on LabourList: Miliband must admit that Labour was fiscally irresponsible for years WATCH:But The Mirror attacks the holidaying Government: On his luxury LA holiday, how much thought will George Osborne give to the victims of his failed policies back home?
David Laws may be back in government by the autumn, as a cabinet office minister - The Sun
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