Britannia Radio

Today's top ConservativeHome features

ToryDiary: Enfield rioters used Golf GTIs, says Nick de Bois MP

Neil O'Brien on Comment: Which of the class of 2015 are making an impact?

Benedict Rogers on Comment: We should call time on the Burmese regime's crimes

LeftWatch: Pour petrol on a fire... Rub salt in a wound... Increase debt in a debt crisis... Labour's madhouse economics

ThinkTankCentral: Civitas report advocates abolition of Trevor Philipps' Equality and Human Rights Commission

On the Local government blog Harry Phibbs reacts to a proposal to ban smoking in parks: "My own view is that banning smoking in parks would be the most outrageous restriction on individual liberty."

Also on Local government: Richard Bunting fights to be Boris Johnson's local (Tory) councillor. Can you help him?

Today's top ConservativeHome newslinks

Metropolitan Police facing criticism after letting looters run riot for almost 12 hours - Telegraph

"The brave police officers who risked their lives on the streets deserve nothing but our praise. But what of their commanding officers?" - Daily Mail leader

• Ken Livingstone blames Tottenham riot on spending cuts - Telegraph
• The Sun describes the rioters as "the enemy within": "The rioters who attacked police, burned homes and looted shops were not trying to right social wrongs. They are criminal thugs who were hell bent on theft, arson and violence."
• Lord Harris of Peckham, the Tory peer and owner of the Carpetright store torched in Saturday's riots, told the Telegraph he plans to offer financial help to the people living above his shop who have lost their homes -Telegraph

Melanie Phillips: Theresa May wrong to block Cameron's desire to bring US supercop to Britain

"During the past three decades and more, there have been simply far too many examples within the Met of rank incompetence, tendentious self-justification and worse... David Cameron [had] suggested that someone who had been a proven success overseas might be brought in to turn round the Met. As it happens, I had written a few days previously that there was one outstanding candidate whom the Government should hire as the new Commissioner. He is Bill Bratton, the genius American police chief who transformed policing when he halved New York’s murder rate and cut violent crime by half in Los A ngeles... Remarkably, it appears Home Secretary Theresa May spiked Mr Cameron’s guns when the Home Office — which appoints the Met Commissioner in consultation with the Mayor of London — issued an advertisement for the post specifying ‘applicants must be British citizens’." - Melanie Phillips in theDaily Mail

Ministers plan 16 hour long curfews for "convicted thugs" - The Sun

George Osborne uses Telegraph article to recommend "fiscal integration" for €urozone and to promise more action on growth

"This Government's Plan for Growth included lower corporate tax rates, less regulation for small companies, welfare reform, improvements to the planning system and lower taxes for entrepreneurs. We will take further action this autumn. Indeed, this crisis provides an opportunity to make some difficult trade-offs in favour of growth that might get parked in the "too difficult" box in calmer times." - The Chancellor writing in The Telegraph

Benedict Brogan: "In the Telegraph, Mr Osborne firms up his recent hint in the FT by coming down hard in favour of fiscal integration of the eurozone, rather than its dismemberment."

• The European Central Bank 'will buy debts to save Italy' - Scotsman

Taxpayers are paying well over £20bn in “extra” borrowing costs for 700 PFI projects

"Jesse Norman, Conservative MP for Hereford, who has been running a campaign for a rebate on PFI deals, said: “If these numbers are right, you would need a huge amount of genuine risk transfer and enormous efficiency gains for this to be a fair deal for the taxpayer.”" - FT (£)

"What is shocking is that the government has not drawn up a proper balance sheet for PFI – looking at the relative costs and outcomes of procurement in the private and public sectors and at the overall profits made in the private sector – to allow it to determine whether it is good value... Before signing more PFI deals, the government should show that the same project could not have been delivered with better value for money had it been financed directly by the state." -FT leader (£)

> ConHome recently recognised Jesse Norman's efforts to reduce PFI costs

Carol Vorderman's Tory maths commission warns that "bad numeracy" is undermining UK economy

"Maths should be compulsory in schools until age 18, recommends the report, and the single maths GCSE should be scrapped in favour of a double numerical qualification, as exists for English Literature and English Language... “Recent research estimates that 22% of 16 to 19 year-olds are functionally innumerate; this figure has remained stable for the last 20 years and is higher than in many other industrialised countries,” [Vorderman] added." - City A M | BBC

Rural charities hit back at Bob Neill MP after he accuses them of being anti-development - Daily Mail

Fury as Cameron rules out EU referendum because we had our say in poll 36 years ago - The Daily Mailfollows up on the Sunday Express story we blogged yesterday.

"E-petitions have created a demand for debate that the Government isn’t prepared to fulfil" - Labour MP Natascha Engel, chair of the Backbench Business Committee, writing in The Times (£)

Prescott backs Miliband's plans to weaken unions' power in Labour conference votes - Guardian

> Yesterday's video of Prescott's media appearance: I had to cope with "7/11" when I was running the country!

Citing ConservativeHome, Daily Mail highlights how BBC was spoon-fed anti-Coalition story by TUC pressure group - Andrew Pierce in the Daily Mail |Original ConHome report

Charlie, born at 23 weeks, "is living proof" that abortion laws are too lax -Daily Mail

And finally... Cameron makes up with Tuscan waitress

"David Cameron has returned to an Italian bar where he had failed to leave a tip and made amends with the waitress who worked there by leaving one this time...". Sky reports on how the waitress "offered the PM a cocktail she created, called the 'Cameron Tuscan Dream' - with the ingredients being local Vin Santo (sweet wine), coffee and cream."

Highlights from the weekend

ToryDiary:

• Call for fairer petrol prices from Robert Halfon MP zooms to near top of epetitions website
• Cameron to Better Off Outers: You had your vote on Europe 36 years ago
• End of term polls: Cameron and the Conservatives not damaged by Hackgate, continued grassroots support for the Coalition, and Labour's unconvincing fiscal message

Ruth Lea on Comment: There are two permanent solutions for the €uro area; full economic union or the division of the currency area into northern and southern zones

WATCH:

• With socks at half mast, some comedy gold from John Prescott: I had to cope with "7/11" when I was running the country!
• Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt MP updates BBC1 viewers on the situation in Afghanistan
• Local Labour MP, David Lammy, says Met police must answer questions about why it took many hours for them to respond adequately to the scale of the disturbance in Tottenham and bring rioters under control

LeftWatch: Labour MP rushes to exploit last night's Tottenham riots for political advantage

ConHomeUSA's The Republican: What has America got for $8.35 trillion of extra borrowing? "A glut of unoccupied homes, unemployment exceeding 9%, a stalled economy and a huge mountain of debt."

Local government:

• Tory Council leader in Derby attacks the Government over train contract for Germans: “This will undoubtedly cost our party and our coalition partners very dearly at the next local and general elections, and I cannot stress this point too strongly."
• Tower Hamlets placing vulnerable with rogue landlords