ToryDiary: The mission isn't accomplished but the overnight news from Libya is a big vindication for Cameron Martin Sewell on Comment: This is Polly Toynbee's Generation Seats and candidates: Poll boosts Labour hopes of ousting Heather Wheeler MP on back of Siemens trains deal Local government: Utility firms to pay lane rental for digging up roads John O'Connell on Local government: EU partly to blame for loss of weekly bin collections Danny Kruger on ThinkTankCentral: 65% of boys with a convicted parent go on to become criminals. We need to change that. Ming Campbell and Clegg aide warn human rights can't be sacrificed as part of riot response Questions about police funding persist Social Market Foundation: Nine in ten providers of the work and pension secretary’s Work Programme are likely to miss government targets in its third year of operation "Iain Duncan Smith’s flagship £5bn scheme to get benefits claimants back into work is in danger of collapsing under the weight of impossible targets which threaten the viability of companies running the programme, according to a leading think-tank." -FT (£) Ministers are proposing that utility companies carrying out roadworks at peak times should pay councils to rent the road space - BBC A council’s decision to end home rubbish collections abandons one of our oldest public services - Ross Clark in The Times (£) Bombardier row could cost Conservatives South Derbyshire seat - Guardian Boris Johnson: The resurrection of English cricket can inspire us all "Look at the number of Oxbridge entrants from Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, or the grades of the kids from Burlington Danes in Hammersmith. Yes, it is about investment in those schools, in good facilities and well-motivated teachers. But Michael Gove is right to insist it is also about a culture of discipline; of standing up when any adult walks into the room; of taking your hands out of your pockets when you are talking to an adult; of addressing your teachers with respect. It is so much better to be demanding of these children, and to insist on high standards – even if it means being frank about failure – than to give in to the endless lazy condescension of false praise. There are all sorts of ways of teaching young people self-discipline and respect for rules, not least competitive sport – and especially cricket, where one wild swipe is usually punished with ignominy." - Boris Johnson in The Telegraph Contrary to Westminster Village's consensus, Boris doing SLIGHTLY better than Cameron in handling of riots More at YouGov (PDF). Tory MP Mark Field warns Osborne against economic complacency Could Cameron and Osborne lose the next election? It's looking more likely - says Guido Fawkes "We are embarking on the most dangerous social experiment of my lifetime. There is a squeeze and a crack-down on the poorest – many, I admit, now culturally hostile to work and social order. Meanwhile, we are cutting government spending radically, and at the same time we face economic stagnation. This is an awesome triple whammy. It has an ugly potential to further divide us, and it is going to dominate the rest of the life of the coalition." - Jackie Ashley in The Guardian "What can we still blame Margaret Thatcher for? Everything" - Judith Duffy in the Herald Tory MP Damian Hinds leads attack on Labour for introducing raft of easy GCSEs that left children without competence in core subjects - Daily Mail "A bitter row blew up last night over the Scottish Government’s plans to charge students from England fees for studying north of the Border while Scottish undergraduates pay nothing... Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Scottish Secretary, denounced it as “grossly unfair”, while former minister John Redwood accused the SNP of trying to “radicalise” the English against the Union." - Scotsman Welsh Conservative Assembly leader, Andrew RT Davies, has "called on the UK Government to deliver its promise to hold a free vote on scrapping the hunting ban" - Wales Online Benefits must no longer be unconditional - Neil O'Brien in The Telegraph Every argument behind the private finance initiative has been demolished by MPs - Tom Clark in The Guardian Beneath its desperate debt crisis Greece remains mired in fraud and fiddling - Jeff Randall in The Telegraph David Steel linked to businessman facing bribery allegations "The Liberal Democrat grandee David Steel lobbied the president of Uganda to land a profitable contract for a former business partner who is now the subject of an international bribery inquiry, an investigation by the Guardian has established." "David Cameron was back in holiday mood yesterday after his family summer break earlier this month had been disrupted by the riots. The Prime Minister and wife Samantha visited a fish shop in Port Isaac, Cornwall, at the start of a trip to the West Country." - Express > Saturday's ToryDiary: Back on holiday, is Cameron squandering the opportunity to relaunch his premiership? ToryDiary: Also on Comment: MORE FROM OUR CONVEYOR BELT TO CRIME SERIES Local government: WATCH: Jacob Rees-Mogg MP defends Sally Bercow's starring role in Celebrity Big Brother WATCH: America's Got Talent contestant roasts Piers Morgan over phone hacking and poor CNN ratings"Sir Menzies said: ‘The European Convention on Human Rights was one of the most important contributions which Britain made to post-War Europe. It should lie right at the very heart of our constitutional circumstances. ‘My view is that the ECHR is a fundamental right and that is something we should not depart from... Sources close to the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg last night said he would not sanction any curb on human rights in the wake of the riots. A source said: ‘Nick would not want to see a watering down of the Human Rights Act either, although there is an issue in making sure people understa nd what the Human Rights Act does and doesn’t allow, because we don’t want to see an overcautious interpretation take hold.’" - Daily Mail | BBC
Blair's riots intervention attacked
"In an interview with The Times (£), Mark Field, the Tory MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, said that British companies still saw little evidence of a plan for growth from the Government and that Britain remained at risk of losing its triple-A credit rating."
Tory MSP Elizabeth Smith attacks SNP discrimination against English students on tuition fees - Scotsman
Cameron's fifth break of 2011 becomes matter of controversy before news broke that events in Libya mean he will return early to Downing Street
Robert H Halfon MP on Comment: Petrol prices are causing unemployment
Monday, 22 August 2011
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