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Today's features and newslinks

ToryDiary: Grayling builds alliance to stop economically inactive EU residents flocking to Britain to claim benefits

ToryDiary: Rolling list of Tory Conference announcements begins with return of weekly bin collections and 80mph motorway limit

Eric Pickles MP on Local government: Every household has a right to have a weekly bin collection

Edward Leigh MP on Comment: A flat tax would revitalise the British economy

"The Right List": Profile of David Cameron, Number 2 in ConHome's new 40,000 word guide to the most influential people and groups on the Right

Grant Shapps MP on Accountability: Making housing easier to afford

78% of voters don't expect Cameron to keep immigration pledge but 50% still think he's doing a good job overall - The Sun

Cameron wants Osborne to revisit cuts in child benefit for higher earners -Times (£)

The Government has found £250 million to pay local authorities to restore weekly bin collections - BBC

• "Town halls are to be shamed into bringing back weekly bin collections, it was revealed yesterday. In a victory for householders and the Daily Mail, ministers unveiled a £250million fund to restore them. Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said councils will now have ‘no excuse’ to maintain hugely unpopular fortnightly schemes. ‘My view has always been that people expect a weekly collection,’ he said." - Daily Mail
• "More than half of all councils have switched to fortnightly collections over the past few years, affecting more than 18 million people." -Telegraph

Philip Hammond looks to introduce 80mph speed limit

"The Department of Transport is to launch a consultation on increasing the speed limit on England and Wales' motorways from 70mph to 80mph. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said the current limit, introduced in 1965, was out of date due to "huge advances in safety and motoring technology"." - BBC |Times (£)

"Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “There are good reasons for making 80 the new 70, and good reasons not to. Drivers travelling that 10mph quicker might reach their destination sooner, but will use about 20 per cent more fuel and emit 20 per cent more CO2.” - Express

The European Commission has threatened to take legal action against Britain if ministers do not water down rules limiting foreigners’ ability to claim benefits - Telegraph | Fraser Nelson at The Spectator

• The Sun Says: "It's going from mad to worse. Our masters in Brussels say any jobless person in the EU is entitled to come to Britain and fill their boots with benefits, whether they are looking for work or not. The Government vows to fight this outrage. But have they the stomach for the battle? Britain is being pushed towards a confrontation with Brussels over who runs our country. For The Sun, that day cannot come soon enough."

Ministers are preparing for a massive expansion in electronic tagging of offenders, with private security companies being invited to bid for more than £1bn worth of contracts next month - Guardian

• The National Trust is a more powerful opponent of the government than the unions - Economist

Liam Fox interview discusses how poor relations between MoD staff and military chiefs contributed to budgetary problems - Guardian

• Relations between Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, and military commanders plunged to a new low last night after he roundly blamed defence chiefs for government financial problems - Telegraph
• Liam Fox's attempt to cut the MoD budget while maintaining commitments cannot work - Guardian leader

Ministers “know nothing” about planning and have to be “told the facts” by developers because they have “never been in the real world”, according to a Tory donor and property developer - Telegraph

Nick Boles warns Tories against 'hobby horse politics'...

"What we need now is to put away our favourite ideological hobby horses, ignore the political positioning of the other parties and dedicate ourselves to addressing the everyday ambitions of ordinary people – a steady job, childcare they can afford, a home of their own – and their most pressing concerns – rising fuel prices, excessive immigration, the care of elderly relatives." - Nicholas Boles MP in The Telegraph

...and in the FT backs a land tax

"Nick Boles, the Tory MP who is close to some of the party’s most prominent modernisers, believes the Conservatives should back Liberal Democrat calls for a land tax in a move likely to incense his rightwing backbench colleagues. Mr Boles, writing in the Financial Times, jokes he may be “committing career suicide” by backing the century-old Lib Dem cause, but says the tax could encourage more development on brownfield sites and in rundown inner cities." - FT (£)

The full text of Nick Boles' FT article: "Unless we persuade British businesses to invest and take on new people, we will never succeed in hauling ourselves up over the cliff edge and get to feel the sun on our faces once again. Using the proceeds of a targeted Land Value Tax to cut the national insurance tax on jobs might give the British economy the crucial leg-up it needs."

Stop vanity projects like HS2 and give tax breaks to business - Frederick Forsyth in The Express

The Coalition’s war on red tape is just hot air - Mark Littlewood on RightMinds

"Either the euro, in its current form, or the afflicted countries can be saved. But not both." - Sajid Javid MP in The Times (£)

Finnish politician who believes that migrants are 'parasites' to be guest on fringe of Tory conference -Independent

On the final day of their Conference Labour ministers attack Tory support for women - Telegraph

• Labour leader woos female voters with a vow to promote more women to shadow cabinet - Daily Mail
• "Ed Miliband has identified working-class women as the key electoral battleground in an attempt to capitalise on falling support for the coalition among female voters. The Shadow Cabinet is examining a list of reforms on retraining, childcare costs, social housing, salary insurance and a new scheme to encourage saving in an attempt to draw up “a new welfare state for working people”." - Times (£)

Miliband's indisputable leftward shift has put Labour at ease with itself but risks making the party less relevant than ever - Martin Kettle in The Guardian

"Ed Miliband’s vision of a fairer and better- balanced capitalism, however imperfectly sketched out, challenges Osborne to give a much fuller account of what he is doing. The Labour leader this week showed a clear grasp of our national predicament, and may have signalled the end of an unhealthy era of managed, technocratic discourse. He rose to the occasion, and he deserves our thanks." - Peter Oborne in The Telegraph

Schools will be judged on gay and gipsy pupils' progress - Mail