Monday, 12 November 2012

Today's ConservativeHome newslinks
Osborne 'to scrap rise in fuel duty to head off rebellion' - Daily Mail
Osborne April 2012"The Government had feared rebel Conservative MPs were set to vote with Labour in a Commons debate urging planned 3p increase on a litre of fuel in January would be put on hold until April. It emerged yesterday that they have been persuaded to vote with the Government, with a promise of an announcement in next month’s autumn statement." - Telegraph
  • Fuel duty campaigner Robert Halfon MP refuses to vote with Labour on 3p freeze -ITV
  • But can Osborne afford to freeze fuel duty?The Times (£) suggests that there's a £48bn hole in the public finances because of slow economic growth.
David Cameron has said the Government will improve the UK's 400 weakest primary schools by turning them into academies - Sky
"David Cameron will announce on Monday that by the end of next year he wants the schools to be paired with sponsors to turn them into academies as part of coalition efforts to improve education in the poorest-performing schools" - The Guardian
  • "David Cameron is to set aside £10m to encourage the creation of more chains of academy schools after existing groups raised concerns about the lack of big organisations with the capacity to improve educational institutions" - FT (£)
  • Gove urged to prepare for the 'Star Trek' society rather than for the 1950s - Independent
Theresa May ready to slap benefit restrictions on immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria - The Sun
MAY-THERESABut The Express wonders if she will: "The Home Secretary Theresa May has pledged to curb access to benefits and NHS treatments in order to discourage potential immigrants: what is stopping her? Politicians often make promises in the heat of the moment and then fail to implement them – in this case, she had better not renege on her word."
Pointless road signs which clutter the countryside and state the obvious are to be banned, vows Patrick McLoughlin - Telegraph
Top military brass oppose David Cameron's desire for options to intervene in Syria - The Sun
George Entwistle's £450,000 payment criticised by MPs - BBC
"Why does Mr Entwistle get such a large pay off when he has done the job for such a short space of time and decided to resign because he did not think he had done or could do the job well enough?" - One of 12 questions for the BBC posed by John Redwood.
I won’t quit says Lord
 Patten as 
BBC mired
 in crisis - Yorkshire Post
  • Put BBC under Ofcom's supervision - Allister Heath in City AM
Boris Johnson urges the BBC to stop feeling sorry for itself and face up to the smearing of an innocent man
Johnson Boris Newsnight"It was like a dream come true for any vaguely resentful and Left-of-centre BBC producer. It was a chance to pour unlimited ordure on a man who – in their book – jolly well had it coming. He is rich, he is a toff, he is a Lord, he is a Tory, and – joy of joys – he is an EX-AIDE TO MRS THATCHER. The journalism was so shoddy, so cretinous, so ready to let the wish be father to the thought that the Beeb really now has to show that Newsnight was not acting with malice." - Boris Johnson in The Telegraph
  • In a rush to condemn the BBC it seems one of the most horrendous cases of child abuse is being overlooked... Lord McAlpine was wronged, but he is receiving more pity than those buggered when they were very young - Owen Jones in The Independent
Harriet Harman distances herself from Tom Watson's claims that aide to former Tory PM ran 'powerful paedophile network' - Daily Mail | Fraser Nelson at The Spectator
Andrew Pierce in the Daily Mail targets Labour MP Tom Watson's role in the drama: "Many are now beginning to question whether it is his hatred of the Tories – and in particular Margaret Thatcher – rather than a quest for justice, that has driven this latest campaign".
Tim011gm12-9889-1-329x437"Sally Bercow and other Twitter users who named Lord McAlpine after the Newsnight report wrongly implicated him in child abuse could face costly legal action" - Daily Mail | Times (£)
State regulation did nothing to prevent this smearing of an innocent man - but a free Press exposed it - Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mailprotests against the backbench Tory campaign for statutory regulation.
Revor Kavanagh in The Sun: Press can get it wrong but we must be free to hold people to account
Eight in ten Tory MPs demand vote on membership of European Union -Express
EU and BRITAINThe poll also found that only a quarter of Labour MPs wanted a referendum.
> Tim Montgomerie yesterday: "The poll proves to me two big things: (1) that Euroscepticism is still a minority pursuit inside the Labour Party and (2) that if David Cameron doesn't soon offer a referendum then internal party management will become very tricky."
  • Greg Clark MP and his 'thankless' job at the Treasury to control the EU budget - Kent Courier
The Tories are hoping to "bribe" several smaller parties including Plaid and DUP to support boundary review - PoliticalBetting
"The Conservatives are in talks with the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) to win their backing for moves to cut the number of MPs at Westminster, Tory sources have told The Guardian. Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards has already said his party would be open to discussing a deal with the UK government over boundary reform. The draft plans see the number of Welsh MPs cut from 40 to 30."
Tim Montgomerie: Parties of the right, here and in the US, must find a way to reassure those who are afraid of market forces
Tim M copy"One key conclusion from last week’s American exit polls should provide the starting point for every conservative as they think about a future, winning agenda. When voters were asked what they most wanted in a president, Mr Romney beat Mr Obama on three of four criteria. The Republican had an advantage in terms of sharing American values, as a strong leader and having a vision for the future. He lost on just one criterion, by a landslide 81 points to 18. That criterion was that “he cares about people like me”." - Tim Montgomerie in The Times (£)
  • Barack Obama’s win sharply reduced the Republican appetite to avert a fiscal crisis, making Obama's next task the need to split the GOP - Edward Luce in the FT (£)
John Major and Tony Blair joined David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband to pay tribute to Britain's war dead - Independent | Powerful Remembrance Day images in The Sun
Nadine Dorries is to donate her parliamentary salary to charity while she is taking part in I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! - The Times (£)
"Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is to donate her MP's salary to charity while she appears on a reality TV show in Australia. The plan to give the money to children's charities in her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency is revealed on her Conservativehome website column." - BBC
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Starbucks, Amazon and Google bosses to be quizzed by MPs over their tax obligations - ITV
"The former City minister, Lord Myners, told the Sunday Telegraph that the current system for collecting corporation tax from multinationals does not work. "Corporation tax for [multinationals] operating in the UK is close to being a voluntary payment," he said. "You either shrug your shoulders and say you get benefits from secondary effects though employment taxes, VAT, the multiplier effect, and so on. Or alternatively you look for some other form of taxation."" - BBC

Posted by Britannia Radio at 10:39