Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Today's top features on ConservativeHome
Today's newslinks
With new council tax bands now ruled out, will Osborne's wealth tax be on richer pensioners?
"George Osborne is considering a new tax raid on the pension contributions of richer voters, after rejecting the idea of a “wealth tax” based on higher council rates for luxury homes and apartments. The chancellor has promised to balance a planned welfare squeeze – needed to achieve a futher £10bn of benefit savings by 2015-16 – by imposing new taxes on the wealthy.  Mr Osborne met senior coalition colleagues on Monday to discuss options." - Financial Times (£)
  • Boris attacks "absurd" higher council tax bands idea - Daily Mail (We told you he would)
  • Mayor: "nut cutlet" talk harms recovery - Daily Telegraph
  • Boris Island plan insane, stupid, hare-brained, insanely and asininely stupid, says Ryanair boss O'Leary - Daily Mail
Downing Street adviser Rohan Silva's radical seminar to re-educate civil servants for Steve Hilton-style public services Year Zero  - Rachel Sylvester, The Times (£)
Cameron to deliver on plan to put families on lowest energy tariff...
Screen shot 2012-11-20 at 04.57.49"Families will no longer have to switch tariffs to cut their power bills. Under plans to be unveiled today, energy firms will be forced to move customers on to their best deals automatically. Each supplier is also expected to be restricted to only four tariffs for electricity and four for gas.  As many as seven in ten households pay over the odds for power – some by as much as £300 a year." - Daily Mail
  • Peter Lilley has energy outside interests shock horror - The Guardian
...As he says to Davey: hands off John Hayes
Screen shot 2012-11-20 at 08.14.39
"David Cameron has rejected a Liberal Democrat demand that he strip his energy minister of green energy responsibilities, in a sign of escalating coalition tensions over Britain’s future power strategy.Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat energy secretary, wrote to the prime minister urging him to take action against John Hayes after the Conservative energy minister seemed to challenge coalition support for building more onshore wind farms." - Financial Times (£)
  • Green lobbyist to Cameron: re-mount huskies, shoot Mad Dog Hayes - The Guardian
  • Prime Minister vows at CBI to cut short appeals made by illegal immigrants and terror suspects - Daily Mail
  • Prime Minister vows at CBI to axe equality impact assessments and slash judicial reviews - The Guardian
Government ignores business plans claim - The Times (£)
Cameron: strolling, not sleepwalking, towards EU exit
"How the Prime Minister finds himself in this perilous position is one of the great curiosities of his seven-year leadership of the Tory party. His style has always been to avoid appearing passionate about things. Like Plantagenet Palliser, he nurtures Trollope’s “exquisite combination of conservatism and progress… without any motive more selfish than of being counted in the roll of the public servants of England”. But because we don’t know what he really wants, and the Government has done nothing so far to explain what a new relationship with Europe might look like, we are in the dark." - Benedict Brogan, Daily Telegraph
> Yesterday:
Moody's downgrades France's triple A grade rating - Financial Times (£) 
Rajoy: the worst is over for the Euro - Daily Telegraph
Grayling drives rehabilitation revolution
Grayling470
"Tens of thousands of short-term prisoners are to be forced to attend drug treatment and other courses after release in a rehabilitation revolution. Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, is planning mandatory licence conditions for all those given 12 months or less in an attempt to stop them returning to prison repeatedly. Reformed convicts will help to mentor inmates under proposals in which freed offenders will be met at the prison gates and taken to centres where they will be offered help to go straight." - The Times (£)
MPs to grill BBC bosses this week over Entwhistle - Daily Express
Maria Miller: abortion limit should be based on views, not science
Maria Miller"Equalities minister Maria Miller  said yesterday that the abortion limit should be set according to ‘people’s views’ – rather than according to science. Mrs Miller, who voted in 2008 for a cut in the upper limit from 24 weeks to 20, said she believed a reduction would encourage doctors to do more to save the lives of premature babies." -Daily Mail
Jacqui Smith says her cannabis reclassification as Home Secretary was wrong - Daily Telegraph
Janan Ganesh: We want Lynton! We want Lynton! We want Lynton!
"Mr Crosby is, above all, a political professional. Veterans of the 2005 campaign regard its sheer efficiency as a consolation for defeat. He is a deft manager of people, decisive under pressure, impossible to distract from his strategic goals and naturally authoritative. In short, he is good at everything the Conservatives are not. Under Mr Cameron, the Tory operation has come to resemble a fusty City bank before the “Big Bang”: civilised and well-intentioned but lacking in aggression, discipline and organisation." - Financial Times (£)
  • Crosby called Boris Johnson's staff f***wits - Daily Mail
  • Crosby: the man from  Kadina, a small town in the "Cornish triangle" which lies in the back of beyond in South Australia - Andrew Gimson, The Guardian
> Today: Lord Ashcroft on Comment - A seven point campaign memo for Lynton Crosby
MPs to test British use of drones at heart of secret war - The Times (£)
More than 50 MPs "have been allowed to censor details of their taxpayer-funded expenses claims"
Screen shot 2012-11-20 at 04.58.22"The official expenses regulator published details of MPs’ landlords on Monday night, exposing how several politicians are renting properties from one another or from other acquaintances. But 51 successfully argued that information regarding their claims should be redacted so that the public cannot establish the identities of those they rent from. MPs whose details will remain secret are known to include several who are renting properties from one another and a Labour shadow minister who rents a London home from an offshore trust." - < a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/9689332/MPs-expenses-MPs-allowed-to-hide-expenses-details.html" target="_blank">Daily Telegraph
But…is one MP per seat enough? No - we want two! Commons bid for job-sharing members plan
"MPs will today launch a radical proposal to increase diversity in Parliament by calling for the introduction of job-sharing for members. Two people would be allowed to stand for election in the same seat under the plans, which are backed by disability campaigners and women’s groups. They are also being touted as a way of encouraging more candidates with “real life” experience – as opposed to career politicians – by offering a way to balance an outside job with parliamentary work." - The Times (£)
Gaza invasion put on hold as hopes rise for ceasefire - The Times (£)
> Yesterday:
Syria Islamist fighters in Aleppo reject new opposition - BBC
Glyn Davies MP apologises re deer shooting tweet...for naming the wrong weapon
Screen shot 2012-11-20 at 08.22.38"A Tory MP who fantasised on Twitter about shooting a deer in his garden has apologised – for naming the wrong weapon to use. Glyn Davies tweeted: ‘Beautiful  antlered stag in the garden, browsing on the shrubs border, “Ooh,” said all the family. I just wished I had my  12-bore handy.’ The Montgomeryshire MP immediately drew the ire of the animal rights lobby, who admonished him for promoting blood sports." - Daily Mail
A Tory MP who fantasised on Twitter about shooting a deer in his garden has apologised – for naming the wrong weapon to use.
Glyn Davies tweeted: ‘Beautiful  antlered stag in the garden, browsing on the shrubs border, “Ooh,” said all the family. I just wished I had my  12-bore handy.’
The Montgomeryshire MP immediately drew the ire of the animal rights lobby, who admonished him for promoting blood sports.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235088/Stag-hunt-row-MP-gives-animal-rights-lobby-barrels-Tory-apologises--naming-wrong-weapon.html#ixzz2CkUdOCg8
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Salmond rejects revenue warning - Herald Scotland
Independent Mayor to take salary in Bristol pounds - The Guardian
Silk Commission: 'Hold referendum to give Wales tax powers' - Wales Online
Disability 1) Autistic children are still not getting the support they need- Robert Buckland MP, Central Lobby, Politics Home (£)
Disability 2 ) Would I want my daughter 'cured'? The dilemma of a father whose child has Down's Syndrome - Dominic Lawson, The Independent
Sally Bercow could pay £5000 contempt of court bill for naming runaway girl on Twitter - Daily Express
Yes he did! Dorries daughter insists Andrew Mitchell gave her jungle permission when Chief Whip.  No I didn't! Mitchell says permission was "neither sought nor asked for" - Daily Mail

Posted by Britannia Radio at 09:14