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Today's Top ConservativeHome Features It's Local Elections Day (if you didn't know already) ToryDiary: Today's elections. How to judge who polls well and who polls badly Grant Shapps MP on Comment: Why you should Vote Conservative today In this week's Culture Column, it's booze, swearing, MPs on hospital trolleys, a hung Parliament - and friendship across the political divide. Paul Goodman reviews "This House at the Olivier Theatre: Colleague Harrison and Comrade Weatherhill Local Government: Labour hypocrisy on mutuals in the fire brigade The Deep End: Let’s hope the Chinese discover shale gas and plenty of it Today's ConservativeHome newslinks As the polls open, the spin wars begin. Downing Street warns 700 seats could fall... “David Cameron is preparing for a “very difficult few days” amid fears in Downing Street that Conservative losses in Thursday’s local elections could be far worse than many had predicted. The prime minister’s team expect renewed Tory criticism of him after polling, which is expected to see the UK Independence party make big gains. – Financial Times  All six Old Etonians are in my team on merit, claims Cameron – The Times (£) Cameron’s new team may find their loyalties divided between the Commons and Number 10 – Sue Cameron, Daily Telegraph Voter’s guide to the local elections – The Times (£) New councils will have to take tough spending decisions –The Times (£) ...As a rampant UKIP plans to blow open British politics... “UKIP hope that this week’s county council elections are just the fireworks display before the big bang. In 2014 they think they can blow open British politics by winning a nationwide election. If they can succeed in doing that, they would almost certainly force Labour into matching the Tories’ pledge to hold a referendum on the EU after the next general election. This would guarantee the public its first vote on Britain’s EU membership in 40 years” – James Forsyth, The Spectator Curse of Osborne strikes Farage: he parks in a disabled bay - The Sun UKIP leader defends candidate who made nazi-type salute - The Independent ...in Labour areas as well as Conservative ones. Farage's party is surging in today's South Shields by-election. "Amid growing fears among senior Labour figures that Ukip could achieve its strongest ever byelection showing in South Shields – and possibly even capture the seat – Ukip sources said they are winning support from the "bloody infantry" hit by Britain's main parties. One Ukip source said: "We expect at the very least to give Labour a bloody nose in South Shields while giving the Conservatives a bloody nose in the rural leafy shires of England." - The Guardian Ed Miliband’s localist debt to Arnie Graf – Mary Riddell, Daily Telegraph Labour targets pensioners' benefits - Daily Express Miliband’s turn as a street preacher is hampered by his lack of disciples - Rafael Behr, New Statesman > Yesterday: Local Government - Most Labour councils are implementing the cut in the spare room subsidy "UKIP stands for devolving power to the people" “The Establishment is rattled by UKIP; perhaps that is at the core of why voters want to take a punt on us. The thing about these so-called “protest voters” is that they are a different sort of protest voters than those the Liberal Democrats used to attract. I’ve been a political anorak for 20 years and I still don’t know what the Lib Dems are for, apart from being vaguely nice and inoffensive. However, anybody who votes for UKIP is well aware of the general thrust of what we are about” – Diane James, UKIP councillor, The Times (£) Cameron's response 1) He hints at changing law to guarantee EU referendum “With anti-EU party UKIP set to make a significant breakthrough today, David Cameron has reinforced his commitment to hold a referendum on Britain’s future in Europe. The Prime Minister said yesterday he was prepared to consider legislation that would guarantee an in/out referendum if he wins the general election in 2015. More than 100 Conservative MPs have urged Mr Cameron to back legislation on a referendum in this Parliament – even if Labour and the Liberal Democrats conspire to vote it down…One poll yesterday suggested UKIP could take as m uch as 22 per cent of the vote in local elections and significantly limit the progress made by Labour” - Daily Mail Cameron's response 2) He pledges action in the coming weeks over benefits and health service access for immigrants "The prime minister admitted that many Britons were still waiting for action on immigrants’ access to public services, but reeled off a list of changes he had made, from cutting net migration by a third to closing bogus colleges…He said that in “coming weeks”, the government would introduce rules “to make sure that when people come here they are not coming for the health service or the benefit system or anything else”." -Financial Times So the Left lied and lied again about immigration – Daily Express Editorial Clegg claims UKIP is dragging the Prime Minister to the Right “Interviewed on the eve of the local elections, and facing the prospect of coming fourth in terms of share of the vote behind UKIP, the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister vowed to ‘dig in my heels and make sure the centre of gravity of the government as a whole does not get pulled rightwards due to the internal dynamics of the Conservative party’. Clegg cited Conservative policies on welfare, Europe and climate change as the three pre-eminent examples of Cameron being pulled right, and conceded that his coalition partner was no longer the same political animal as presented before the 2010 general election” – Guardian The Sun fires a shot across Cameron's bows. It won't support the Conservatives today... "From our very first paper, 44 years ago, we have always remained politically independent. We have never served any set party — and we never will. Sometimes we endorsed Labour or the Tories at election times. But today, as 18 million people have the chance to elect new local councils, none of the big four deserves our support." - Sun Editorial "A wild fling with raffish Nigel Farage might be fun for a while but the long-term consequences are unpredictable" - Trevor Kavanagh,The Sun ...But Peter Oborne says that the Prime Minister is the successor to the victor of Waterloo “Lord Tebbit’s declaration that he would not blame Tory voters for turning to Ukip ‘as the party which comes closest to a traditional Conservative agenda’… is rubbish of such a high order that it suggests he does not understand the Tory party at all, and perhaps never has. One need do no more than cast one’s eye back over every Conservative government that has ever existed, from the Duke of Wellington’s in the 1830s to John Major’s, to grasp what total bilge his lordship is talkin g” - Daily Telegraph > Today: ToryDiary: Today's elections. How to judge who polls well and who polls badly Grant Shapps MP on Comment: Why you should Vote Conservative today Meanwhile, back in the real world, there are signs of better economic news "Some hope of a rise in manufacturing exports was offered on Wednesday after the purchasing managers’ index rose to a four-month high of 49.8 in April, up from 48.6 in March and just below the 50 mark that separates contraction from expansion. The jump in the reading for new export orders, from 48.9 to 52.6, was the biggest since July 2011."  –Financial Times Double dip may never have happened - Daily Express Osborne allies ready to sell bank stakes before general election –Financial Times Austerity is not the only answer to a debt problem – Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, Financial Times The free market isn’t a licence to con people – Laura Sandys, The Times (£) > Yesterday: ToryDiary: The Government regards the state-owned banks as symbolically important. The question is how it will use that symbolism around election time The Deep End - No, the case for austerity is not based on a spreadsheet error Come on in, boys! Help yourselves! Fill your boots! Hague and Hammond raid Greening's aid budget "The Prime Minister signalled he would let some of Britain’s international aid budget be switched to the Ministry of Defence. The Foreign Office, the Department for Education, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs could also benefit." – Daily Mail Aid budget has grown by 31.9 per cent in a year but you wouldn’t know it – Daily Telegraph editorial Is the penny finally beginning to drop that…it is morally unsustainable to lavish extra billions on overseas aid? – Daily Mail Comment Grayling orders review of Court of Protection "The Justice Secretary last night asked one of the country’s most senior judges to consider steps to increase the transparency of the shadowy Court of Protection. Set up in 2007 under Labour’s Mental Capacity Act, it gave the state draconian powers to intervene in the lives of those deemed unfit to look after their own affairs." - Daily Mail News in Brief Government backs down on cigarettes plain packets ban - The Sun John Whittingale MP says that his mother should pay for her free TV licence - Daily Telegraph Three soldiers killed: is Mastiff armoured vehicle good enough? –Independent Private hospital "putting patients' lives at risk" - The Times (£) Schools failing on sex education - The Guardian Coronation Street star Bill Roache on rape charge – Daily Mail Sunshine to bring glorious Bank Holiday - Daily Express Yesterday on ConservativeHome Local elections: Local Government: Poll suggests UKIP will beat Lib Dems in tomorrow's elections WATCH: David Cameron on the campaign trail ahead of tomorrow's local elections ToryDiary: David Cameron faces more opposition to pensioner perks. For once, let’s hope he gives in Henry Hill's Red, White and Blue column: The challenge of teaching non-nationalist national history Christopher Clarke on Comment: Why Britain needs a National Conversation to engage people with politics once more