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Pink Tory
Interests: Travel Politics Poetry Wine
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How do you know it was Fox? As I said in reply to Victor it could have been the Treasury that leaked it to damage him. Or, my second thought, disgruntled MoD officials who are unhappy with him for putting the army and navy before the R.A.F.
In strongly-worded letter to David Cameron, Liam Fox warns against "impossible" cuts to the armed forces
By Tim Montgomerie The Daily Telegraph splashes tomorrow with a letter from Defence Secretary Liam Fox to the Prime Minister about looming defence cuts. Although the letter was marked “for the Prime Minister’s eyes only” it has leaked. Dr Fox writes: “Frankly, this process is looking less and...
It could be the Treasury which leaked it to damage Fox?
In strongly-worded letter to David Cameron, Liam Fox warns against "impossible" cuts to the armed forces
By Tim Montgomerie The Daily Telegraph splashes tomorrow with a letter from Defence Secretary Liam Fox to the Prime Minister about looming defence cuts. Although the letter was marked “for the Prime Minister’s eyes only” it has leaked. Dr Fox writes: “Frankly, this process is looking less and...
Such sensitive things should never be committed to paper
In strongly-worded letter to David Cameron, Liam Fox warns against "impossible" cuts to the armed forces
By Tim Montgomerie The Daily Telegraph splashes tomorrow with a letter from Defence Secretary Liam Fox to the Prime Minister about looming defence cuts. Although the letter was marked “for the Prime Minister’s eyes only” it has leaked. Dr Fox writes: “Frankly, this process is looking less and...
Put Simon Hughes in rather than the dead bird
Definitely Ken Livingstone rather than Maguire
Change the turn left arrow to a debt mountain
Who/ what should be in our new LeftWatch banner?
By Tim Montgomerie Overnight we'll be updating the LeftWatch masthead - dropping Brown and his pork pies and adding in the new Labour leader. David Miliband and his banana or Red Ed. Should we make any other changes? I'm inclined to keep the dead LibDem bird because - although Coalition partn...
There's a difference between taxpayers funding abortions and executions. The unborn child is innocent. Those on death row are not
Republicans launch their 'Pledge to America'
By Tim Montgomerie It's not a revolutionary document but today the Republicans - accused by Democrats of being the 'party of no' - have launched their 21-page agenda. In terms of practicalities the Pledge contains five main themes: "A plan to create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make A...
Clegg can hold all sorts of horrible views on Europe, immigration, tax but if he helps us fix the deficit I'm grateful to him
In praise of Nick Clegg
By Tim Montgomerie Earlier this week we learnt that Tory voters like Clegg more than Liberal Democrat voters. He also enjoys good approval ratings from Tory members. Over two-thirds are satisfied with the Deputy PM. Just 25% are dissatisfied. Today, over on the Coffee House blog, Fraser Nelson h...
A record for trying to turn a thread into a discussion about Europe?
The age of centralisation is over, declares Cameron
By Tim Montgomerie In an article for this morning's Observer, the Prime Minister states that "the age of centralisation stops here." He offers three key reasons why centralisation needs to be reversed: "There's the efficiency argument – that in huge hierarchies, money gets spent on bureaucracy...
:-)
I shall be sleeping with a Cabinet minister this weekend and some farm animals
By Tim Montgomerie No more blogging and tweeting from me until Monday. Jonathan Isaby and Paul Goodman will be running the site. I'm off to Ethiopia for 48 hours with the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell. As well as some meetings with the Ethiopian government and...
The first thing we must do is not call them universal benefits. We must call them badly targeted benefits
Labour seek to protect middle class benefits like the Winter Fuel Allowance with taxes on banks and 'the rich'
By Tim Montgomerie The future of universal benefits may become one of the defining battles of this Parliament. I haven't established David Miliband's position on the future of the £53bn of welfare payments that go to all people, regardless of income, but I should imagine that it will be similar ...
Equality is deeply, profoundly unconservative. What matters is providing people with the basics of a society. Those basics do change over time. I'd say a TV, freezer are basics now but not 30 years ago. The gap between rich and poor should not be a policy goal
I'm a Conservative and I believe in Equality
Tim Montgomerie, Editor of ConservativeHome, recently questioned the decision of eleven Tory MPs to sign 'The Equality Pledge'. The Pledge stated that "more equal societies – those with a narrower gap between rich and poor – are more cohesive, healthier, suffer fewer social problems and are more...
Excellent. Good luck Jeremy
England hosting the World Cup would be a £3bn boost for the nation
Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, on England's bid to host the World Cup in 2018. FIFA, football’s global governing body, arrived in England yesterday for a four day visit to hear why we should be picked to host the biggest football show on earth. After the highs...
I support welfare reform but Cameron needs to be careful with breaking too many pledges. He's already evaded his cast iron promise on Lisbon. He raised VAT when he said he had no plans. So many manifesto promises were lost in the coalition process. Now this. It adds up to danger for us as a party
Downing Street ready to revisit Cameron's pledge to wealthier pensioners in order to fund welfare reform
By Tim Montgomerie The Daily Mail and Times (£) are among the newspapers to confirm last week's story that Downing Street has decided to revisit David Cameron's election time pledge to protect all pensioner benefits such as the Winter Fuel Allowance. The Mail reports: "David Cameron’s official s...
If it was called an assisted places scheme rather than a quota I guess there'd be less foaming at the mouth from the usual suspects.
Universities should have quotas for poorer students with great potential, urges Willetts
By Tim Montgomerie This morning's Telegraph reports that Higher Education Minister David Willetts wants universities to set aside a specific number of places for applicants from poorer backgrounds and to allocate those places on the basis of potential rather than academic attainment. In oppos...
H&F, Wandsworth and Westminster are our finest councils. I hope this happens.
The case for Foundation Councils
Cllr Colin Barrow, the leader of Westminster City Council, starts a series of article outling proposals for Foundation Councils Councils are hampered in their ability to innovate and provide good quality low cost services by three factors: An onerous, centrally-imposed performance framework – ...
We can't have such talented people outside the Cabinet and Danny Alexander inside if this Government is to work
Could David Laws make a speedy return to the frontbench this autumn?
By Tim Montgomerie Within an across-the-waterfront essay on the state of the Coalition for yesterday's Mail on Sunday, James Forsyth wrote that David Laws may be about to return:"Laws is now expected to return to Government soon. He was at a recent gathering of Clegg confidants to discuss pol...
Well said Stephen. Irresponsible broadcasters are encouraging irresponsible parenting
Frank Field wants Cameron to introduce parenting lessons
By Tim Montgomerie The News of the World reports that Labour MP Frank Field - appointed by the Coalition to make recommendations on fighting the underlying causes of poverty - is to suggest that lessons in parenting should be introduced to build "five star parents" of the future. He may even ...
You've heard of Godwin's Law? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
We should have Denham's Law to illustrate how quickly political communication descends to accusing others of being Stasi/Nazi.
Anyone up for creating the Wkki page?
The Order of the OTT is launched to recognise Labour's motormouths
By Tim Montgomerie Earlier this week David Cameron proposed that new council house tenants (note the new) should not necessarily have a council house for life but might have to give it up if their circumstances improve and another family's need was greater. LibDem Deputy Simon Hughes didn't appr...
Great piece Luke and you look cute!
Luke Tryl: The Tory right shouldn’t fear gay rights
Luke Tryl is a Conservative activist in Lambeth. I still remember attending my first party conference back in 2003. Iain Duncan Smith had just imposed a three line whip against gay adoption and in a 15 year-old’s mix of trepidation and precociousness I challenged the party chairman on the pol...
Tee hee :)
No runway success
The word from Paul Waugh is that ‘Boris Island Airport’ is apparently defunct. I find this a tremendous disappointment. Not on the grounds of the economic argument, since the costs are massive and the hub benefits overplayed. Nor because it deprives us of a regular op-ed in the Telegraph of worl...
This site will die if it becomes like conservatives.com. Tim, Jonathan and Paul should carry as they are. Please!
Nick Clegg seems to clear David Cameron of the charge of having lied to the '22 in order to form the Coalition
By Paul Goodman Was the Conservative Parliamentary Party sold the Coalition on the basis of a lie? The question has been whispered around Westminster since the Coalition was formed. David Cameron told his Shadow Cabinet and Parliamentary Party during the post-election party talks that Labou...
For once I agree with CCHQ. I see nothing in the Labour five to frighten us.
CCHQ says Labour will be easier to fight once a successor to Brown has been chosen
By Tim Montgomerie In the last 24 hours we have had three opinion polls: Ipsos MORI: Conservatives 40%, Labour 38%, Liberal Democrats 14% ICM/ Guardian: Conservatives 38%, Labour 34%, Liberal Democrats 19% YouGov/ Sun: Conservatives 42%, Labour 35%, Liberal Democrats 15% I offer three observat...
Cameron is clearly sucking up to the Muslim world and bashing Israel is the best way of doing so.
Gaza is a "prison camp", says Cameron
By Tim Montgomerie In a significant increase in the rhetorical temperature, David Cameron has renewed his condemnation of Israel for blockading Gaza and compared the situation in the Hamas-controlled territory to a "prison camp": “Turkey's relationships in the [Middle East] region, both with Isr...
Looking at some of the people in the graphic I would note:-
Alastair Burt is very pro Israel
Damien Green is very pro liberty
Nick Soames is very tough on immigration
Jonathan Evans is anti abortion
Andy Tyrie is anti Yeo on climate change.
In other words the left are not all soggy!!
Why it's time for the Tory left to be out, loud and proud
By Paul Goodman Four of the five new Conservative backbench committees are chaired by right wingers. All three MPs on the Party Board are from that wing of the party. The right dominates the '22 Executive, holds all its officer posts, and its Chairman, Graham Brady, is one of the few men al...
There is a shop there where one of us can get a different coloured shirt'n'tie
Captions please for Obama/ Cameron photo call...
(Other images from DC's DC visit).
The other alternative to the Coalition is a Tory government!
In praise of Clegg the radical
By Tim Montgomerie Regular readers will know that I wish we weren't in Coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Some of my reasons are stated here. And, because of the continuing slump in Liberal Democrat support, I fear the Coalition will largely drift Leftwards. But, on a day when the Sun is d...
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