News International accused of intrigue with the Tories

The Independent's lead story this morning suggests that David Cameron has done a deal with News International.

After this week's attacks on Gordon Brown in the Sun,Peter Mandelson went on the Today programme yesterday to accuse the Tories of such a move.

They suspect that the Conservative Party has been tailoring its policies on media regulation and the BBC to suit the commercial interests of News International, which owns The Sun, and that the paper's aggressive support for the Tories is a pay-off that could spread to other parts of the mass media.

and as if to further the cause

Yesterday, The Times, another Murdoch newspaper, announced that its veteran political editor, Phil Webster, is leaving the Commons, where he has been based for decades. Mr Webster is very well thought of by New Labour. His replacement, Roland Watson, was a friend of David Cameron's at Eton

Hunt says Tories will abandon plans to tax phone lines

Apparently the Tories would reverse two of the main proposals in the government’s Digital Britain bill and are considering plans to rip up the BBC’s royal charter.

This morning's FT reports that shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt,in an interview with the paper said a Tory government

would scrap a proposed 50p a month tax on all telephone lines, aimed at raising about £175m a year towards the cost of funding superfast broadband to UK homes, “as soon as possible” after the election, expected in May and,also promised to reverse government plans to force the BBC to share £130m of the television licence fee with other broadcasters.

Mail swings

Signs this morning that the Mail may be swinging round to apporoval of David Cameron with its front page.

After a fanfare for Gordon Brown and some scathing attacks on the Tories,the paper stands firmly behind Cameron's latest initiative

The Tory leader will "relentlessly focus" on graffiti, anti-social behaviour and the other minor crimes which can lead to more serious offending.
Making his most significant policy pledges yet, Mr Cameron promises that if put in power he would end the "mockery" of criminals being released early.

And its leader backs up the opinion with the headline"At last! Mr Cameron is talking like a Tory"

Not for the first time, David Cameron's Tories have proved themselves capable of serious thought about the causes of Britain's problems and their solutions.
They showed it when Iain Duncan Smith published his plans to support marriage. And again when John Redwood unveiled his proposals to boost competitiveness and ease taxes on hard-pressed families.
Now they've demonstrated it a third time with their mini-manifesto on tackling what they correctly identify as Britain's 'crime crisis' - whose very existence Labour refuses to acknowledge.

Redwood v the BBC

The Sun isn't very happy about the Beeb's coverage of the John Redwood policy initiative on tackling red tape.

This is what its leader says this morning

THE BBC’s coverage of Tory plans for £14bn cuts in red tape and bureaucracy was a mockery of impartial journalism.
Instead of examining John Redwood’s arguments, it made a joke of them by unearthing his garbled version of the Welsh anthem from a decade ago.
The caustic bulletins could have been scripted by Labour ministers.
Mr Redwood may be a colourful character. But few can match his understanding of the way Labour and the EU have tied our economy in knots with pointless regulation.
Certainly not the BBC — a bastion of smug, self-satisfied bureaucracy which rightly stands accused by its own watchdogs of being “institutionally biased.”

I think that the paper is being a little unfair on the corporation,after all the press in general have been,not expectedly critical of both the policy and the man himself.It is,in my opinion a fair story.Showing that the Tory party are reverting to former politicains from the right to promote new policies.

Footnote

Read what Polly Toynbee says in this morning's Guardian under the headline"The Tories will have lost their senses if they sign up to so much as a single item in John Redwood's reckless rightwing review

Keystone Kops

So the Madeleine story returns to our pages after a few weeks hiatus excepting of course the Express which has decides d now that it s more important than either Diana or the long term weather prospects.

Let's hope that the Portuguese police aren't reading the Mail this morning

The Keystone Kops could have done a better job of investigating Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
How can the Portuguese police have waited until now - more than three months on - to organise a proper forensic examination of the Algarve apartment from which she went missing?
Indeed, they might never have arranged it at all without the insistence of the British police, whose offer of specialist help and sniffer dogs they inexcusably refused for 90 days.

And it continues

But there's a darker side to it, too, which goes far beyond incompetence.
This week, the Portuguese papers have been full of utterly unsubstantiated insinuations, whispered by 'police sources' - unnamed, of course - that the McCanns themselves or their holiday companions may know more about Madeleine's disappearance than they've revealed

And on the topic of leaders let's hope that David Cameron doesn't read the Mirror which says

Is there any point to the Tory party anymore?
Dopey David Cameron has lost another supporter - and this time a valuable one

.

Tories have a new spin Doctor

The news that former News of the World editor Andy Coulson is to join the Tories as their media spin doctor has attracted a fair amount of comment this morning.

Andy,you may recall,fell on his sword following the recent phone tapping scandal.The Tories seem at the moment to be in desperate need of some media coordination.

The lying low strategy whilst Blair continues his world tour has backfired with avengence as the party implodes over Grammar schools.

Have a read of Lance Price is this morning's Telegraph


"The grammar schools debacle, which has become more embarrassing by the day, is only the latest evidence of a lack of any serious tactical thinking. Cameron and his closest allies have been flying by the seat of their well-tailored pants and it is beginning to show. Coulson's appointment hasn't come a day too soon. "

The battle is now on with Michael Ellam who will move to Downing street on Brown's succession.

There is some speculation that this may herald a move by the Murdoch papers back to the Tory party.

Will it work?Read this by Michael White on Media Guardian.

According to Guido

he suspects this will signal a much needed change in the tone of Tory propaganda. Trying, as Osborne recently did, to frame Gordon Brown as a leftie won't work. The approach to Gordon has to chime in with the truth that people instinctively sense. He is an unpleasant, difficult to work with, psychologically flawed, malevolent, grudge-bearing control freak. These aspects of his character are even more of a negative than his tax and spend, big government, micro-managing policies.