Brown, Cameron, and Clegg are answering questions - although separately - on diversity in parliament.

Further Reading:

Live Guardian Blog of the Speaker’s Conference

Watch the conference at the parliament website

Nick Robinson on the need for debate

Gordon Brown has said gay MPs and peers should to be allowed to hold civil partnership ceremonies inside the Palace of Westminster.

George Parker, FT political editor, analyses David Cameron’s last conference speech before the general election.

Follow on the link below: Continue reading "FT video: Analysis of David Cameron’s speech"

Brian Groom, FT business editor, assesses the reaction of business to the conference after a year of financial crisis.

Follow the link below: Continue reading "FT video: What does business make of the conference?"

The environmental agenda was a key part of Cameron’s attempt to revive the Tory brand several years ago when he became party leader. Highlighting the impact of climate change on the Arctic went hand in hand with his broader call to let more “sunshine” into the Conservatives.

Blue + green = nice: that was the equation. But are cracks appearing in the stance?

Some in the environmental movement are concerned that the promises may not translate into a truly green reality. Andy Atkins, executive director at Friends of the Earth, said yesterday: “We should be getting far more detailed, coherent and ambitious (environmental) policy so close to a general election.”

One source has told me that Boris Johnson has slashed the number of people working in the GLA’s climate team - although I need to confirm his claim that the total personnel has fallen from 49 to 10 (update here later I hope).

UPDATE - it’s actually fallen from 49 to 25. The GLA have sent me an email telling me how many trees Boris is going to plant in London (10,000). It says: “We are confident that we can deliver more services (from City Hall and across the GLA group) for less to improve London’s environment.”

Meanwhile another green said there was a wider frustration that many of the delivery mechanisms crucial for fighting climate change were not in favour with the Tories. For example:

1] They are determined to slash regulation, especially from Brussels. Ken Clarke’s new promise to set up an anti-red tape “star chamber” - which will remove one new rule for every new one created - is a concern among the greens.

2] Regional targets. The Tories have promised to remove Labour’s attempt to push climate change targets down from Whitehall through the regions via a target system. Weak though it was, it was seen as a step in the right direction. It just doesn’t fit into the wider Conservative agenda of localism.

3] Money. When public finances are tight and Whitehall is about to be slashed, will the environment be among the priorities for the surviving civil servants?

4] Green taxes. Favoured by environmentalists - but feared by politicians. Will Osborne risk enraging Middle England further by tilting his inevitable tax increases away from the petroleum-based economy? It looks doubtful.

So how do they reach any green targets without the machinery to push them through?

The greens are grateful that Cameron shifted his party in their direction for a few years, helping to push through favourable legislation such as the feed-in tariff for energy. I suspect (people haven’t told me this explicitly) they now fear that he will abandon them once in power.

Will tomorrow’s speech by Cam have a major green element - or anything beyond broad brush strokes? Let’s wait and see.

David Cameron faces a horrible decision if the Lisbon treaty comes into force. A quick glance at the policy options makes it obvious why he doesn’t want to explain what he would do. Playing hardball runs the risk of wasting the first year (term?) of a Tory government in a fruitless European battle. The pragmatic route, however, will never satisfy his party. So what to do? Here’s a quick Q&A.

How can Cameron change the Lisbon treaty? Merely to start a formal renegotiation, Cameron would need to propose an Intergovernmental Conference and win the support of 14 countries - a simple majority of member states.

What, 14 countries? That seems like a lot. Yes. And negotiating Lisbon Mark-2 is about as appealing to other European leaders as watching test match cricket.

But many governments do want to repatriate powers, don’t they? Yes. But those demands were all raised during Lisbon talks. Remember, every change to a treaty clause requires unanimous consent. So you need 14 countries to start a negotiation and 27 countries to end it. It just takes one country to dig their heels in and it’s game over. Cameron could be making lots of trips to Riga, Sofia and Talin.

Umm…sounds hard. What could Cameron do to persuade them? He could call a referendum on Europe, either before or after trying to renegotiate the treaty. That would give him a mandate for talks - if the vote went the right way, on a question that was relevant.

But the rest of Europe could still block him. What then? Sabotage. Cameron could withhold Britain’s budget contribution, leave an empty chair at meetings or hold up the EU’s next treaty, which would be needed to accept Croatia or Iceland as members.

Hard ball! Would they listen? Once they stopped yelling? Possibly. But, at this stage, we’d be months into an unholy row. And every European diplomat would know that Cameron had invested a big chunk of his political capital into emerging victorious. They could offer him a face saving deal - but the ransom would be high.

Ouch. Is there an easier way? The pragmatic approach is for Cameron to threaten a referendum, while seeking some kind of concession that would allow him to declare victory.

What could that be? Well, he could ask for a “declaration of subsidiarity” on social policy for instance, which would make absolutely clear that any new rules would be primarily determined by Britain. Victory! The “declaration” would only be passed, of course, because it would have absolutely no legal force. No other countries would care. Peace in our time!

Wait a minute! That won’t meet the Tory manifesto commitment to opt-out of the social chapter? No. It would be purely symbolic. But be realistic. Restoring the social chapter opt-out is harder than it sounds. The chapter no longer exists; it is integrated into the Lisbon treaty. So Cameron would have to propose a fresh treaty negotiation, win the support of 14 countries to start, and then 27 countries to finish. So back to square one.

As Tom Watson points out, politicos of all colours should read Dave’s 10 pledges, laid out in a newspaper* today. As we get closer to the general election Tory policy will get much closer scrutiny than before. Here are a few thoughts:

1] Freezing council tax for two years.

Given that we have been in a period of RPI deflation and very low CPI inflation this isn’t as radical as it sounds. All of Labour’s London councils have promised to freeze council tax next year. Yet I interviewed John Denham over a week ago and he wouldn’t be drawn on making a similar promise for the UK as a whole.

2] Reassessing 2.6m people on incapacity benefit.

The government is already doing this - although it’s not exactly happening swiftly. How could the Tories set a more ambitious timeline?

3] Replacing Human Rights Act with a new British Bill of Rights - to strengthen Britain’s traditional liberties

Nice in theory, but what does this mean?

4] a] Cutting the number of MPs by 10 per cent, b] slashing quangos, c] cutting ministers’ pay by 5 per cent.

a] Will having 590 MPs instead of 646 MPs really make such a great difference? Will it mean some having to sit on more than one select committee and do more scrutiny work - will they become overstretched. The idea is to save money but won’t this be a drop in the ocean?

b] The Tories have promised to set up no fewer than 17 new quangoes of their own. And where they have promised to demolish quangoes (eg the FSA) most of the functions will simply be moved into a different body (eg the Bank of England).

c] The ministers’ pay cut is such an obvious (while populist) policy it was bizarre that Labour hadn’t already announced it. I asked a cabinet minister in Brighton why they hadn’t pre-empted Cameron on this, given Labour may only have 7 months to suffer the lower wages: He seemed utterly affronted at the concept.

5] A new “Military Covenant” with the troops to make sure they are better treated and properly equipped.

This has been pushed for months by Jon Cruddas, leader of the “Soft Left”. It’s one of several of his smart ideas which have been ignored by the leadership.

6] Tax changes such as a] reforming inheritance tax and b] rewarding marriage and families in the tax and benefit system

a] But how quickly in the first term will the increase in the IHT tax threshold (to £1m) take place? This policy was great pre-crash but not so cunning post-crash. I suspect it will be kicked into the long grass for several years.

b] A vote-winner among natural Tories, but what about the rest of the electorate? And when will the “rewards” come? The money will supposedly come from welfare reform - an area where many smart politicians have come unstuck over the years.

7] Tackling the national debt

The big one, where Cameron’s candid outlook left Gordon Brown looking shifty and evasive throughout the summer

8] a] Protecting the NHS and b] Giving school heads the final say on exclusions

a] All well and good but the implications for other departmental budgets - if the average cut across Whitehall is 9.3 per cent over 4 years - is grim. They could see spending cut by a typical 14 per cent or more.

b] Out of 8,130 children excluded last year, only in 60 cases was a head’s exclusion overturned on appeal

9] Suspension of ratification of Lisbon Treaty, referendum and No campaign

Potentially popular in much of Middle England but leaves Cameron open to the charge that he will lessen the UK’s influence in Europe

10] More police officers, doubling magistrates’ sentencing powers, “make sure knife offenders can expect to go to jail”

Labour point out that the detail of Tory knife policy includes “community punishments” as well as jail terms for offenders

* Yes of course it’s the Sun. D’oh.

Okay, it’s not the same Fred Goodwin. This one works as an analyst at Nomura, apparently.

But the Tories have seized upon Goodwin’s report which suggests “the prospect of a UK fiscal crisis is a clear and present danger”. The report suggests that a fiscal crisis is “far more likely” in the UK than in the US - because the dollar is a reserve currency.

“The UK fiscal dynamics are unsustainable. The fiscal balance is plunging deeply into the red in a spectacular and frightening way. Who will fund it? Without QE (quantative easing) the possibility of failed auctions is not trivial.”

Apparently the government’s mega-programme of gilt issuance (selling bonds) has not yet been fully tested - because it has been exceeded by QE (buying bonds).*

When the government turns net seller we will see whether there truly is a market appetite for UK gilts.

George Osborne described the Nomura report as a “wake-up call” with Britain’s “international reputation” at stake. Privately, however, the Tories must be as worried as the government is - given that the situation may still be with us in eight months.

UPDATE

The exact figures are as follows:

* As of September 10 there has been £145bn of QE (assets purchased by the creation of central bank reserves), of which £143bn has been gilts. The process began on March 11.

* Since that date the Debt Management Office has sold £95bn of gilts.

The Tories this week demanded the suspension of what they have described as a “slush fund” for the unions: the union modernisation fund.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: “Union barons fund the Labour Party by ripping off union members. In turn, Labour ministers fund the union barons by ripping off taxpayers.

“It is scandalous there is no proper audit or paper trail to how taxpayers’ money is being spent.”

The government and the unions see the fund differently; it is designed to support “innovative” projects which improve union efficiency.

The business department, which provides the money, says: “The fund can’t be used to support the day-to-day or political activities of unions. Bids are assessed by an ­independent supervisory board comprising individuals from union, academic and industry backgrounds.”

So is the Tory anger over this synthetic?

Richard Balfe, the Tories union “linkman”, refused to meet me at the TUC this week. But he did talk to Rene Lavanchy, correspondent for the Labour-supporting Tribune magazine.

His message was rather different. As Rene writes on the Tribune blog:

On Monday I spoke to Richard Balfe, David Cameron’s personal envoy to the unions and a very nice and approachable man. He played down the cost of the UMF, saying it costs around £12-16 million a year – a drop in the ocean with national debt on course for over £1 trillion.

Balfe also praised the role of unions in reaching out and finding vulnerable workers who need to be told their rights at work, saying they were a very effective way of reaching foreign workers who can’t speak English. He praised a UMF grant which funds a literacy programme he had been to visit.

In fact Balfe was very complimentary of the work unions do – perhaps unsurprisingly as he was at the TUC, but he is a union member (Unite) and sees himself as much as the unions’ envoy to Cameron as the other way round.

Both are responding: Cameron has told his shadow cabinet that they must not turn down requests for meetings from unions. And the unions have held well over 50 meetings with Tory shadow ministers so far this year, he says – in fact one “big union” (I can’t tell you which) has had more than 50 on its own.

So is it one Tory message for Middle England and another for the unions? No wonder the brothers are still rather suspicious.