In a speech to the Conservative Councillors’ Association today David Cameron will outline his plans for local government.

The Conservatives will give more power, discretion and autonomy to local councils, but greater power must be backed up with greater accountability to local taxpayers. Under Conservative plans councils will be require to publish online:

• The full remuneration package of all senior staff, earning above £58,500, including name and post.
• All items of expenditure above £500, and publish contracts and tender documents in full.
• Information on councillors’ expenses in open and standardised format so the public can compare councillor expenses across the country.

Bellow are some key extracts from David Cameron’s speech:

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Accompanying the CCHQ press release which gave David Cameron’s reaction to the finalisation of negotiations for the Prime Ministerial Debates was this little list:

19 May 2007

David Cameron first backed a TV debate between the party leaders:

‘I hope in the next few days Gordon Brown will make clear that once he’s actually the Labour leader and Prime Minister he’ll take part in proper TV debates that could really help bring politics to life.’ (BBC News Online, 19 May 2007)

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While speaking to party members at the Spring Conference, David Cameron once again signalled his commitment to fix broken Britain. One of the key planks to his strategy is to build the most family-friendly nation in Europe, he said:

“We’re going to start with the most family-friendly manifesto that any party has produced in British political history. We’re going to set out how we’re going to recognise marriage in the tax system, how we’re going to support couples in the benefits system, how we’re going to give the right to flexibility to everyone with children up to the age of 18, how we’re going to have a new army of health visitors to help mum and dad when the new child arrives, how we’re going to do all these things to help all our families in all of our country.”

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My sources tell me that tonight’s YouGov tracker poll will show the Conservatives 6 per cent ahead of Labour. This would add further weight to the argument that the YouGov/Sunday Time poll, which showed only a 2 per cent lead, was indeed a rogue poll.

If confirmed you heard it hear first, if not just move along – nothing to see.

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As party members arrive in Brighton for the Spring Conference, the Conservatives have unveiled their six key pledges for the election campaign, and they are good, very good indeed.

While building on David Cameron’s “change” message, they also clarify (and more importantly simplify) the Conservatives message to the country.

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Speaking at an event in London, David Cameron called for Sir Phillip Mawer, the independent adviser on the ministerial code of conduct, to investigate allegations that Gordon Brown bullied staff in Downing Street (video bellow).

While no one can suggest that Team Brown have control of the story, an investigation by Sir Mawer is the last thing No 10 wants. If there was to be an investigation, and there is no sign as yet that one is to be launched, it would no doubt be long and protracted and would probably run through the election campaign.

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Following hot on the heals of Labour’s half-assed personal attack on David Cameron, it appears that Labour HQ are set to launch a dedicated website aimed at continuing their character based attacks on the Conservative leader.

All round techno geek Dizzy has found that Labour’s online spin team have registered five domain names which play on the parties latest ‘David Camera On/David Camera Of’ messaging. The names that have been picked-up by labour for the site are: continue reading

David Cameron has accused the government of “undermining the personal and social responsibility that makes a strong society tick” and has vowed to revive a ’sense of community’ in a bid to mend ‘broken Britain’.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the Conservative leader unveiled the latest phase of his campaign aimed at tackling the ‘dark side’ of family breakdown, lawlessness, violence and classroom disruption.

He wrote: “We’re going to encourage and enable people to get together to solve problems and make life better, instead of just waiting around for government to do it all.”

Highlighting the case murder of Sukhwinder Singh, who was murdered in East London after chasing two muggers, Mr Cameron writes: ‘Gordon Brown says we don’t live in a broken society. Sukhwinder may have suffered its most horrific expression, but there are many other victims too.’

He said ‘pensioners who live in fear behind bolted doors; teenagers who have a baby but no GCSEs; kids who are more likely to see their dad drunk than doing a day’s work; and the one in four women suffering domestic abuse at some point in their life’.

Building on Michael Gove’s pledge to give head teachers more powers, he said a Conservative government led by him would allow head teachers to search children for weapons and drugs and give them the final say on excluding pupils.

He wrote: “Unless children learn the difference between right and wrong, they will never develop the responsible character that is vital to a strong society.”

Single parents who work part-time and take on extra work to support their family will not have to pay extra tax under Tory plans.

Mr Cameron said he will overhaul the criminal justice system so that it supports rape crisis centres and tackle domestic violence.

‘We will use fines paid by criminals to fund up to 15 new rape crisis centres, and we will work with Mayor Michael Bloomberg to learn from New York’s success in cutting the number of domestic violence-related murders’.

In a philosophical and old-fashioned speech this morning, David Cameron said that a future Conservative government would intervene to end the “poverty of parenting” in society.

Defended the right of politicians to discuss moral and personal issues, Mr Cameron admitted he could come in for criticism for addressing personal issues.

“People will say, this is really not the business of politicians,” he said.

“But that doesn’t mean we should remain silent on this issue. Politicians are the ones who take taxpayers’ money and write billions of pounds’ worth of cheques.

“We have a responsibility and that means looking at the evidence, recognising that parenting has a massive part to play and doing something about it.”

Mr Cameron said the left had been wrong to suggest economic circumstances are at the root of societal breakdown and criminal behaviour. In fact, it is poor parenting which tends to negatively affect a child’s emotional and social development, he argued.

Speaking to the Demos think-tank he set out his ideas on creating a responsible society, in which he said his government would be willing to break from traditional party policy and show more active and interventionist policies towards family life.

“In the past I think we’ve been guilty of giving the impression that to build a responsible society all you need is freedom for the individual plus strong rule of law from the state. We didn’t talk enough about what happend in between,” he said.

He added: “It’s not just right, it’s essential that we take a view on how responsible character is formed and what government can do to help build it”.

To do this a future Conservative would seek to act by tackling not just material poverty but a new challenge, “to alleviate poverty of parenting in the knowledge that it is the best way to help children escape material poverty”.

“If we want to give children the best chances in life whatever background they are from the right structures need to be in place,” he said.

The Tory leader insisted Labour’s SureStart programme would be retained, but taken back to its original purpose, with a concentration on early intervention.

Rather mischievously, Mr Cameron also made a point of praising Labour rebel Frank Field, whom he said had “drawn the link between family breakdown and more crime, arguing a fundamental principle of the welfare state should be to support families and children”.

The speech marks a return to Mr Cameron’s long-running theme on personal responsibility, a tactic that plays well with the Conservatives’ core supporters.

Appearing on the Andrew Marr Show this morning David Cameron outlined three measures to help small businesses: