Conservative party shows a little ideological leg

When you don’t believe in intervention; when you still think that regulation is intrinsically bad; when you are nudging around for a bit of populist rhetoric, you end up with:

1. David Cameron, Conservative Party leader’s favourite think tank launched policy document on regionalism.

“Cities in northern England such as Liverpool, Sunderland and Bradford are “beyond revival” and residents should move south, a think tank has argued.”

UPDATE: The think tank in question was set up by David Cameron’s spokesman on education, Michael Gove. Here’s what the Birmingham Post has to say on the matter.

2. David Cameron’s shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve wants to dilute the checks police have to go through before using surveillance powers:

“Tories call for more freedom for snoopers”

David Cameron used to boast that he was the architect of the policy to build thousands of CCTV cameras in the UK. He then seemed to face towards the Lib Dems in their trenchant position against strengthening police powers.

And it is not too long ago since Mr David Davis, who believes that we already have an army of snoopers running the state was Mr Cameron’s lead on the Conservative front bench.

One can only conclude that this new policy announcement reflects a significant change in direction for Mr Cameron’s party. He’s dropped his nod to the civil liberties lobby and is shifting to the right with a more populist rhetoric. Strangley, you don’t see much about this in the broadsheet newspapers.