Then Iain Dale makes an arse of himself in the Telegraph.

Defections from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems have cost the Tories control of at least two Councils (Dover, and Crawley) this year.

A reselected Conservative councillor joined the lib dems in (key swing seat) Torbay just the other week.

One understands Iain's anxiety to show a defection to the world. Few parties have been so affected by defections (and sackings) as the tories in recent years. Two Tory MPs have crossed the House to sit on the government benches, one joined the Ulster Unionists. And a host of Tory Lords have joined up with UKIP.

I may be wrong, but the last high profile defection to the Tories was probably that of Reg Prentice, about as long ago as their last by-election gain in opposition in Ashfield.

But if you enter "Ashfield election" in Google today you will find this story - from last week - at the head of the list:

The Liberal Democrats have swept to victory in the Sutton North County Council by-election with a massive 44% swing. The Sutton North seat had traditionally been safe Labour, however Labour's grip on the seat was smashed as the Lib Dem candidate Jason Zadrozny romped home with 1979 votes whilst Labour took just 435.

Things ain't like they used to be when Thatcher was on the road to power.

This is the finding according to ePolitix

A report from the Commons standards and privileges committee on Thursday said he had been "ill-advised" to link funding to access to his office.

The parliamentary standards commissioner said that meeting financial backers in the Commons was not wrong, but that it was wrong for any MP to "employ their parliamentary office as part of a party fund-raising stratagem".

This will be a big embarassment to Cameron - and brings Betsygate to mind.

There is still time to vote on last weeks set of Tory embarassments. Cameron´s failure to notice the tax rise in the budget is still in first place.

The result saw the Quebec Liberals hold on as largest party, with 33% of the vote. Quebec Nationalists got 28% and a party of social conservatives - the ADQ - backing a stronger Quebec cultural identity within Candada came from nowhere to second place with 31% of the vote.

Charest will remain Prime Minister of the province - but this result amounts to a defeat. It is also bad news for the Liberals at federal level.

The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper has probably gained most. He will deal with a weak but federalist government in Quebec, and the success of the ADQ is a success for a party with a programme close to Harper's small town conservatism.

The politics of the ADQ are, incidentally, close to those of the old Union Nationale that ran Quebec for most of the period between the second world war and the late 1960s.

That was Peter Hitchens in the Mail.

Must remember to set the video.

The Tory chaos on the Sexual Orientation Regulation vote is in second place.

Examine the form here then cast your vote.

1 Cameron lectures the world on carbon footprints, proposed a complicated flight tax, and then takes a private jet.

The Daily Mail had the story

David Cameron was accused of hypocrisy today after it emerged he used a plane to make a 90-mile journey.

According to the AA's route planner, the 93-mile trip would have taken just two hours and 20 minutes by car.

2 Tory delegates boycott Cameron's conference speech

Many papers covered this. Here is the Guardian

There's nothing worse than turning up to perform to a half-empty auditorium. But yesterday David Cameron was forced to do just that.

As this cameraphone picture - taken during the Tory leader's keynote conference speech - illustrates, Mr Cameron addressed far fewer party members at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham in what was supposed to be the high point of a "policy-lite" conference weekend.

And this is Kevin Maguire on the Mirror blog

I'm just back from a weekend in Nottingham, a great party city. Alas I was stuck at an uninspiring political gathering: the spring forum of the Tory Party. I've been to bigger and more exciting church fetes. The opinion polls might show David Cameron well ahead and big money is certainly swelling Conservative coffers. But the Nottingham conference was surprisingly low key, attended by fewer activists than the Liberal Democrat shout-a-thon a couple of weeks ago in Harrogate.
There was none of that whiff of power you could scent at Labour gatherings in the four years up to 1997 with lots of empty seats in the hall and small hall and few exhibitors. If I were Cameron, I'd be worried. His support is shallow and the Tory faithful don't like all that green stuff, particularly now his fondness for private jets and failure to recycle his own rubbish properly has added the stench of hypocrisy.

3 Tory MPs and Peers play "don't follow the leader"

David Cameron voted for the Sexual Orientations Regulations. It is a signal that the Tories are no longer a bunch of homphobes. Except that only 28 MPs followed him. In the Commons and the Lords, the great majority of Conservatives voted against the regulations, Where better to pick up the stroy than in the Pink News

Around 80 Conservative peers voted against the regulations, which will raise questions about the extent to which the party has become socially liberal under the leadership of David Cameron.

On Monday, Tory MPs forced a vote on the regulations in the Commons, and over 80 of them voted against, with Mr Cameron and 28 others voting in favour.

4 Then there was the Budget debate - and Cameron failed to spot that Brown had robbed the poor to give to the rich. There was dismay in the Tory ranks when Ming Campbell got up and told them what Brown had done.

The FT was not convinced by the rest of the Cameron performance

Mr Cameron had a good opening line: “One tax down, 99 up.” But the morning headlines – about Brown’s “Stalinism”, and polls that show Prime Minister Brown just about dead-heating with a flu epidemic – must have seemed a long way away. Mr Cameron lost the plot rapidly after that, making at least two or three Stalin jokes too many, and half the time turning to talk off-mike.

That's it for this week. I'm sure I have missed something, but that will do for now.

Here is the poll.

Don't take my word for it.

Here's the FT:

Mr Cameron had a good opening line: “One tax down, 99 up.” But the morning headlines – about Brown’s “Stalinism”, and polls that show Prime Minister Brown just about dead-heating with a flu epidemic – must have seemed a long way away. Mr Cameron lost the plot rapidly after that, making at least two or three Stalin jokes too many, and half the time turning to talk off-mike.

"James" left this comment on Liberal Review:

Cameron's response was absolutely cr*p. He plainly had no idea of the implications of what he had heard and had absolutely no idea whether to welcome the changes to income tax (which he unthinkingly called a "tax cut") or not. He just ploughed on with his prepared speech complete with his spin-doctors' Stalin-based "jokes". Lightweight - utterly, irredeemably lightweight.

I can see in my minds' eye now David Willetts patiently trying to explain the point to a bored and confused Cameron deep in the bowels of Conservative HQ. They could be there all night!

I thought it deserved more prominence!

On the other hand, the UK Daily Pundit is obviously smarting at Ming's attack on Cameron:

Ming Campbell, with his tongue firmly in his cheek, has just praised the "intellectual rigour" of David Cameron's chippy reply to the budget. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it. And if Cameron showed a bit more passion like that outside of the parliamentary arena I might just warm to him. One off's aren't enough.

This is how the BBC report it:

where [Brown]... cut with one hand he snatched back with the other and many people may find they are no better off as a result - the key will be just how many, and who are worse off.

Tory leader David Cameron was clearly taken by surprise but spotted that Mr Brown had, in effect, adopted his own policy of "sharing the proceeds of growth between tax cuts and spending".

Cameron really does seem to think he is in coalition with Labour. Perhaps one day he will be...

Head to the bottom right quadrant and you will find links to the First Post on Cameron, James Graham on mushy peas, and Gideon Rachman on the EU.

Rachman spots the fact that global warming is a bit of a morale booster for the EU, but argues that Beijing may just decide that it does not have to follow Brussels' lead.

In today's Independent, Andreas Whittam Smith explores the conclusions of Julian Baggini's new book, "Welcome to Everytown: A journey into the English Mind." Mr Baggini, a philosopher, went to live on the outskirts of Rotherham in order to understand the way Middle England thinks.

Whittam Smith notes that:

Mr Baggini's key insight is that England's culture remains predominantly working class. By paying too much attention to growing wealth, we have made the mistake of believing that everyone is gradually becoming middle class.

But in reality, writes Mr Baggini, the majority of those who deck out their houses with en suite bathrooms and drive bigger and better cars are also, in their values and beliefs, as resolutely working class as they ever were. The most popular television shows are either soaps about working class life or quizzes and entertainment that spring directly from the traditions of working men's clubs. And the greatest symbol of the centrality of working class culture to English life is football.

So far so what? Being Working Class does not of itself preclude someone from being liberal. But Baggini offers this insight into the limits of English toleration:

"the English are not classical liberals, but communitarians". A typical communitarian slogan is "No rights without responsibilities". In this way of thinking, rights are not absolute, as they are in the European and United Nations declarations of rights, but conditional. In English working-class culture, they depend upon the circumstances in which they are claimed. "Unless we recognise the fact that England is not liberal," writes Mr Baggini, "we will be going against the grain of popular thinking every time we try to implement policies that rest on the assumption that it is."

The same goes for fair play as in everyone plays by the same rules and no one cheats. But in practice, the English sense of fair play is considerably looser than this. After all, if we are paid in cash for some job, we probably won't declare it to the tax authorities.

No, on close examination our famous fair play is very similar to other country's. Playing fair does not mean playing by the rules, it means each person getting his or her due. And this, in turn, depends upon one's place in society. You might not cheat the neighbour next door, but you would rip off someone richer than you if you thought you could get away with it.

Reflect on that the next time you are out leafletting.