7.30pm ToryDiary: Labour are targeting families on £20,000, says new Tory poster

7.30pm On CentreRight, Matt Sinclair of The TaxPayers' Alliance uncovers some of the nasties hidden in darling's speech

5.15pm Seats and Candidates: Final six names for Spelthorne

4.45pm Andrew Lilico on CentreRight: "At 4.75% contraction, 2009 is the worst year for the UK economy since comparable records began in 1948."

4.30pm ToryDiary: Tories accelerate planning for March election

4pm WATCH:

• George Osborne declares that the greatest golden rule is 'never, ever trust a Labour government with your money'
• At PMQs, David Cameron challenges Gordon Brown to cut ministers' pay by 5%

3.45pm ToryDiary: How many ducks did you spot?

1.45pm Parliament: Where were all the MPs for the Pre-Budget Report?

1.15pm: ToryDiary: Responding to PBR, George Osborne says the greatest golden rule is you can never trust Labour with the economy

ToryDiary: Darling raises National Insurance by another 0.5%, announces £0.5bn tax on bank bonuses and forecasts £178bn deficit for this year

12.30pm ToryDiary: No killer blows at the pre-PBR PMQs

11.30am Alex Deane on CentreRight: Do you trust the police?

10am Seats and Candidates: David Wilson selected for Inverclyde

ToryDiary:

• If Labour are now the anti-banker party, the Conservatives must be the job-creating, growth party
  
  
• Boris warned about sending political messages to his 59,000 followers on Twitter

Shane Frith on Platform: Conservatives should not be attacking supermarkets, but seeking to further deregulate that sector

Cllr Matthew Laban on Local government: Let Councils use the private sector to tackle homelessness

J P Floru on CentreRight: Have you been stopped under the Anti-Terrorism Act?

WATCH: The BBC's preview of today's pre-Budget report ends with some footage of the Tory debt clock, projected on to Battersea Power Station

David Cameron set to back windfall tax

"Conservative leader David Cameron has given his strongest signal yet that he will back a windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses as he outlined his party’s plans for the City. Cameron, speaking ahead of the government’s pre-Budget Report, also warned a Tory administration would not automatically mean an easier ride for bankers. Cameron said: “It is not necessarily true that all windfall taxes will lead to damage. I believe in normal times the most important thing about a tax system is it should be consistent. “But we don’t live in normal times. It’s not acceptable to see taxpayers’ money going into banks and to see too much of that money being paid out in bonuses.”" - City AM

Windfall tax on bank bonuses set to be centre-piece of Darling's Pre-Budget Report - BBC

Brown threatens transactions levy on top of pre-budget report super-tax on bonuses - Guardian

Darling will axe corporation tax rise for small firms - Daily Mail

Allister Heath uses his Editor's Letter in City AM to warn that "everybody will be hit by the war on banks".

The City is in my blood, says David Cameron

"David Cameron attempted the balancing act yesterday of wooing the world’s most powerful bankers while assuring Middle England that he would not give that most hated profession too easy a time. Speaking to a gathering of top financiers, the Conservative leader told them: “My father was a stockbroker, my grandfather was a stockbroker, my great-grandfather was a stockbroker.” The City, he assured them, was in his blood." - The Times

Fiscal hawk, Alan Budd, nominated by Cameron to run proposed Office for Budget Responsibility

"David Cameron on Tuesday appointed an economic hawk to oversee the Tories’ new fiscal watchdog, designed to police “pro-growth and anti-deficit” measures in an incoming Conservative government’s first emergency Budget. Sir Alan Budd, a former chief economic adviser to the Treasury and member of the monetary policy committee, would oversee the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the party said." - FT

A massive bureaucracy/ quangocracy is resisting public spending cuts - Simon Jenkins in the Guardian

One in ten people living in Britain were born abroad

"The proportion of the population that is foreign-born has almost doubled in the past two decades to 11 per cent, or 6.7 million people. At the same time, almost a quarter of babies born in England and Wales had foreign mothers. This is also a record, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figures indicated that, in 2008, some 11 per cent of the population was born overseas, up from about 8 per cent in 2001 and 6.7 per cent in 1991... Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said: “This government has never had any control over immigration numbers. Some government insiders have said this was a deliberate plot, others claim it was just a mistake. “Either way, they have left our borders unprotected. It is one of the biggest policy failures of the Labour years."" - Telegraph

Theresa Villiers stands firm after BA launches full-blown attack on Tory policy towards third runway

"British Airways' chief executive, Willie Walsh, has rounded on the Tory party in the wake of the Committee on Climate Change report into aviation, and warned that it will make the "biggest mistake ever" if it blocks a third runway at Heathrow... Walsh's comments follow the publication today of a report by the government's advisory panel on climate change, which makes the case for a third runway by admitting that British airports can handle up to 140 million more passengers a year by 2050 without breaching emissions targets. But the shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers, said the Tories stood by their policy and warned that a third runway would exact a "horrendous price" on the environment." - Guardian | Times

Allison Pearson: Cameron is right and Harman is wrong on marriage

"I happen to think David Cameron is doing something that is as brave as it is unfashionable. He's saying something because he believes it's right - especially for children - not because it's what people want to hear. He's telling the men and women who are financially worse off because they're married that they are not fools to try to stick together. 'No one needs a Tory tax incentive to value their marriage,' says Harriet Harman. Perhaps not. But anything that makes marriage and long-term commitment look attractive to people has got to be worth a try." - Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail

"Searching for the causes of social breakdown, the CSJ organised a YouGov poll of 50,000 people, asking them about their family background and the problems they faced. "We found that if you don't grow up in a two-parent family you are 75% more likely to fail educationally, 70% more likely to become addicted to drugs, and 50% more likely to have an alcohol problem," Stroud says. "If we are going to be responsible about the development of social policy, we need to be allowed to go where the evidence takes us, which is that the best outcomes for children are within stable, healthy married relationships." - Guardian

> Yesterday's ToryDiary: Marriage is special says Cameron, but promises support for every family

Daniel Finkelstein: Tories are too dependent upon David Cameron

"A major vulnerability for the Conservatives is dependence on David Cameron. Almost all the gain the party has made has depended on public acceptance that he, personally, is a different kind of Conservative. Other top figures need to be seen as Cameron Conservatives too." - Daniel Finkelstein in The Times

Critics round on Hague for staying silent about trip to "corrupt" Turks and Caicos Islands - Independent

Heart and cancer survival rates among worst in developed world in Britain - Daily Mail

Bercow's "lust for publicity" makes him unfit to remain Speaker - Bernard Ingham in the Yorkshire Postt

Does Obama have it in for Britain?

Barack Obama has failed to mention the special relationship between Great Britain and America in any of his speeches both before and after becoming President of the United States - Nile Gardiner in the Daily Mail

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary and visit PoliticsHome.com for breaking political news and views throughout the day.

7.45pm ToryDiary: Tories project £5,500 per second debt clock on to Battersea Power Station

6pm ToryDiary: Marriage is special says Cameron, but promises support for every family

11.45am ToryDiary: The tide of defections is all in the Tories' favour

11.15am AmericaInTheWorld: Obama's pragmatic foreign policy reminds Jerry Seib of the approach pursued by the first George Bush

10.45am ThinkTankCentral: Profile of Civitas

10.15am Local government: Labour councillor defects to Croydon Conservatives

ToryDiary:

• David Cameron has yet to make a compelling case for a Conservative government, says The Times
  
  
• Liam Fox attacks NATO allies for shirking cost of common defence

Andrew Haldenby on Platform: One million public sector jobs need to go

Local government: Government urge "local homes for local people"

On CentreRight:

• Tim Montgomerie: Do top earners pay their fair share of tax?
• Neil O'Brien: "There's lots of economic evidence that ever more borrowing doesn’t necessarily stimulate the economy, and that stabilising the public finances can help recovery."

LeftWatch: Work doesn't pay under Labour

"8 of the 12 polls published since early November have put the Tories below 40 per cent, against only one of the previous 25." - Times | Yesterday's ToryDiary

"The prospect of a Conservative landslide seems to have disappeared" - Jon Harris in The Guardian

"The Conservatives signed up a series of government advisers today , including two business leaders who have led current and past public sector efficiency drives, in an attempt to steal a march on Labour in the run-up to the general election." - Guardian

One of those advisers, Bernard Gray, tells The Times why he thinks efficiencies are possible: "Over the past decade the productivity of the private sector has risen by a quarter, while in the public sector it has fallen, despite huge investment in IT and other capital expenditure designed to improve productivity."

In a leading article, The Guardian compares the similarity of the main political parties' public reform strategies.

Single mothers heckle David Cameron as he defends his pro-marriage agenda - The Sun

"David Cameron was accused of "discrimination" and "perpetuating stereotypes" by a group of single parents yesterday as he was forced to defend his party's policy of handing tax breaks to married couples. In a speech to members of the single parent charity Gingerbread – which was not advertised to the media by his aides who feared the Tory leader would face a rough ride – Mr Cameron denied being "at war" with single parents." - Independent

"It is not class war or engaging in scare tactics to point out that Cameron and Osborne's only known tax plans gift £1.2bn to the top 2% of wealthiest estates in inheritance tax. Their marriage tax relief gifts 13 times more cash to the top than the bottom. Giving back extra tax relief on pensions of the richest gives £3.2bn to the top 1.5% of earners. Reversing Labour's 50p income rate gives £2.4bn back to the top 1%. The total sum taken from 98% of voters to donate to the top 2% is £11. 7bn. That really is class war – the rich looting everyone else." - Polly Toynbee in The Guardian

Alistair Darling will announce a one-off punitive super-tax of more than 50% on the bonuses of tens of thousands of bankers - Guardian

"Opinion polls demonstrate widespread support for taxes on bankers. A ComRes survey in October found two-thirds backed a windfall tax, with only a quarter opposed. Measures to focus taxes on the rich also have broad appeal. A YouGov poll this weekend found two-thirds agreeing that “any further tax rises should be concentrated on the highly paid”, while 25 per cent said any tax rises should be spread more widely to avoid discouraging entrepreneurs. A poll on public sector pay restraint for the BBC last month found the most popular measure was a 5 per cent pay cut for the top 10 per cent of public sector earners." - FT

"Tory Whip David McLetchie said: “Alex Salmond is trying to politicise Christmas, having already attempted to politicise the Saltire, Scotland’s national days and our children’s education. His obsession with independence is blinding him to reality.”" - Herald | BBC

"If there really is just a fortnight left before we are all doomed, it is good to see that the 20,000 or so delegates are going out in style. More than 1,200 limousines have flooded into the Danish capital (forget about public transport). According to this newspaper's Copenhagen diarist, "most of these stretched vehicles have been driven hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden. Last week France ordered an extra 42 of them. Only five of the limos are hybrid; the rest are petrol and diesel." - Dominic Lawson in The Independent

The Daily Mail quotes David Cameron talking to 1,300 members of the Lord's Taverners charity Christmas lunch: "I asked Tiger to come along, but somehow the idea of 1,300 men didn't seem to be very appealing to him  -  although he did express a keen interest in my all-women shortlists."

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary and visit PoliticsHome.com for breaking political news and views throughout the day.