Peter Hoskin

The major Tory donor Stuart Wheeler is to deliver an ultimatum to David Cameron tonight.  If the Tories fail to make two particular pledges in their next manfiesto, he'll take his money elswhere.  And those pledges are:  1. A promise that if the Lisbon Treaty is not law when they come to power, they will hold a referendum on whether to withdraw UK ratification. 2. A promise that if the Lisbon Treaty is law when they come to power, there will be an immediate, massive renegotiation of the UK's relationship with the EU. If the UK did not get what it wants, the UK should pull out of the Union altogether. It's certainly a considerable enough threat.

The Evening Standard reveals that Eric Joyce - the Falkirk MP and John Hutton's PPS - is to step down from his government role after the Labour Party conference.  There's been a lot of speculation over the past few days that Hutton himself will be the first Cabinet minister to resign in protest at the Brown premiership.  This can only fuel that rumour.

Whether or not it does oust Brown, it's hard not to be impressed by just how well-managed the Labour backbench rebellion is.  The plotters' latest strategic shift is to point out that Brown could actually emerge triumphant from a leadership contest.  Here's George Howarth speaking to the Beeb earlier today: "We've got to confront our problems and deal with them and i think a leadership contest is the best way to do that ... It might not even be a new leader. It's quite possible that Gordon could contest a contest and emerge stronger." Of course, I doubt Howarth, or any of the other plotters, believe that a leadership contest would do anything but undermine - and eventually finish off - the Brown premiership.

It's yet another 20-ish point for the Tories in the latest YouGov poll for the Sunday Times. They're on 46 percent (up 1 on last month); Labour are on 27 (up 2); and the Lib Dems on 16 (down 2). I guess it's fair to say that Brown's economic recovery package - or what we've seen of it so far - isn't making much difference. The problem for Brown is that the foreseeable future doesn't present many opportunities to close the gap. He'd have pencilled in the party conference as a chance to do something - anything - to get some of the public back on side; be it a wave of policy announcements or a rousing speech. Problem is, the leadership speculation - which lay dormant only temporarily - is back with a vengeance, and should now completely dominate the conference narrative.

Yesterday Guido revealed that Brown's insulation programme will most likely take around 10 years to complete.  And today, the FT's blog suggests that energy companies will be able to offset some of the costs of the energy package against their tax bills.  In effect, that means that - rather than paying £1 billion towards the cost of the measures - they'll probably face a bill of around £655 million.  News, surely, that will aggravate those in the Labour Party who thought the companies had got off lightly enough as it was.

This latest YouGov poll for Channel 4 will really give Labour MPs the cold sweats... It was conducted across 60 constituencies which currently have Labour majorities of 6 to 14 percent.  Why?  Because they're the seats that the Tories will need to win to be Britain's largest party after the next election, and they'll need an overall swing of 7 percent to achieve that. According to YouGov, though, there's currently a 12 percent swing in favour of the Tories.  That would actually give Cameron & Co. a 150 majority in the Commons.  And leave Jack Straw among the many Labour casualties. YouGov's Peter Kellner may be insisting that Labour could still win the next election.

A leader in today's Guardian is another entry for the Cameroons' list of non-electoral milestones.  Entitled "Progress in Blue", its case seems to be that the Tories are pushing the kind of progressive agenda that Guardian readers should consider voting for.  Here's the nub of it: "There have been moments in the postwar history of Britain when people who would naturally be inclined to vote Labour have been driven to ask themselves whether the return of a Conservative government would be the worst possible outcome for the country or for the general cause of progress? For those in Britain who think of themselves as progressives, the answer has usually been an unhesitating yes.

Ok, so it turns out that Brown's article today wasn't an apology of any sort.  But there's still some speculation that he's going to use his conference speech to more or less say "sorry".  With that in mind, the Tories have just launched 'Brown's Big Apology', a corner of their website where - from now until the speech - there'll be daily suggestions of what Brown should apologise for.  The first is the 10p tax debacle.  What would CoffeeHousers add to the list?