David Cameron is preparing to ditch the Conservatives’ hard-line policies on immigration and reduce the party’s links to big business. David Cameron, the new Tory leader, has promised his MPs a free vote but is expected to do what he can to maximise the Government’s difficulties.An attempt to toughen the ban, by limiting smoking to so-called smoking carriages in pubs, was defeated last month after a furious internal battle in the Cabinet.. Pubs in poorer areas are more likely than others not to serve food, say MPs.The report, to be published on Tuesday, draws heavily on the evidence of the Government’s chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, who considered quitting over the compromise. It will reject claims that a total ban on smoking in public places would not be supported by the public.The anti-smoking group Ash estimates that up to 60 Labour MPs are ready to vote against the Government. Ministers are split over how to head off a revolt over a compromise that allows smoking in pubs that don’t serve food. Labour MPs are pressing for a free vote on the issue when it comes before the Commons in the middle of next month. But Jack Straw is leading cabinet opposition to allowing MPs to vote with their consciences, insisting that it sets a bad precedent.
He is being backed by John Reid and Hilary Armstrong in a battle with ministers, such as Tessa Jowell, who believe the Government faces defeat unless it gives ground.The rebellion will grow this week after a report by the Commons Health Committee that says the fudged ban will widen the health gap between rich and poor.

The fudged ban on smoking in public places – the subject of a new cabinet row – will run into further trouble this week when a Commons committee says it is unfair and unworkable. The rebels unveiled their alternative plans in last week’s Independent on Sunday.. But Baggeridge has a strong balance sheet, which should help it weather the crisis. Buy.ASHTEADIf readers had bought £100 worth of shares in Ashtead on 13 March 2003, their stake would now be worth just under £6,000, and forecast-busting second-quarter results this week extended the winning run. As it happens, 2005 has produced at least three outstandingly good offerings from the publishers, and a number of other useful titles.

Not for the first time however, the best of the crop come from the other side of the Atlantic.
Top of my list for book of the year would have to be David Swensen’s Unconventional Success, published by Free Press, which I mentioned a few weeks ago. It mixes a powerful critique of some of the less wholesome practices of the fund business with a thoughtful and carefully evidenced exposition of how less knowledgeable private investors should go about planning their finances.There is not a single lesson in the book that cannot be applied in the UK, even if finding the cheap and cheerful not-for-profit index fund providers whose virtues he extols is not yet a simple task. Reading Swensen’s splendid book will, I am sure, leave you both wiser and wealthier, whichever category of investor you happen to be in.Next in line for a thought-provoking Christmas read, I would place a short but interesting book by an American fund manager and part-time business school professor called Joel Greenblatt. “If you set up a school and it becomes a good school, the great danger is that’s the place they want to go to.”I have a different view about some of the education reforms and I have expressed it in some inner circles,” he said, conceding that his fears were not “proven”.Mr Prescott left his secondary modern school at 15 but he later returned to education at Ruskin College, Oxford, and went on to graduate from Hull University.Downing Street has insisted that Mr Blair would listen to the concerns of the backbenchers, who claim the rebellion could reach into three figures.But in the Commons on Wednesday, he told MPs: “We will stick with the changes in the White Paper because they are the right changes to make.”The rebel group – including several ex-ministers such as a former secretary of state for education, Estelle Morris – fear pupils from poorer areas will lose out as popular schools expand and wealthier parents are able to set up their own schools, operating their own admissions policies. Given the White Paper I fear there may be movement to that.”There was “a great danger” the new city academies could become grammar schools by another name, he said, adding that comprehensives should not be written off.”My argument is that middle-class parents are concerned, and rightly so, about the quality of education for their children, which sadly is not the same for working-class parents,” he said. “Since I was an 11-plus failure, since I do believe that produced a ‘first-class/second-class’ education system, I fear this is a framework that may do the same I’m somewhat critical of it That’s why I expressed my view in Cabinet about it …

But Mr Prescott has now publicly echoed critics’ warnings.Although it was known that he was privately unhappy about the reforms, his public intervention spells serious political trouble for Mr Blair’s authority.”I’m not totally convinced major reform is necessary,” he told Susan Crosland, widow of the former Labour education secretary Tony Crosland who interviewed him for The Sunday Telegraph. The Deputy Prime Minister used an interview to go public over his opposition to Mr Blair’s most cherished domestic policy. He said he was not convinced that reform was necessary and that there was a “great danger” it would lead to a return to grammar schools.
An 11-plus failure himself, Mr Prescott said measures to free schools from local council control could disadvantage children from working-class families.His intervention, designed to speak directly to Labour rebels, means Mr Blair cannot now expect the support of his most senior ally to push an Education Bill through the Commons in the new year.Mr Blair insisted last week that he would press ahead with his plans for a new generation of “independent” state schools. It states: “Such a move would simply add to public confusion, inconsistency and the waste of police resources, without delivering any health or social benefits.”. John Prescott last night sought to inflict maximum damage on Tony Blair’s key education reforms, claiming they risk creating a two-tier schools system. A copy of the letter, seen by this paper, highlights the fact that cannabis use in Britain has not increased in the first year since reclassification and that nearly 200,000 hours of police time have been saved. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is understood to have concluded there is a risk of psychosis in some cases, although the health risks do not justify cannabis being moved back to class B.The Government is expected to make an official announcement next month on the future status of the drug, although sources have indicated Mr Blair is keen to reverse the decision to downgrade it taken by David Blunkett.Release has written to the Prime Minister as well as Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, urging them not to return cannabis to class B.

They are backing a campaign by Release, which provides support for people with drug problems, to keep cannabis in a lower category.
Last week, the IoS reported that drugs advisers had established a link between mental illness and cannabis use. The governor of Brixton prison, former Spandau Ballet member Gary Kemp and Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat MP, as well as doctors and drug experts have also signed a letter warning against a toughening-up of policy on the drug, which was officially downgraded last January. However, even the group’s assurance that its performance would meet City expectations failed to reassure the market, with the shares down 6 per cent yesterday At 275.5p, the stock is a hold at best.. The singer Sting and the veteran actress Jean Simmons are on a list of prominent figures who have written to Tony Blair urging him to keep cannabis as a class C drug following last week’s exclusive report in The Independent on Sunday that the Prime Minister was planning a U-turn to toughen up penalties for its use.