Shadow Chancellor George Osborne will set out the Conservative Party's strategy for rebuilding the UK economy in an exclusive Thomson Reuters Newsmaker at 11 a.m. on Monday, October 26.

We will bring you full coverage of Osborne's speech, including a live video feed and blog, after which we will conduct a short social media interview with him.

We want you to send us your questions to put to him.

This is your chance to grill the man who, according to the latest opinion polls, looks set to inhabit Number 11 Downing Street after the upcoming general election.

Be it on bankers' bonuses, tax havens or the Conservative Party's plans for leading us out of a recession, send us your questions now using the form below or via Twitter using the hashtag #askosborne.

On Thursday night, BNP leader Nick Griffin will appear on the BBC’s leading current affairs programme “Question Time”, an appearance that has provoked much anger and debate.

Griffin is no stranger to the airwaves or TV screens, regularly appearing this week alone after four leading former generals attacked his party for using military imagery as part of its campaigning

But to some politicians, including Home Secretary Alan Johnson and Cabinet minister Peter Hain, the BBC’s decision to allow him on Question Time was totally wrong, giving a much higher profile platform to Griffin and his far-right views.

They also say that a recent court decision to order the BNP to open up its membership to non-whites meant the party broke race relations laws and was therefore unlawful.

One academic has said that a similar TV appearance by French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 1980s led to a huge increase in support for his Front National party, generating concern that Question Time will do the same for Griffin.

There is no doubt that support for the far-right is growing in Britain at the moment, although it remains very much at the fringes of mainstream politics. The BNP has dozens of councillors across the country, a seat in the London Assembly and most notably won two seats in European Parliamentary elections earlier this year.

BBC bosses argue that for that reason it is only right that Griffin is invited onto the flagship politcal show to answer questions about his party. They say it is for parliament and not for the broadcaster to censor political parties.

However former London mayor Ken Livingstone has warned that the BBC would bear moral responsibility for any rise in racial attacks, saying the presence of the BNP always led to a rise in such incidents.

Community relations experts have also expressed fear about the impact a rising far-right will have, especially in the run-up to what is predicted to be a tense election. However many say that trying to muzzle the BNP was counter-productive, and that the group should be challenged head on.

“I think we’ve got to have a more sophisticated approach to the far right where we do use reasoned arguments to defeat them because there’s no doubt in my mind that those reasoned arguments will work,” said Ted Cantle, who led the government’s review into the 2001 race riots for which the far-right was held partly responsible.

“I do feel they have to be taken on and defeated in the public eye. For the most part, their arguments are completely ridiculous and people have to see them for what they are,” he told Reuters. He said the unwelcome truth for mainstream politicians was that there was a “grain of truth” in some of the things the BNP said, and censoring them gave the impression this was being covered up.

However the Unite Against Fascism group said the BNP should not be treated like any ordinary political party because its views were racist (it campaigns for a halt to immigration, voluntary repatriation of immigrants and Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union).

“Griffin isn’t interested in impressing people with his arguments - he just wants to build the BNP by using Question Time as a platform to whip up race hatred and bigotry,” the group says.

Griffin himself says the “hysterical” furore over his appearance has already been a shot in the arm to his party. “I thank the political class and their allies for being so stupid,” he told the Times. “Thank you, Auntie.”

Reuters UK will be live blogging Griffin’s appearance on Question Time at 22.35 BST.

Do you have a question you would like to ask Chancellor Alistair Darling? Now is your chance.

At 1:30pm British time on Wednesday, October 21, Reuters is hosting an exclusive Web 2.0 interview with Darling and we want you to send us your questions to put to the top man from the Treasury.

From the crippling global recession to the debate over bankers' bonuses, it has been a tumultuous year at Number 11 Downing Street. You may want to quiz the Chancellor on one of these topics, ask him about the government's plans to prevent another downturn or how Labour plan to defy the polls and win the upcoming general election.

During the interview we will put as many of your questions as possible to the Chancellor and will be running a liveblog of the event, much like we did during this social media interview with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Leave your question in the comments box below or via Twitter (using #askdarling) and join us on Wednesday for our Web 2.0 interview with the Chancellor.

Opposition leader David Cameron has delivered his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester.

Cameron told delegates there would be “painful” cuts in public spending, promised to send more troops to Afghanistan and stressed the importance of confronting “Labour’s debt crisis.” He also pledged to modernise the pension system, “break the cycle of welfare dependency” and cut back on bureaucracy to make life easier for entrepreneurs.

Cameron’s speech brings conference season to an end. Leaders of the three main parties — Cameron, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats — have all laid out their plans for Britain ahead of a general election due by June 2010.

The ‘word clouds’ below have been generated using the complete texts from each of the leaders’ keynote conference speeches, in the order they were given. At first glance there are some striking similarities and fascinating overlaps — but we will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

How did you think each of the leaders performed? Who did you find the most convincing? Is David Cameron ready to lead the country?

Keywords from Nick Clegg’s speech:

Keywords from Gordon Brown’s speech:

Keywords from David Cameron’s speech:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised to clean up politics, get tough on crime in his keynote speech to the annual Labour Party conference in Brighton. He also pledged to address the bonus culture that many blame for the financial crisis.

The ‘Word Cloud’ below (click the image for a larger view), produced by Wordle, shows the words he used most frequently.

The speech was an attempt to rouse his beleaguered party and win back the middle-class voters who flocked to Labour under Tony Blair. The latest opinion poll from Ipsos Mori put Labour down in third place for the first time since 1982.

Reuters Chief Correspondent Keith Weir, who is live blogging the Labour conference, said the key themes that struck him were Brown’s focus on families, health, crime and middle or mainstream issues.

What did you think of Gordon Brown’s speech? Have your views on him changed? Do you think he can still win a general election next year?

The Conservatives might be wishing they could have held their party conference before Labour.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown's address to his party conference in Brighton on Tuesday has thrown down a flood of new ideas, policies and initiatives from faster cancer diagnosis to choosing how Britain votes in what read more like an mini-election manifesto than a speech.
Brown played to his strengths (policy) and avoided trying to overcome his well-known weaknesses (not much of a political entertainer) in public. Trying to be someone else could have been a disaster for a man way behind in the polls to the Conservatives.
Whether it will be enough to make any difference to the polls remains to be seen -- Labour needs a miracle there after all.
But, for now, going for the policy jugular seems to have done the trick -- giving his browbeaten party something to get excited about and hitting the Conservatives where it hurts.
David Cameron's Conservatives have been accused of not giving enough detail on how they would govern the country if the polls are correct and they are to win power next year.
They will have to start showing their hand soon if they are going to convince voters that they have the ideas to run the country and aren't just a vote for change for the sake of it.

- Hugh Robertson is the opposition Conservatives' Olympics spokesman. The views expressed are his own. -

With three years to go, it is remarkable that London 2012 is going so well.

London’s Olympics were launched with a massive government miscalculation that resulted in the budget having to be increased threefold, were based on a plan that required us to build two Terminal 5s in half the time and have had to contend with the worst economic recession in living memory.

Despite this, the construction process remains on time and nearly on budget, the organising committee have raised more than £500 million in sponsorship and our athletes have given London 2012 a considerable boost by winning a record haul of medals in Beijing.

However, among all the plaudits, it is sensible to sound a note of caution.

The construction process is only just over one third complete and much remains to be done to a tight and immoveable deadline. Many of the major operational challenges for The organising committee lie ahead such as balancing the budget, finalising the venues, ticketing and the content of the opening and closing ceremonies. Finally, it is a considerable challenge to get our athletes to replicate, or exceed, their performance in Beijing.

In short, if you were writing a school report, you would probably conclude that London 2012 has started well but much remains to be done. You would also warn against too much self congratulation!

The major outstanding issue is legacy. It is a worry that neither the main stadium nor the broadcast and media centre have key anchor tenants and there has been little progress on delivering the promise, made when we won the bid, to use London 2012 to reengage young people in sport.

This is important for one simple reason. If we transform the area around Stratford but leave no more people enjoying the opportunities available through sport, we will have missed a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Britain’s drug strategy is under the spotlight following the UK Drug Policy Commission’s (UKDPC) recommendation that there is too much energy spent on arresting drug dealers and not enough on reducing harm to communities.

Latest figures show that nearly 90,000 people were arrested in England and Wales for drug offences, with over one billion pounds spent on law enforcement, with £17.6 billion the estimated cost of the UK drug markets.

The report questions whether it is worth arresting a drug dealer if a more violent individual replaces him.

“Drug law enforcement is clearly not limited to the traditional role of arresting as many dealers as possible in anticipation of reducing supply,” said UKDPC chief executive Roger Howard.

“Drug markets will inevitably remain, and some enforcement agencies are beginning to prioritise their resources and efforts to curb the most harmful aspect of these.

“But to do this means having a much bigger picture of the harms being created and much better evaluation of the real impact and value for money of enforcement.”

What do you think of the UKDPC’s recommendations? Is the UK’s drug enforcement policy clever and nimble enough? Or is there a danger of the police going “softly, softly” on drug dealers by pursuing more innovative approaches?

Seven leading supermarkets and their customers are finding it slow going to stop using plastic bags.

Over the last three years supermarkets have reduced the number of bags from 870 million to 452 million, just failing to meet a government target to cut the number by half.

The reduction drew words of praise from Environment Secretary Hilary Benn.

“This is a great achievement by the seven supermarkets and their customers and it shows that by working together, we really can change our bag habits,” said Benn.

The British Retail Consortium has backed the government’s softly, softly stance.

“These figures send a clear message: the voluntary approach is very successful and can lead to better informed customers and lasting change,” said Stephen Robertson, the BRC Director General.

But with environmentalists saying plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to disintegrate and pose threats to marine life, birds and other animals, the UN has recently called for governments to take a more punitive approach.

“Thin film single-use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased-out rapidly everywhere — there is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director in June.

Given that a number of countries throughout the world have already outlawed plastic shopping bags isn’t it time Britain took a more interventionist approach to curtailing their use?

Plans to overhaul care services for the elderly will involve creating a national care service, giving all citizens a basic entitlement and contribution to their care.

Plans outlined in a new Green Paper called “Shaping the Future of Care Together” would require people to buy insurance to supplement state funding.

Currently, the elderly are means tested for social care. Under the present English system anyone with a home or savings of 23,500 pounds or more is not given state funding for a care home or social services.

In Scotland, personal care for the elderly is free.

How should we fund care for the elderly? Would it be better to go the Scottish route?