A leading Tory youth activist apologised "unreservedly" to Kate and Gerry McCann tonight after dressing up as their missing daughter at a New Year's party.

The Tories are on their way back to power but still have a "long way to go," party chairman Caroline Spelman said today.

At the Conservative conference in Birmingham, Mrs Spelman set out a five point plan to win the next general election.

I've heard many things about Gordon Brown but no one's ever suggested that he beats his wife or tortures spaniels. Heathcliff, to whom the Prime Minister has allowed himself to be compared, does both these things in Wuthering Heights, a novel so savage that one contemporary reviewer suggested it was the product of a dyspeptic digestive system.

Concerns that the Conservative Party chairman, Caroline Spelman, was using her parliamentary expenses to pay her nanny were first raised by her own secretary, it was reported on BBC2's Newsnight last night. Sally Hammond – who became a part-time secretary to Ms Spelman in 1999 – was "shocked" to discover how she much paid Tina Hayes. Ms Hayes was employed by Ms Spelman after she became an MP in 1997, to look after her children and do secretarial work. However, according to Newsnight, Ms Hammond found that Ms Hayes performed little or no secretarial duties. Ms Hammond – wife of the Tory MP Stephen Hammond – reported the matter and the practice was stopped. Senior Tories are said to be calling for Ms Spelman's resignation.

The Conservative Party chairman will face an investigation into her use of MPs' expenses to pay a nanny... at her own request.

David Cameron's problems over "Tory sleaze" deepened last night amid allegations that the Conservative Party chairman Caroline Spelman paid her nanny out of her parliamentary allowances.

Gordon Brown has tried to sharpen up his Downing Street operation after a trouble-hit three months by appointing the head of a public relations company as his new chief strategist.

The local authority that covers Tony Blair's constituency has the highest council tax in England, figures published by the Government yesterday show. The annual returns from local authorities of the charges they will levy from next month show that a band D home in Sedgefield will have an annual council tax bill of £1,376, a rise of 6.4 per cent on the current financial year.