NEXT WEEK ON THE TORIES' GROUP IN EU

Read about their Polish partners ideologically exploding with the latest homophobic remarks from the Tories Polish friends and the expulsion of one of their more reasonable MEPs. The Polish Law and Justice party is the only other significant party in the group and is now set on a course of right-wing populist nationalism underpinned by a religious fundamentalism.
Read about how a high level post in the Tories group was given to a person who had an affair with one of the groups' party leaders when he was PM.
Read about the latest development about their neo-nazi friends (by association) in Latvia. Find out how they are one of the very most unedifying right-wing parties in Europe.
All this because Cameron and Hague have vacillated about what to do with the former shadow Europe Minister, Mark Francois' baby.

For the week after that a truly stunning revelation of a much more UK-relevant story, that will go to the very core of the Conservative Party. (Hague? Coulson? Liam? George? et al? who knows just yet)

Tories' Treachery Over EU Allies

Terry Moore in Brussels
Published in Tribune Magazine 21 May 2010 www.tribunemagazine.co.uk

In a highly cynical manoeuvre, the Tories in the European Parliament are going to collapse their right-wing grouping before it falls apart. They then intend to present this as a sign of maturity in Government and as a devious signal to their new coalition allies the Lib Dems that the Tories can do compromise.

In reality, The Tories have spent an inordinate amount of political capital after Cameron took over the Tory party leadership, establishing a new right-wing group in the European Parliament called the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) . However as a leader of one of their strategic allies in the European Parliament (the Czech Civil Democrats, ODS party) points out they utterly failed to create a sustainable grouping that could have any influence in the EU Parliament.

Furthermore, the ODS leader, Miroslav Ouzký believes that the Tories are untrustworthy partners and are preparing to sabotage the group in pursuit of their own self-interest. Ouzky's distrust is telling as the ODS are the only sensible members of the ECR which is otherwise made up of Religious fundamentalists , far-right Baltic State MEPs both with a smattering of anti-semitism and blatant homophobia and maverick independents as well as the ODS and the Tories.

The Tories left the main centre-right grouping the European Peoples' Party (EPP) and incurred the wrath of mainstream centre-right leaders such as Merkel and Sarkozy. Cameron now looks like he is going to jump before he is pushed and apply to rejoin the EPP (allegedly from a position of strength when it is in fact from a position of great weakness).

The ECR group is so fragile that it only needs two members from their 54 member grouping to walk out and it will no longer be viable and would lose all funding from the European Parliament and its rump would be looked upon as renegade independents, not to be trusted.

The current leader of the Czech ODS party in the European Parliament,  Miroslav Ouzký, has outlined his fears about Tory treachery in a recent interview. “The faction is very fragile from the inside, since it only has the minimum number of required delegations, therefore the walkout of only 2 members can dissolve it. Sufficient would be that Cameron stops convincing some of its unsettled individuals to stay at ECR- which I could imagine he will do.”

“He also despairs at the commitment of his Tory allies., “When the topics come to the cars, Czech chemical industry, water, we always discuss with Germans, the Tories are not interested in our problems at all.” The full interview can be found (in Czech) at:-

 http://www.ods.cz/eu/prispevek.php?ID=12200&page=34 .

The Tories blatant appeal to sectarianism

By Marjorie Smith

Did anybody notice Conservative candidate Ruth Davidson's appearance on the BBC 10:00 o'clock news this evening (Friday 06/11). She is fighting a forlorn campaign, on behalf of the Tories, in the ex-Speaker, Michael Martin's old constituency,Glasgow North East.

However, One aspect of the coverage of her her campaign was extremely disturbing and very illuminating. Like all political parties, the current trend to cope with TV reporters ambushing candidates is for party activists is to donut the candidate with big cardboard party symbols so as to block out negative posters from the opposition. Nothing wrong with that in normal circumstances, all parties do it as they become more sophisticated about how their candidate is presented in the media.

What the Tories have done, though, with their posters is utterly repugnant, in terms of appealing to base instincts in the constituency, in order to boost the national narrative about the, allegedly, resurgent Tory party. Of all the cities in the UK (besides Belfast and Derry), Glasgow is a significant centre of religious sectarianism, in which symbols that proclaim the divide, have huge political impact.

It is into this febrile electoral campaign that an obviously co-ordinated Tory Central Office campaign run from London (the Tories' political PR people are the true heirs of Mandelson) thought up the Tories' chosen backdrop whenever, their candidate was 'doorstepped' by local TV cameras.

Perversely, for this part of Glasgow, the Conservative Party brand (good enough for any election in England) had morphed into;

Ruth Davidson

Conservative and UNIONIST PARTY (my emphasis)

The Unionist tag would never be used in a marginal seat in England or Wales

There is only one extremely pernicious reason to add the Unionist party tag on in this election and that is to appeal to the worst religious sectarian elements in the constituency. Glasgow is still a city divided by religion and the symbolic use of unionism is designed to appeal an element of the electorate who will respond to such use of dog-whistle politics.

The present-day Tory party are as shameless as any of their predecessors in their naked pursuit of power, it's just all the more galling that their supposed sophisticated PR machine wil use almost naked religious sectarianism in Glasgow, confident that the London-based media will fail to highlight their blatant hypocrisy.