Whitehall’s censorship of farming subsidies spares Tories (and UKIP’s) blushes

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tucking into censored farm subsidy pic courtesy daily mail

Over the bank holiday weekend senior civil servants running the country took an extraordinary decision to ban the public  from seeing  information because  they thought it was so controversial that it would disrupt election campaigning.

They decided to protect candidates from being asked questions on the issue and thought it best the public be left in ignorance about the facts.

 What was this issue? Not some horrendous economic figure, some real facts on immigration. No, it was decision not to reveal which farmers and agribusinesses scooped up some £3 billion from the taxpayer from EU farm subsidies last year.

On Friday statistics were published simultaneously in the other 26 EU countries revealing who had been paid what – it is part of a victory by European journalists to force countries under freedom of information acts to release all this previously secret information.

But in London – against an EU directive – the information was banned. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website says: “Due to the general election campaign, this website will not be updated with the 2009 figures until after the election.”

A letter from a DEFRA official to Jack Thurston, head of farmsubsidy.org, which campaigns for transparency for EU payments, says why:

“This decision reflects the need to maintain, and be seen to maintain, the impartiality of the UK Civil Service, given the potential risk that CAP payment  information relating to any individuals involved in the election might be used as part of election campaigning.”

Yet ministries continue to publish information on hospital admissions and roads just to name two. And in Scotland because of devolved government – they have taken the opposite decision. They published their figures over the weekend –revealing that 19,000 farmers and agribusinesses shared nearly £600m of public money and the world has not fallen apart north of the border.

So who does this protect? Initial research by farmsubsidy.org reveals that possibly up to 70 of the 650 Tory candidates standing at the election could be receiving some sort of subsidy. Up to half a dozen UKIP candidates- who campaign against the EU- could be receiving EU cash as well as a smattering of Liberal Democrat and BNP candidates. On the Tory side they have discovered that the declared postcode for receipt of EU subsidies is often the same one as used by a local Conservative Association, suggesting that leading officials of the local parties are also receiving subsidies. These are all taken from the previous year’s subsidy figures.

 Yet we won’t know, thanks to Whitehall, until after the election- even though the EU has made it clear in an article in the EU Observer today that it is disappointed with Britain and intends to write to the new government pointing out it is not in line with the EU directive.

Frankly disappointment is too weak a word. It is scandal that unelected officials should decide what information should be made public and when. The decision is also partisan in that it appears to protect opposition party candidates more than Labour candidates from scrutiny – particularly in the case of the Conservatives.

Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, should reverse this now. Otherwise it bodes very badly if we are in “ hung Parliament “ territory when Whitehall  will be effectively  running the country while politicians sort out a new government. If officials are going to select what information the public should know and what should be kept secret, they are exceeding their brief.

This blog is also on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

Election debate: Why you should treat Dave,Nick and Gordo like dodgy car salesmen

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nick clegg:pic courtesy daily mail

gordon brown:pic courtesy apoliticus

david cameron: pic courtesy greenpeace

Tonight is the last time you can see the three party leaders go head to head before polling day. The subject for the last TV debate on BBC1- the future of the economy – could not be more important for you, your family and your future.

 This time don’t treat the clash like watching the X factor. Instead think of your vote as the equivalent of writing a very big cheque at a car showroom for a dream motor or at a department store for a designer kitchen. You are going to spend a lot of money. You want a good product that lasts, is not going to cost you a bomb to service or repair, and some guarantee that you can afford to pay for it.

Now treat the three party leaders not as politicians but like the salesmen you would encounter on the forecourt or in the shop and take a very critical view of how they pitch their sale to you.

On the economy you already have your own independent Which? report provided by the Institute for Fiscal Studies about the huge hidden failings in the product. Look it up before the debate. In short you will discover, just like many salespeople, the politicians may not have deliberately lied, but they have seriously misled you about the huge cost of the product you are about to buy.

They have not told you the price they will charge you to bail out the bankers either in lost services or higher taxes and charges.

 The scale of their deception is highest among the Tories, pretty bad from Labour and slightly better from the Liberal Democrats.

David Cameron – the smoothest of the salesmen – has concentrated on the nice extras you will get from the Tories – an extra £3 a week for married families, no extra bills on your national insurance, a freeze on your council tax.

But he has not told you how you are going to cope with a whopping £52.4 billion in public spending cuts- beginning weeks after May 7. It’s like 

a salesman diverting you to look at the car’s funky stereo system while not telling you the motor does five miles to the gallon.

To get such cuts the Tories will have to go much further than anything they have said. You are looking at things like a dramatic rise in the retirement age – not their stated 66 but more like 70 – or doubling commuter rail fares if they  have to remove the transport subsidy. Or VAT will have to go up. Their unfunded cuts are the largest of any party.

 Labour’s salesman, grumpy Gordon Brown, has promised to exempt front line staff in the NHS, schools and the police from cuts. What he hasn’t told you is that this means you are going to face much steeper cuts to find the £52.1 billion of savings from other departments like local government, the arts, housing, transport, social security and  defence .And this is on top of higher national insurance. Or again VAT will go up. The problem with Labour is that you have to pay more to safeguard what they have promised to exempt and this will happen from next April.

The Liberal Democrats salesman genial Nick Clegg is the nearest the IFS find to being anywhere near honest. They have to find the lowest sum – some £34.5 billion.

They may not have to introduce more tax increases but they will have to introduce more cuts. Their policy sees a meaningful tax cut worth £700 a year to anybody earning between £10,000 and £113,000. Those earning less than £10,000 including many pensioners on low incomes will be exempt from tax altogether.

Better off families with children will lose out on child tax credits, lose their child trust fund and the NHS, schools and the police will not be exempt from cuts unlike Labour. What you have from the Liberal Democrats is the nearest to a consumer product guarantee but you still don’t know the call out charges.

By the end of the debate it is likely that none of the leaders will have  genuinely spelled out the real cost of their policies to tackle the deficit. It is up to you to decide which is the least worst option. Unlike a disgruntled shopper, you can’t entirely walk away because you are going to get one of the products anyway.

You also should not forget that these were the people who conned you over their expense claim system and you should not allow them to con you again. Also ignore the distractions over hung Parliaments, that is a problem for the politicians not you.

Remember also there are other candidates standing from the Nationalists,Green Party, UKIP and independents. It’s your vote.

This blog also appears on the UK site  of MSN’s general election feature page.

Has Cameron blown it?

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Cameron- what's going wrong: Picture courtesy Greenpeace

In an election that began competing with the Icelandic volcano for volatility and unpredictability, it is probably tempting fate to write any epitaph for David Cameron midway through the campaign.

 Yet what has become clear is that Dave has not “sealed the deal” with the electorate and has squandered a ten point plus lead which should have ensured that he easily formed a government on May 7, albeit with a small majority.

If he fails he faces a damning post mortem by his party but the seeds of his own potential destruction have been around before the campaign even started. They lie in the weakest links in his own shadow cabinet- George Osborne, his chancellor, and Chris Grayling, his shadow home secretary.

The  rise in Liberal Democrat support following the first debate is not so surprising when you compare the quality of the two key spokesmen backing Clegg with their Tory counterparts-Vince Cable dominates Osborne and Chris Huhne, a former leadership contender, outsmarts Grayling. The weakest link in the Liberal Democrats was until then Clegg who? Then came his first performance on our TV screens, reinforced by the second.

Osborne has been tainted ever since a Parliamentary investigation into the undeclared funding for his office during the last session (Tenth report  Standards and Privileges Committee. Conduct of Mr George Osborne HC 560) revealed that it had received some £487,000 of donors’ cash to fund his office from high fliers in the city and a scion of the Rothschild family.

What is extraordinary is that these huge sums to fund research and the access he had to brains in the City have failed to produce an economic policy to challenge Labour. Instead there seems to have been a combination of policies that would particularly benefit the donors (the big hike in the threshold for inheritance tax), a rush to introduce public spending cuts and a claim that a £6 billion jobs tax would snuff out the entire economic recovery..

The latter appeared to be holed last week when Sir Terry Leahy, the head of Tesco’s, announced he was not supporting a Tory co-ordinated call to cut the job tax – but was creating 9000 new jobs in the UK despite it. No explanation from Mr Osborne on that one.

Grayling has been effectively marginalised by Cameron during the campaign. He is symbolic of the fault line dividing the attempt by the leader to present a new “green blue” caring Tory agenda and the traditional Tory “ slash and cut taxes” backwoodsman – still the majority of old Tory voters. Expected to toe the new party line on gay tolerance, his mask slipped when he defended a Christian B&B owner turning away a gay couple.

Grayling is an Old Tory in New Conservative clothing – and the electorate are rumbling this. They don’t know where the Tory party really stands or if they are traditional Tories, what they stand for. This made the vacuous “Time for Change” slogan open to easy hijack from Nick Clegg.

Of course, Cameron might just bounce back to squeeze a minute majority by polling day, but time is now against him. Votes can be cast by post from this week so by the time the third debate takes place  it will be too late to sway millions.

The right wing press attack on the Liberal Democrats also had a fatal flaw – the majority of the new voters attracted to Clegg are the internet savvy under 35 generation.They don’t buy the papers anyway, so it would have zilch influence.

Whatever happens in this election – short of a miracle doubling of the Tory lead- Cameron has thrown away the Tories best chance for 13 years.

This blog is also on the Progress website.

Own Goal by the Revenue:Why we must foot their bill

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gordon brown:His watch saw inept off shore tax deal for revenue -pic courtsey apoliticus

If you have just had a new tax code or VAT demand, it is likely that the Revenue and Customs office that issued it is managed in a tax haven.

And if you have recently visited an old Abbey National office of Santander Bank you are on the premises of an off shore managed office.

You probably didn’t know either. Today an analysis by Parliament’s watchdog the National Audit Office reveals the off shore company that managed both deals are legally set to avoid paying hundreds of millions of tax to the very offices making tax demands on you.

The findings by the Commons Public Accounts Committee is the latest revelation on signing an outsourcing contract 8 years ago which MPs describe today as “ highly damaging to the Department’s reputation”.

 In effect to save an estimated £1.2 billion Revenue and Customs signed a £3.3 billion contract with a firm now called Mapeley to hand over for 20 years the ownership and management of 591 tax offices including the freehold of 132 offices to an offshore company then based in the Cayman Islands.

Today the cost of contract has risen to £3.87 billion, the maximum potential savings have dropped by £300 million and the department has found that it cannot recover its own VAT from the rent. It will have to draw up contingency plans costing over £100m should the company walk away following a decision to close 130 tax offices as part of the first wave of efficiency savings.

But the most extraordinary revelation is the rare glimpse given into tax avoidance by auditors from the NAO. After a stormy hearing at the Commons public accounts committee, the company allowed the NAO access to its offshore books to see the effect of the loss of tax revenue to the government. The figures, hidden at the back of the report, are staggering.

If Mapeley, now part of the US offshore Fortress Group was based in Britain rather than Bermuda, the tax coffers would be swelled by £184m. Easily enough to build a teaching hospital or renovate a lot of schools. In fact the company is expected to pay £14m –saving £170m. That is hardly enough to renovate a big secondary school. Furthermore Gordon Brown’s efficiency savings by closing down tax offices is going to give the offshore company a tax bonanza if it can get a good price for them. Only the recession is stopping them.

These tax savings are only on the Revenue and Customs contract. The company has a similar deal with the old Abbey National and if branch closures follow bank mergers under Santander, logic dictates even more tax savings.

No wonder the NAO concludes in its prosaic way; “There is unlikely to be any overall benefit to the Exchequer from such arrangements as any apparent savings for the Department are accompanied by reduced tax revenues.”

With everybody living in this country having to pay more tax and face cuts in services to pay for the bail out of the banks, the prospect of the Treasury being deprived by the  Revenue of extra tax is obscene.

The people who negotiated this deal should hang their heads in shame and the politicians, and that includes Gordon Brown, chancellor at the time, should be brought to account for such an inept negotiation.

For while we debate the scale of tax rises and cuts in the general election campaign, the directors of the company involved must be laughing all the way to their offshore bank.

This blog is also on The Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

Will bad planning by the Tories let the lights go out?

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A new nuclear power station every 18 months -Cameron. Pic courtesy http://freefoto.com

A mad rush by the Tories to cut public expenditure the moment they are in office is already leading to fears that it could destabilise Britain’s fragile recovery. But there is now growing evidence that other policies could have similar damaging effects on the country.

Two Green Papers –one on planning and the other on energy- are leading to serious questions from some of the Tories natural allies – the CBI and the British Property Federation about their effectiveness. And when one looks at the detail, it is no wonder why.

The green paper on planning looks on the surface as a great, pro local democracy, anti bureaucracy document. And it does contain some good ideas, notably Open Source documents for all future planning applications.

 But in their rush to cull New Labour quangos, the Tories look set to stall rather than quicken the economic recovery. Their dash to kill the Infrastructure Planning Commission is actually going to cause chaos and confusion for any major schemes that might require planning permission in the next few years.

For the Tories want to bring back Parliamentary private bills for major projects and are daft enough to quote the Crossrail bill as a wonderful example of an alternative way of handling objections. This bill took literally years to get through Parliament with all day sittings and an enormous toll on the disinterested MPs who were supposed to monitor it.

Worse still The Tories are proposing an interim period when the Commission facing abolition will still be handling applications, while Parliament is geared up for a new role. Confused? Anyone would be.

But never mind. In their green energy paper, they propose using the same procedure to build an ambitious high speed rail link and nuclear power stations.

They deride Labour’s  London to Birmingham link as not ambitious enough and want to build a high speed railway across England .But imagine how long this will take under their planning reforms. The long winded Crossrail bill was just concerned with greater London but a bill for the whole of England will need the full term of the next Parliament for authorisation..

Cameron also promises to build a new nuclear power station every 18 months to solve the energy crisis – again using Parliamentary private bills to get planning permission. Energy analysts are not impressed. Inencom, the UK’s largest energy analysts, warned that this target is “verging on the impossible”, claiming that even if the party overcame planning delays, solving the skills shortages and construction complications would be a “huge challenge.”

Some of the smaller proposals in both papers also don’t stand heavy scrutiny.

On planning the Tories want to allow local residents and third party groups to object to new house building. This could also cause chaos for new home developments and traditional allies are not impressed.

 The British Property Federation said: “This would cause chaos for the system by allowing all manner of appeals.”

John Cridland, CBI Deputy Director-General, says: “The CBI agrees with the Conservatives that the planning system is broken, but it remains to be seen whether these proposals will fix it.”

And some energy schemes like encouraging micro generation of electricity in every home have not impressed the CBI either. Dr Neil Bentley, the CBI’s Director of Business Environment, said: This could end up increasing energy costs for businesses and consumers without increasing investment.”

The danger here is that not only will the Tories scupper a fragile recovery but manage to ensure that some half baked proposals will stifle new investment. They could even put the lights out.

This blog is also on http://progressives.org.uk as part of my Tory tracker column.

How ex-ministers make a fortune out of insider lobbying

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stephen byers- like a cab for hire-pic courtesy daily telegraph

The damning disclosures about former Cabinet ministers Stephen Byers, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt touting for paid advocacy expose a fundamental flaw in the regulation of the lobbying industry. They also reveal fundamental weaknesses in blocking ex ministers and former senior civil servants making a fortune from “insider” knowledge gained in government.

For years it has been an open secret that the lobbying industry has failed spectacularly to regulate itself. Divided between two groups, the Association of Professional Political Consultants and the Public Relations Consultants Association, it is still not agreed to set up a joint body with agreed standards on how to conduct business. Nor do all companies have to belong to either association. Some companies voluntarily register clients, others keep lists secret. Some companies (belonging to the APPC) ban politicians from directorships, but the politicians themselves can and have set up their own lobbying and public relations companies which avoid membership of the APPC. Similarly large legal firms also have lobbying and public relations arms and avoid disclosing the identities of their clients under   spurious “client confidentiality” rules. They also employ ex Cabinet ministers.

The government had a chance to do something about this a year ago by introducing a statutory register for lobbyists. The all party Commons Public Administration Committee called for it in a report. Tom Watson, as a junior Cabinet Office minister, was sympathetic to tougher action to curb excesses, but only now has Harriet Harman, leader of the House, committed the government to do anything about it. Better late than never, but I suspect the Sunday Times and Channel Four Dispatches revelations have had more effect than any serious deliberations by MPs.

If the government had acted earlier neither the TV company nor the Sunday Times could have set up a fake lobbying company to talk to ex ministers, because it would have be registered- and the game would have been up from day one.

Worse this lack of control of lobbying is compounded by the toothless role of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments which is supposed to vet ex-ministers jobs. Effectively however, this body allows ex ministers to do what they like when they leave office. Yes, they are expected to seek their advice for any appointment within two years of leaving government. And the committee can impose restrictions on jobs they could take up. But ministers can ignore their advice knowing they face no penalty whatsoever and knowing that the committee has no resources to ever check up whether the minister is even following their imposed restrictions – particularly over lobbying.

 The fundamental weaknesses on both sides created the perfect storm that allowed the media to expose the latest lobbying scandal over the weekend. Sadly we shouldn’t be too surprised that ex ministers can carry on like this in private in order to make more money in a day than a state pensioner receives in a year. The present system is designed to allow both ministers and lobbyists to get away with it with impunity.

A shorter version of this post is in today’s Guardian and a longer version on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

How Ashcroft got a peerage and no tax bills

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lord ashcroft- a non dom peer for a decade-picture courtesy the Guardian

Lord Ashcroft must have been laughing all the way to the tax office for the last decade if the revelations produced by the release of Whitehall memos telling the story of the scrutiny of his peerage are anything to go by.

 They show that the ultra canny lord successfully managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the scrutiny committee, enlist the loyal support of leading Tories to keep his non dom status and befuddle and exasperate some of the country’s leading mandarins. No wonder he is a billionaire, pity any business partner negotiating over the small print with him.

 By concentrating on the semantic difference between being a “long term resident” rather than a “permanent resident” Lord Ashcroft managed to both escape paying tax and still get a peerage with all the status and influence that implies in both Parliament and the business world.

 It is totally clear from the reaction of Baroness Dean that the scrutiny committee believed that he had agreed to the terms and conditions to pay tax in order to get his peerage. But in fact under a deal negotiated by the then chief whip, James Arbuthnot, and Sir Hayden Phillips, the Whitehall mandarin in charge of the negotiations, it was nothing of the sort.

What yesterday’s hearing by the Commons Public Administration committee reveals is a question mark over Sir Hayden’s role – whether he knew that the deal he was negotiating had let Ashcroft off the hook. Certainly Sir Hayden was probably fed up to the back teeth with the issue and probably wanted it sorted out. But it is rather surprising that he insists he did not know of the tax implications.

 What I have been told by a very senior Whitehall source is that Sir Hayden happily took on the job because another figure Lord Wilson, then Cabinet Secretary, didn’t want his hands dirty over such a hot political potato. It is therefore possible that the jovial Sir Hayden got out of his depth in dealing with such a slippery customer as Lord A.

This leaves the issue of how much senior Tories knew about it all. It is crystal clear that Arbuthnot knew exactly what was going on. He seems to have been up to his eyes in securing Ashcroft the peerage. I find it hard to believe that William Hague was also  in ignorance. Ashcroft  is very close to Hague, funds his Parliamentary office and jets around the world with him as shadow foreign secretary. Even at that time his office could have had a look at Ashcroft’s chequebook- and see where the donations came from. So it is possible that Hague could have known at the time, not just in the last few months, that Ashcroft was not paying tax.

Two figures come out well in this sorry saga. Tony Wright, the Labour chairman of the committee, who stuck to his guns and held the inquiry, despite a childish boycott by Tories on the committee. The other is Gus O’Donnell, the present Cabinet secretary. By releasing the documents rather than keeping them secret, he has shed a lot of light on a very murky tale about the award of peerages. Both have done voters a great service in the run up to the election.

This blog is also on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

An own goal investment in England’s green and pleasant land

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Lower Feltham Lakes near Heathrow - Green Belt development where Profitable Group plan leisure and housing

Most people  are naturally suspicious about investing in exotic  property projects abroad promising fantastic returns for their cash.

But what about a scheme that promises mainly overseas investors huge returns of up to 1000 per cent investing in  tiny plots in the UK .

A scheme promising  such returns has been running for the last five years by a Singapore based company called Profitablegroup. The company buys land and divides it up into tiny plots to resell to investors making millions of pounds. Its promoters include the company’s commercial director, Steve MacMahon, the former England and Liverpool player, and the famous celebrity former England captain, Bryan Robson, now coach to the Thai national team. 

 Four years ago both of them did a paid commercial for  Singapore TV promising huge returns on a site near Heathrow when it is developed for housing and leisure activities. What was not clear is that site – which being near Heathrow to say investors in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore would seem a safe bet -is on Green Belt land and will require a brave planning inspector to approve any development scheme. So now four years later nothing has happened. Robson, who does not work for Profitable, said he was unaware of subsequent events. .

Similar developments ( some of which have attracted British investors) in  the Colne Valleyin Essex and in Yorkshire have got lots of investors but nothing has happened there either. One site for a hotel on  agricultural land has been turned down by a planning inspector, another in West Bergholt, promising up to 1000 per cent  returns, according to the local parish council, has no chance of ever being developed because of stringent planning controls in the area.

So step in Chelgate, a lobbying company whose deputy chairman is Nick Wood-Dow,  founder of the Tory Green initiative and  an adviser to David Cameron on environmental issues. His company along with  a Sheffield planning firm, are now desperately trying to convince sceptical local people  councils of the need for development there. So far pretty unsuccessfully.

 This is perhaps not surprising since the recent Tory green paper on planning looks certain to ensure that if Cameron is elected that the Green Belt will remain sacrosanct and developers will face more objections at a local level to additional building schemes.

So what chance have those who put somewhere over £50m into schemes of making  a fortune. At the very least  they face years before they get any money back. At worst they will get nowhere.

Chelgate say no one has wanted their money back and promised on behalf of Profitable that anyone who does will get their cash. We shall see what happens but at the moment these developments look like an own gaol.

An article on the issue is in the Sunday Telegraph http://bit.ly/dtiv3h.

Miner’s Strike: A raw and bitter issue 25 years on

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March 3rd at  the Forum Theatre in The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery , Stoke on Trent marked a  raw and bloody rematch of the one of the most traumatic events of the last century – the 1984 miner’s strike.

The dispute still bitterly divided people 25 years after the event with an emotional audience still resenting  the outcome that marked the defining moment when capitalism triumphed over labour in British society.

Then Arthur  Scargill was pitched against Margaret Thatcher – and neither side was willing to give any quarter. But the defeat of the miners gave the green light for the Conservatives to turn the screw on the trade unions and laid open the opportunity for unbridled capitalism then ended in the credit crunch collapse in 2009..

This month  former Tory MP and Thatcher government minister Edwina Currie  fought with Respect MP George Galloway and neither gave any quarter over the dispute or its legacy. Quietly spoken Ken Loach, one of the country’s foremost film directors, also weighed on the side of the miners and their leaders and alongside Galloway was sharply critical of the failure of other unions and Labour to back Arthur Scargill .

 As joint author of a new book on the miner’s strike, Marching to the Fault Line, I found myself a bit of a ” piggy in the middle” trying to point out some facts – against Galloway and Currie. Galloway portrayed me as  some of sort of revisionist historian. Sadly again Arthur Scargill was not present as he has not replied to the organisers – a similar experience I had when I wrote the book with co-author Francis Beckett when he would not co-operate or be interviewed.

A DVD will be produced soon.

The organisers Alan Gerrard and Cheryl Artbay deserve to be congratulated for staging it.- they had to turn people away it was so popular. Pity it was not more widely picked up but that is sadly a fact in ther instant 24/7 news round.. Other events are on http://www.creativestoke.co.uk/80430/info.php?p=3.

Conservative Home: Asset or Tory trojan horse

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tim montgomerie -Con Home success could be Cameron's dilemma

If David Cameron wins the next general election, will Conservative Home be an asset or a Trojan horse that could wreck the first Tory government in 13 years?

Like its right wing counterparts in America the website is one of the great success stories in giving a lively voice to free market and Conservative views. It reflects the wide gamut of party opinions on Europe, crime, benefits and taxation. It is to the embarrassment of Tory spin doctors at Central Office singularly unafraid of carrying blogs criticising the Cameron leadership.  Witness the recent public debate on the site over whether Cameron was out of touch and living in a protected bubble from the rest of the party as he roamed round Parliament. Something you might expect more on Labour Home than Conservative Home.

Despite being funded by billionaire Tory donor Lord Ashcroft there appears to be no heavy hand of censorship and some Tory stars like Eurosceptics David Davis and John Redwood are more popular on Conservative Home than members of the present Shadow Cabinet.

Much of its success is due to the personality of Tim Montgomerie, a Christian Tory who is less abrasive than his anarchic right wing counterparts, Tory Bear and Guido Fawkes. He appears to have taken the view that a well read website should not have to toe the party line and can produce uncomfortable facts for the leadership. None more embarrassing recently than the low priority many of a new generation of Tory prospective MPs give to the environment and climate change – despite the Cameron leadership emphasising the “ Blue  Green “ nature of modern Conservatism. It is almost a Christian view of ensuring the leadership have to turn the other cheek when they face a problem.

This is fine while the party remains in opposition but what would happen if it came to power. Now most of the criticism of Cameron is hidden in a deluge of comment attacking New Labour or as many Tory bloggers call it, Nu Labour. It is very easy to take pop shots at Brown over bullying, or slam Ed Balls for his ruthlessness. Attacking Harman and the Milibands is no doubt very helpful to the Tory leadership. They can be blamed for broken Britain.

  But in power it would be different and the signs are that the real Tory party is nothing like the one the Cameron leadership presents to the electorate. It would be extraordinary if the right wing blogosphere that has none of the old guard deference to the leadership did not organise against it with same ferocity it attacks Nu Labour.

I know this is already happening. Before Cameron even has a chance of putting a foot inside Number Ten, Tory right wing rivals, UKIP, have spotted that Cameron appears to have foolishly pledged to hold a debate in Parliament on whether the UK should stay in the EU. Provided, of course, one million people sign a petition.

Organising a million strong petition on the net is child’s play with Facebook, Guido Fawkes and of course Conservative Home, only too happy to play a part. And UKIP has said to me that with many of their friends on Conservative Home sympathising with their views on Europe, they think that debate would have to take place soon. No wonder Cameron is despatching the old pro European bruiser Kenneth Clarke to Brussels to reassure our partners in the EU.

And why stop at Europe? Big tax cuts, bringing back hanging, demanding the right to kill a burglar, abolishing trade unions, opposing action on climate change, none of which are on Cameron’s immediate         agenda, could  become the new  on line demands.

Lord A could pull the plug on Con Home after a Tory victory. But the genie is out of the bottle and the Tory leadership is in for a rough ride from the grass roots cyber fighters on the right.

This post is also on the Progress website under Tory Tracker at  http://www.progressives.org.uk/columns/column.asp?c=361