Right! Click!! (1)

What would the Fourth Estate conclude if one of their number discovered an organisation with a forthrightly left-wing agenda that was dedicated to radicalising young people, and then placing those thus radicalised into jobs in the City, politics, academia and the media? There would almost certainly be cries of “indoctrination” and even “entryism”. So what happens if the organisation is a right-wing one?

Thus far, the answer is that very little has been reported about one such organisation, the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF), inspired by the conservative movement in the USA, and which is open and honest about its stance and objectives. The YBF has been described by its co-founder and CEO, Donal Blaney, as a “conservative madrasa”.

So who is involved with the YBF? The gallery of faces is no doubt meant to impress, but the first entry, Daniel Hanann MEP, YBF President, is not an auspicious start. Zelo Street has recently inspected the lack of candour exhibited by Dan, Dan the Oratory Man, especially his obsequious appearance before professional loudmouth Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse).

And CEO Blaney has what might be called “previous”: while he was a Hammersmith and Fulham councillor, an accusation of racism was levelled at the “Fulham Homes for Fulham People” campaign which he had led (along with Greg Hands). One leaflet accused the Council of denying a house to a “local mum” and giving it to “asylum seekers”. Asylum seekers cannot by law be housed in permanent accommodation.

More recently, Blaney – as revealed on Zelo Street – attempted to bully Tim Ireland and Dan Taylor into obtaining legal representation and revealing details about themselves. This would have been potentially very expensive for both, but neither Ireland nor Taylor accommodated Blaney and the actions fizzled out. In both cases, Blaney had made accusations of defamation.

This, though, is no bar to political activity, so let’s move right on to the YBF’s modus operandi. The orientation of the group follows from the assumption that the education system and “mainstream media” in the UK has an inbuilt left-wing bias. This in turn follows the rationale of Fox News Channel, that it’s not Fox that is “out there”, but everyone else. Blaney considers Fox to be fair and balanced.

And this is the organisation that the Tory Party recommends for activist training, not that it has any formal links with it, of course. What that training produces, where those trained fetch up, and a little more on the web of groups in that “conservative movement”, I’ll consider later.

Although who pays for the YBF is not clear. This does seem to be a recurring problem with that “conservative movement”.