Too Much Blarney

As if the Tories didn’t have enough negative press right now, the Guardian has unearthed another strange character wielding influence within the party: step forward chief executive of the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) Donal Blaney.

Blaney, who is not one to be backward in coming forward, took his blog away from all except “invited” readers after the Guardian article – it featured at the foot of Saturday’s front page – told how he had described the YBF as a “Conservative madrasa”.

Coupled with Blaney’s ideas that the UK should have a firearms policy like the USA – an idea likely to win him no friends at all in any of the emergency services – and that the NHS should be “scrapped”, the impression is given that, with friends like him, Young Dave is in no need of more enemies.

Since the Guardian published, there has been the predictable reaction of Blaney’s pals weighing in with the usual excuses: the article is “weak”, “poor”, “feeble”, “lame”, a “non story”, with the variation of “is that all you’ve got?”. So just how nice a guy is Donal Blaney? Check out this video where he calls Ken Livingstone a “Communist” and casually smears Lib Dem mayoral candidate Brian Paddick, stresses that he is “homosexual” and is “going to lose”.

Just how Blaney squares that kind of attack line with being a friend of Iain Dale is not clear. But that he is in the camp of the rabid right certainly is: a look at his Twitter Page includes messages like “@glennbeck is right: progressivism is the cancer in politics that needs to be cured”.

And now that those of progressive mind have been woken up to his presence, all that is needed is for Blaney’s repellent blog to come out from behind its cloak. Shooting fish in a barrel just got that bit more appealing.