CF Right Turn – Another Dead End

Although few outside the bubble of right-wing Westminster Village politics will have bothered to read it, a piece published on Mail Online’s RightMinds collection of right-leaning rants by one Alex Singleton illustrates once more that the wider Conservative Movement is bringing more influence to bear on the Tory Party and thereby gradually poisoning it as an electable entity.

Singleton is described as “a free marketer who thinks the Conservatives need guts”. He is a fan of Ayn Rand. He endorses frankly whacko ideas such as the proposition that space exploration would have developed so much more favourably if only the private sector had been allowed to get on and do it all. And he is using Mail Online to intervene in the politics of the Tory Party.

The Tories’ youth wing has, over the years, brought the senior Party a steady stream of grief. This was all supposed to cease as all previous incarnations were superseded by Conservative Future (CF), which at present is chaired by Ben Howlett. Singleton wants Howlett out, to be replaced by Oliver Cooper, because he is supposedly well connected.

Singleton also claims that his intervention is unsolicited, to which I call bullshit. The background campaign against Howlett has been rumbling on for months now, with a moderately significant amount of dirt being slung by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer, the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, at the Guido Fawkes blog, whose heroes include UKIP boss Nigel “Thirsty” Farage.

The Fawkes blog, run by someone with four alcohol related convictions including two for drinking and driving, suggests that Howlett is regularly drunk and that he is driving the Tories’ youth into the arms of UKIP, which is, er, led by someone of legendary thirst. Howlett is mocked as a “walking liability”, alleged to be in cahoots with the dastardly Germans, and there is a suggestion of illegality.

So what of the purported replacement? Cooper is much more to the liking of the intolerant right: routine smears of the BBC, obediently regurgitating content from the serially dishonest Commentator, and whining at a poncy cocktail bar for having the effrontery Not To Know Who He Is. He is clearly an up and coming example of those clever people who talk loudly in restaurants.

Small wonder that Singleton thinks so highly of him. But, as I keep pointing out, ideological purity never put a party leader into 10 Downing Street. And turning to the right looks to be also poisoning the Republican Party in the USA. Getting Oliver Cooper the top job in CF will no doubt give many on the right a nice warm feeling, but all those swing voters will about turn and run in the direction of away.

And without their support, no party will form a Government.