Tory Bullying - Blaney's Hypocrisy

The Mail On Sunday’s political editor Simon Walters has not let up in his determination to keep after the now-disgraced Mark Clarke of Tory bullying infamy, in the wake of Elliott Johnson’s apparent suicide, with the latest instalment of his pursuit showing that Clarke’s former bosom buddies have clearly decided to throw him under the bus, while taking the opportunity to burnish their own reputations.

Donal Blaney distances himself from Mark Clarke and André Walker

Who would take such a cynical stance right now? Ah well. Step forward Donal Blaney, founder of the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF), an organisation he himself styled the “Conservative Madrassa”, which takes ideologically acceptable young people, trains them up, and then seeks to place them into suitable employment. Blaney is unashamedly pro-gun, vehemently anti-NHS, and considers vegetarianism to be Left-wing.

The latest MoS piece describes Blaney as a “Conservative grandee”, which is 100 per cent bullshit. One has to assume that Walters was fed this steaming pile of bullpucky either from his subject, or a close friend. Blaney is no such thing. He is just another right-wing loudmouth and bully-boy: indeed, his legal practice, Griffin Law, was involved in the last (failed) legal threat against Zelo Street.

Donal Blaney personally honours Mark Clarke ...

Whatever, Blaney is quoted at length by the MoS: “Lawyer Mr Blaney, a close friend of several Cabinet Ministers, said Clarke had violently threatened him twice, including once on the House of Commons terrace … He said: ‘He started effing and blinding at me over something trivial. I told him I would not put up with it. He went totally berserk. His temper goes from nought to 60 miles per hour in a second. It is very scary. It’s no wonder people, me included, feel intimidated by him’”. Do go on.

“Mr Blaney got to know Clarke through the Young Britons’ Foundation, an organisation set up by Mr Blaney to find future Tory leaders [!] … Clarke allegedly assaulted a female Tory official [who?] when he ‘gatecrashed’ a YBF event in Washington DC in the summer … Mr Blaney banned Clarke from the YBF in August, after he physically threatened Johnson in Westminster’s Marquis of Granby pub in front of shocked bystanders”.

... or perhaps he doesn't

And then comes the moment of supreme hypocrisy, as Blaney tells “Mark Clarke is a menace. I find it surprising, to say the least, that two months after his appalling treatment of Elliott came to light, he is still a member of the Conservative Party. The party must show that it will not tolerate this kind of behaviour … Like so many others who had dealings with Mark Clarke, I wish I had done more to stand up to him and I am sorry that I did not”.

No Donal, you did not. And, as Zelo Street readers can see from the photo at the head of this post, Blaney has not in the recent past had a problem with being close to Mark Clarke. Moreover, Blaney personally gave him the allegedly coveted “Golden Dolphin Award” [Clarke has now been removed from the list of recipients, but it’s been archived, Donal]. But now the shit has hit the fan, so Clarke has to be thrown under the bus.

As Jeremy Thorpe said of Harold Macmillan, “Greater love hath no man than he lay down his friends for his life”. Over more than 50 years, Tory behaviour remains much the same.