The Board of Deputies of British Jews last night wrote to the Tories raising new questions about their allies in Poland and Latvia. But the letter was angrily dismissed by the Conservatives, who claimed the board had been swayed by “politically motivated allegations”.

The Latvian controversy (which was inflamed last week by David Miliband) centres around an annual memorial event for fallen soldiers from World War 2 - when many Latvians were conscripted by the Germans. Enemies of the Tories have spun this as some kind of Nazi-glorifying event and criticised Roberts Zile - leader of their Latvian allies - for attending it.

But we asked our Scandinavian correspondent, Andrew Ward, to give a more balanced view. This is what he wrote:

“Britain’s foreign secretary portrayed Latvia’s LNNK — the Fatherland and Freedom party — as right-wing extremists who honoured the Nazi SS.
In fact, the party, while right-wing and nationalistic, is firmly within Latvia’s political mainstream and a member of the five-party coalition government currently battling to pull the country out of economic crisis.
It has its roots in the anti-Soviet independence movement of the late 1980s and is the only Latvian party to have been represented in every parliament since the first post-cold war elections in 1993.

Britain’s Labour party has sought to embarrass the Conservative opposition, an ally of the LNNK in the European parliament, by highlighting the LNNK’s involvement in annual marches to commemorate the SS.
Daunis Auers, political scientist at the University of Latvia, said members of other parties had also taken part, although the marches had fizzled in recent years.
The event was a focal point for the Latvian nationalist movement to celebrate resistance against the Soviet Union rather than to honour Nazism, he added.
Latvian society is sharply divided between ethnic Latvians and ethnic Russians. “They each have their own interpretations of history,” said Mr Auers.
The dispute has received relatively little attention in the Latvian media – in part because the country is preoccupied with its own political drama this week as the government struggles to keep its IMF rescue programme on track. But Mr Auers said it had sparked debate in the blogosphere, with nationalists accusing Britons of slurring Latvia and misunderstanding the country’s history.”

There is also a very fair piece with more detail in today’s Guardian.

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Philip Stephens, chief political commentator, analyses shadow chancellor George Osborne’s Tory conference speech

I went to the fringe meeting of MEPs this morning. Like most hacks, I was there in search of a whiff of controversy. To be honest, the gathering wasn’t explosive. The controversial Latvian, Roberts Zile, spoke calmly and convincingly about the “smear” on his reputation (over his attendance at his national Remembrance Day).

But Derk Jan Eppink, a Belgian member of the new coalition, was forced to dodge questions about the less than liberal social outlook of some of his allies.

While gay marriage had been normalised in the Netherlands and Belgium, he argued, it was wrong to impose this on other parts of the EU. “I’m not a moral colonialist,” he said. “We’re not going to tell other people what to do.”

Mark Francois, shadow Europe minister, sought to brush aside the issue by claiming that all members of the grouping shared respect for the institution of family.

“I think it is within the principles of the group that we appreciate the importance of family,” he said. “I think the Conservative party appreciates the importance of family. But we have a number of parties from across the EU and they have slightly different social traditions in each of those countries.” The group would not try to be “dirigiste” about everything, he added.

The entire line-up looked uncomfortable as a member of the audience asked if they would attend tonight’s gay disco (a Tory conference first). No, they replied….they all had other engagements….

UPDATE

I forgot to share one of Eppink’s most brilliantly evasive quotes:

“I cannot, as a Dutchman, impose gay marriage in Poland. It has a different tradition. I am not going to waterboard my Polish colleagues to say that they have to accept gay marriage.” (hat tip Allegra Stratton)

David Cameron faces a horrible decision if the Lisbon treaty comes into force. A quick glance at the policy options makes it obvious why he doesn’t want to explain what he would do. Playing hardball runs the risk of wasting the first year (term?) of a Tory government in a fruitless European battle. The pragmatic route, however, will never satisfy his party. So what to do? Here’s a quick Q&A.

How can Cameron change the Lisbon treaty? Merely to start a formal renegotiation, Cameron would need to propose an Intergovernmental Conference and win the support of 14 countries - a simple majority of member states.

What, 14 countries? That seems like a lot. Yes. And negotiating Lisbon Mark-2 is about as appealing to other European leaders as watching test match cricket.

But many governments do want to repatriate powers, don’t they? Yes. But those demands were all raised during Lisbon talks. Remember, every change to a treaty clause requires unanimous consent. So you need 14 countries to start a negotiation and 27 countries to end it. It just takes one country to dig their heels in and it’s game over. Cameron could be making lots of trips to Riga, Sofia and Talin.

Umm…sounds hard. What could Cameron do to persuade them? He could call a referendum on Europe, either before or after trying to renegotiate the treaty. That would give him a mandate for talks - if the vote went the right way, on a question that was relevant.

But the rest of Europe could still block him. What then? Sabotage. Cameron could withhold Britain’s budget contribution, leave an empty chair at meetings or hold up the EU’s next treaty, which would be needed to accept Croatia or Iceland as members.

Hard ball! Would they listen? Once they stopped yelling? Possibly. But, at this stage, we’d be months into an unholy row. And every European diplomat would know that Cameron had invested a big chunk of his political capital into emerging victorious. They could offer him a face saving deal - but the ransom would be high.

Ouch. Is there an easier way? The pragmatic approach is for Cameron to threaten a referendum, while seeking some kind of concession that would allow him to declare victory.

What could that be? Well, he could ask for a “declaration of subsidiarity” on social policy for instance, which would make absolutely clear that any new rules would be primarily determined by Britain. Victory! The “declaration” would only be passed, of course, because it would have absolutely no legal force. No other countries would care. Peace in our time!

Wait a minute! That won’t meet the Tory manifesto commitment to opt-out of the social chapter? No. It would be purely symbolic. But be realistic. Restoring the social chapter opt-out is harder than it sounds. The chapter no longer exists; it is integrated into the Lisbon treaty. So Cameron would have to propose a fresh treaty negotiation, win the support of 14 countries to start, and then 27 countries to finish. So back to square one.

As Tom Watson points out, politicos of all colours should read Dave’s 10 pledges, laid out in a newspaper* today. As we get closer to the general election Tory policy will get much closer scrutiny than before. Here are a few thoughts:

1] Freezing council tax for two years.

Given that we have been in a period of RPI deflation and very low CPI inflation this isn’t as radical as it sounds. All of Labour’s London councils have promised to freeze council tax next year. Yet I interviewed John Denham over a week ago and he wouldn’t be drawn on making a similar promise for the UK as a whole.

2] Reassessing 2.6m people on incapacity benefit.

The government is already doing this - although it’s not exactly happening swiftly. How could the Tories set a more ambitious timeline?

3] Replacing Human Rights Act with a new British Bill of Rights - to strengthen Britain’s traditional liberties

Nice in theory, but what does this mean?

4] a] Cutting the number of MPs by 10 per cent, b] slashing quangos, c] cutting ministers’ pay by 5 per cent.

a] Will having 590 MPs instead of 646 MPs really make such a great difference? Will it mean some having to sit on more than one select committee and do more scrutiny work - will they become overstretched. The idea is to save money but won’t this be a drop in the ocean?

b] The Tories have promised to set up no fewer than 17 new quangoes of their own. And where they have promised to demolish quangoes (eg the FSA) most of the functions will simply be moved into a different body (eg the Bank of England).

c] The ministers’ pay cut is such an obvious (while populist) policy it was bizarre that Labour hadn’t already announced it. I asked a cabinet minister in Brighton why they hadn’t pre-empted Cameron on this, given Labour may only have 7 months to suffer the lower wages: He seemed utterly affronted at the concept.

5] A new “Military Covenant” with the troops to make sure they are better treated and properly equipped.

This has been pushed for months by Jon Cruddas, leader of the “Soft Left”. It’s one of several of his smart ideas which have been ignored by the leadership.

6] Tax changes such as a] reforming inheritance tax and b] rewarding marriage and families in the tax and benefit system

a] But how quickly in the first term will the increase in the IHT tax threshold (to £1m) take place? This policy was great pre-crash but not so cunning post-crash. I suspect it will be kicked into the long grass for several years.

b] A vote-winner among natural Tories, but what about the rest of the electorate? And when will the “rewards” come? The money will supposedly come from welfare reform - an area where many smart politicians have come unstuck over the years.

7] Tackling the national debt

The big one, where Cameron’s candid outlook left Gordon Brown looking shifty and evasive throughout the summer

8] a] Protecting the NHS and b] Giving school heads the final say on exclusions

a] All well and good but the implications for other departmental budgets - if the average cut across Whitehall is 9.3 per cent over 4 years - is grim. They could see spending cut by a typical 14 per cent or more.

b] Out of 8,130 children excluded last year, only in 60 cases was a head’s exclusion overturned on appeal

9] Suspension of ratification of Lisbon Treaty, referendum and No campaign

Potentially popular in much of Middle England but leaves Cameron open to the charge that he will lessen the UK’s influence in Europe

10] More police officers, doubling magistrates’ sentencing powers, “make sure knife offenders can expect to go to jail”

Labour point out that the detail of Tory knife policy includes “community punishments” as well as jail terms for offenders

* Yes of course it’s the Sun. D’oh.

Just saw these prints on the way to Brighton station. I particularly enjoyed ‘Falling Brown’, which is a play on Michael Douglas’ classic film. But the manager of the Art Republic shop disagreed. “It’s a bit late,” he said. “Hasn’t Brown already fallen?”

Tribune is running a news story claiming that Gordon Brown is preparing for a “massive climbdown” this weekend over the right of unions to vote on policy motions at conference.

You may remember that Brown in 2007 changed the rules so that votes at conference became merely symbolic. Unions could propose motions but not vote on them. “Now the motions enter the policy-making apparatus …basically the process means that they end up getting defused,” says one union source. The real policy business goes on behind closed doors; for example at the “Warwick” gatherings.

Here is Tribune’s story:

“This would overturn Mr Brown’s reform just after becoming leader which reduced debate to a discussion on “issues”, with a vote being replaced by reference to the policy-making National Policy Forum.

Mr Brown is reported to have thrown in the towel in the face of overwhelming pressure from the unions, but has won agreement to effect the change next year to avoid a row at the last conference before the next election.”

I’d not yet convinced that these “concessions” are entirely real. The union source tells me: “Every so often they dangle this carrot, ‘next conference it will be better, it will be different’”, he says.

In case you’re interested, here are the union motions “contemporary issues” for next week:

Continue reading "Will Brown give unions more say at conference?"

Michael Portillo, former darling of the Tory party*, is set to join a new advisory board at Portland, the PR firm**. In some ways it seems a shrewd move for founder Tim Allan, seen for a long while as a Blairite figure. Allan used to be a deputy to Alastair Campbell at 10 Downing Street.

Most lobbying firms are now scrambling to get close to the Tories because they see Labour as a lost cause.

Then again, Portillo has been out of the game for years now; is he still close to the central Tory clique?

* A reminder: Portillo came third (behind IDS and Ken Clarke) in the 2001 Tory leadership contest. He retired from the Commons in 2005, since when he has pursued a media career.

** Portland’s clients include corporate giants such as Google, Coca-Cola, Tesco, Vodafone and ITV. They also represent Oleg Deripaska, the Russian oligarch.

UPDATE

I forgot to mention. Portland also employs George Eustice, former spokesman for David Cameron. Although I believe he’s standing as the Tory candidate for a Cornish seat at the general election.