Rewriting revisionism

Peter Oborne and Frances Weaver's new pamphlet for the Tory allied think tank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), "Guilty Men" deliberately apes the famous paper co-authored by Micheal Foot under the psuedonym Cato. That savaged those whose appeasment  left this country so vulnerable to the rise of Nazi Germany. This singles out those who it says are to blame for our situation vis-a-vis the EU and the Euro in particular.

But not only does it single out the villans, the FT, the BBC, the CBI and a series of individuals all too well known to us. It accuses them of a campaign of belittlement and inaccuracy , of outrageous slurs and plain bias. But of course it misses something out entirely,

Here is my yet to be moderated comment on the CPS blog,

"Cranks, Gadflys", "a bunch of fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists mostly"


Just the sort of thing the authors rail against. The sort of attacks those brave Conservative eurosceptics have had to endure from the Euro federalists on the left and in the BBC and the FT.

But of course those insults do not come up in this book, because they were hurled by two leaders of the Conservative Party at UKIP. UKIP which has been traduced time and time again by those you attack in this pamphlet.

Is this highlighted? Well no, not really, there is one glancing reference to UKIP in relation to the wildly disproportionate coverage given to John Steven's Pro Euro Conservatives on page 29. Other than that silence. Nothing even in the index.

Amazingly, UKIP peer and former Party Leader Lord Pearson is described merely as a businessman with no reference to the party he lead.

In the afterword this paper's debt to the hundreds of thousands of pounds that he has personally spent on the Minator study into BBC bias is highlighted, the impact that it has and upon the BBC through the Wilson and Lyon's report which specifically mention that level of anti-Eurosceptic (and anti UKIP ) bias in indeed valuable.

But maybe while we applaud the "courage of unfashionable politicians" including a couple of former Prime Ministers and the Current Foreign Secretary, as well as the Chairman of the European Select Committee this paper may have mentioned in passing the courage of those who, in defence of this country's liberty have eschewed preferment at all.

That will be UKIP, but maybe to the authors, and to the CPS, UKIP remain there to be scorned, just to keep the Conservative Eurosceptics backsides firmly planted on the pile of fresh-grown laurels.

So two cheers for Mr Oborne and Ms Weaver