No Mark Reckless, no Brooks Newmark and now no Bow Group. The oldest conservative think-thank has announced that they are boycotting this year’s Tory conference. It seems, for Dave at least, bad news really does come in threes.
The venerable think tank, founded in 1951 and counting Lords Howe and Heseltine among its members, has charged the Conservative Party Conference with being ‘a corporate venue for press and lobbyists’ rather than ‘a genuine forum for conservatism and Conservative Party members’.
With MEP and Bow Group member Dan Hannan refusing to attend and Lord Tebbit worrying that CPC was no longer ‘anything to do with Party members’, the Tories might have reason to worry.
In particular, Hannan’s boycott might have given Dave cause for concern, but he has just told Andrew Neil that he won’t be jumping ship. Phewf.
Hang on a second. Haven’t we heard that one before?
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