Tory story

Our piece on the European Conservatives and Reformers group in Political Quarterly gets the once over from one of the bloggers on Conservative Home. It is, alas, not a very insightful commentary as, as well confusing the Civic Democrats (ODS) with Poland's Civic Platform in the initial posting and for good measure implying that ODS leader Miroslav Topolánek has just taken over as head of Poland's other main party, Law and Justice, it spends most of its time on auto-pilot rebutting the charge sheet of media criticism of the ECR summarise dat the start of the article (which we don't agree with).

I suppose that's what comes from being in the trenches of the party political blogosphere churning out comment and criticism to keep whatever side you on supplied with ammunition and dutifully toe-ing the party line, or pussyfooting around i (in this case we are asked to belivethat the Tories' East European allies are a market friendly proper centre-right, whereas similar parties not interested in the ECR embrace like Hungary's Fidesz are evil populist baddies).

Like a lot of politics lecturers, I know, while it fascinates me, the the whole me good/you bad bullshit world of partisan politics also rather appals.

For the first time in very a long while, I almost feel glad to be an academic...