TPA @ YBF? WTF!

Seems my letter to the BBC's Director of News Helen Boaden ruffled a few feathers at the TaxPayers' Alliance.

You'll remember I'm asking the BBC to consider referring to the TPA in their broadcasts as “a group with close links to the Conservative Party” or some similar on-air clarification.

Their Chief Executive Matthew Elliott, writing on Comment is Free, denies close links with the Tory Party saying, they're ''laughable'':

"We are open about being of the centre-right – we believe in low taxes, public sector reform and personal freedom. But the idea that that puts us in cahoots with the Tories is laughable. You only have to read ConservativeHome to see how many grassroots supporters feel that the Tories have strayed from that agenda."

So perhaps he'd like to explain why he's speaking at the Young Britons Foundation's 6th annual Foundation Activist Training Conference event this weekend with five Tory shadow ministers, the Chair of the Tory Party and right wing bloggers Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale?

Take a look. It's bring held at a private school. No doubt to make the delegates feel at home.

The YBF says on its website:

"The Young Britons’ Foundation is a non-partisan (Really? JP), not-for-profit educational, research and training organisation that promotes conservatism in schools, colleges and universities. YBF identifies, trains, mentors and places philosophically sound activists in politics, academia and the media.

"The Young Britons’ Foundation directly combats left-wing bias in the education system and the mainstream media. YBF believes that students should receive a balanced education, hearing both sides of an argument. The biased education that students receive today is a disservice to the students and to society at large."

So just to recap, here's the full list of speakers at this 'non-partisan event':

Eric Pickles MP, Conservative Party Chairman
Daniel Hannan MEP, Co-Author of The Plan
Rt Hon Lord Forsyth, Former Secretary of State for Scotland
Gerald Howarth MP, Shadow Defence Minister
Andrew Rosindell MP, Shadow Home Office Minister
Greg Hands MP, Shadow Treasury Minister
Paul Goodman MP, Shadow Local Government Minister
Douglas Carswell MP, Co-Author of The Plan
Paul Staines, Guido Fawkes
Iain Dale, Blogger & Publisher
Jonathan Isaby, ConservativeHome
Nick Wood, Former CCHQ Head of Communications
Matthew Elliott, TaxPayers’ Alliance
Douglas Murray, Centre for Social Cohesion
Simon Richards, Freedom Association
Alan Mendoza, Henry Jackson Society
Russell Walters, Conservative Way Forward
Peter Whittle, New Culture Forum

Yep, those speakers are from every shade of the political spectrum.

As long as that shade is blue.

I'm sure the training will be first class. Hannan can brief young people on how to sneak off to America to run down the NHS on Fox News (until Go Fourth exposed him.)

Eric Pickles can perhaps share with his ''chums' his many hilarious jokes about bulimia and other eating disorders.

And no doubt Matthew Elliott can lecture on how to rebut accusations that a so called 'grassroots alliance' is just a front for the Tory Party.

To me, it sounds like Butlins for Tory Boys.