President Putin's United Russia seems to have just quit the European Democrat Group in Strasbourg which was chaired by one of his most trusted members of the State Duma, Alexey Pushkov.
This follows the departure from the EDG earlier this year of Yanukovych's Party of the Regions after the collapse, despite a recent visit to Kiev by Tory parliamentarians, of his Ukrainian kleptocracy.
While the Tories' human rights alliance in Strasbourg may no longer be replete with KGB veterans and the political heirs to Stalin, EDG still contains inapposite members ranging from President Erdogan's party in the south to the Danish People's party in the north.
Time will tell whether EDG's website - edgpace.org - may now be restored having been closed "under Maintenance" since Russia's invasion of the Crimea.
Mr Cameron's order for the Conservative Party to leave the EPP was both unpleasant and daft. By no stretch of the imagination could it have pursued the strategic British national interest.
However, the kopek has not fully dropped within the Conservative Party. The internet still contains some references to the ostentatious launch of Conservative Friends of Russia, originally presided over by The Rt Hon Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, only two short years ago at a lavish August reception in London. The Group has since collapsed in controversy but the Russian language coverage of the launch reception is still available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE2XZaGd5hU and we still have the English language version of the video with effusive support from a number of Conservative MPs.
This follows the departure from the EDG earlier this year of Yanukovych's Party of the Regions after the collapse, despite a recent visit to Kiev by Tory parliamentarians, of his Ukrainian kleptocracy.
While the Tories' human rights alliance in Strasbourg may no longer be replete with KGB veterans and the political heirs to Stalin, EDG still contains inapposite members ranging from President Erdogan's party in the south to the Danish People's party in the north.
Time will tell whether EDG's website - edgpace.org - may now be restored having been closed "under Maintenance" since Russia's invasion of the Crimea.
Mr Cameron's order for the Conservative Party to leave the EPP was both unpleasant and daft. By no stretch of the imagination could it have pursued the strategic British national interest.
However, the kopek has not fully dropped within the Conservative Party. The internet still contains some references to the ostentatious launch of Conservative Friends of Russia, originally presided over by The Rt Hon Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, only two short years ago at a lavish August reception in London. The Group has since collapsed in controversy but the Russian language coverage of the launch reception is still available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE2XZaGd5hU and we still have the English language version of the video with effusive support from a number of Conservative MPs.
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