Last October, Eric Pickles, Chairman of the Conservative Party, made a very bold pledge:

However, the stricture from Eric Pickles doesn’t appear to have been picked up in Solihull. Sophie Shrubsole, Conservative Future Area Chair for Birmingham, Solihull and Coventry, excitedly marshalled her student troops after a request from Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) to encourage students across the country to gather in Warwick and disrupt last  speech by the Prime Minister:

Paul Waugh of the Evening Standard, who broke the story, wonders on his blog if Eric Pickles will be true to his earlier comments.

More specifically, I would imagine that Pickles has at least two courses of action he should consider:

1. An inquiry to establish which party official at CCHQ was encouraging such dirty tricks and sack them;
2. Disciplinary action against Shrubsole as a party officer for continuing to organise this planned disruption in clear contravention of his instructions.

The sad fact is though that, despite his pledge, Pickles will do nothing and the Conservative Party will seek to ignore this first clear example of dirty tricks – or explain it away as student hijinx.

There really is nothing quite so grubby and hypocritical as a Conservative Party desperate for power at any cost.