Cambria Politico – The Political Blog

Those with long memories will quickly recognise Den Dover, the Tory MEP expelled from both party and group for directing no less than £500,000 in the wrong direction (ie, family-wards), as an old acquaintance.

When the Conservative Party was a term of abuse in Wales – in days when miners still existed, and the far-Left still thought it was going somewhere rather than nowhere – Mr Dover made an acquaintance with Wales.

He was no more than another Englishman sent to Wales to learn his political trade. I doubt he ever came back after the election. Indeed, a carpet-bagger once, a carpet-bagger always. Eventually he won a Parliamentary seat in Lancashire, where he was known for his anti-European ramblings.

When the tide swung against the Tories, he swiftly switched to become a Tory MEP for the same region, despite his true beliefs. Yet his family home has always remained in Hertfordshire, despite claiming he lived in Euxton, near Chorley, Lancs. Perhaps he was mixing Chorley, Lancs with Chorleywood, Herts…

Anyway, the family cash went to Hertfordshire.

In October 1974, he was his party’s Parliamentary candidate in Caerffili. His catchline was moderately memorable – “Roll over with Dover”, if I remember correctly. His vote, however, was far from memorable – he managed only 11.5pc, up against Plaid’s Phil Williams, who before long came within a ace of capturing the seat, also setting the foundations for his party’s current control of the county borough.

To be sensible, the word Tory is no longer a term of abuse in Wales – except to a few oddities within Labour and Plaid.

But the candidacy of Dover indicated how far the Tories lived below the line of decency in those days. Dover succeeded as candidate barrister Roger Everest – although Everest was never charged with playing around with a cool half-a-million, some of his political ideas proved somewhat unusual.

I’ve been catching up on Dover’s antics in today’s Independent – the half-million in European Parliament allowances involved “major discrepancies”; the money had not been repaid although this had been promised; and Dover had to be forced to inform his party in London of the findings of the European Parliament investigation.

This if, of course, far from the old-style one-nation Toryism that Nick Bourne, the party’s Assembly leader, is trying to impose on the party in Wales in his bid to become the second party in Cardiff after the 2011 election.

But, then, I hardly imagine that Dover was a one-nation Tory. The problem, as party leader David Cameron surely swiftly recognises, is simple – how many current, post-Thatcher Tories are one-nation Tories ?

Is the recent “row” over the job of chief whip between current holder William Graham (South East) and newcomer  Paul Davies (Pembroke Preseli) a hint of these strains ? To avoid a scrap, they have decided to share the job for a year.

But Graham, despite his one-nation visage (principal of a family firm of surveyors in Newport since 1844 – presumably, his predecessor told the Irish where to stick their shovels when digging the first docks), he may hide a right-wing background. In the first days of the Assembly, he asked right-winger Rod Richards in writing whether he could become his party whip).

In stark contrast, it can sometimes be difficult to tell the Preseli AM apart from the more right-wing nationalists. And around that, of course, revolves the entire issue of whether the Tories can overtake Plaid in votes…

This Saturday, the southern Tories hold their annual policy forum at Fairwater, in Cardiff. Don’t expect such divisions to be emphasised.

But I expect to glimpse a couple. Will the Newport and Monmouth-based anti-Assembly brigade make any showing at all, under either MP and previous AM David Davies or his father, the Newport councillor ? As they don’t want to be shown up for their insignificance in the party nationally, I don’t expect either to appear.

Indeed, it will be more interesting to note whether any English MPs turn out. In the past, right-wingers from Bristol have given key-note speeches which managed to ignore totally the existence of Wales.

Mr Bourne and several – but not all – of his AMs want to appear one-nation. How many of the constituency and ward delegates will make similar noises.

Mr Dover has done a service by revealing what lies below the surface of the British party. The difficulty now is to find out how the Welsh party is developing - and giving only the correct (ie, low) weighting to the rantings from the Monmouth-Newport anti-Assembly publicity machine and its over-willing journalist pal.