Polish air tragedy helps ‘bury’ awkward Tory report

The plane crash which claimed the lives of Poland's President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria and several of the country's senior politicians and officials, understandably dominated headlines at the weekend. In so doing, it helped bury another story about Kaczynski's Law and Justice party (PiS), and its controversial relationship with David Cameron's Conservative party, which might otherwise have caused more embarrassment.

The right-wing party, established in 2001 by Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw, is known for its extreme nationalistic views - as was Kaczynski - and for homophobic and anti-semitic tendencies among many of its members.

Last year, David Cameron risked considerable controversy when he ordered British Conservatives serving in the European parliament to withdraw from an alliance with the mainstream European Peoples bloc, and ordered them to sign up instead with the new European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) grouping, which includes the PiS and other right-wing eastern European parties.

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It has now emerged that Cameron did so against the advice of his own officials, who drew up a secret report in 2007 advising that the Tories should be wary of forming any links with PiS.

According to the Observer, Jozef Pnior, a former Polish MEP, was shown a summary version of the secret report. It made it clear that to break away from the European Peoples bloc would be "too politically dangerous". Another source told the paper that the secret report was "thorough" and that "serious concerns were raised about Law and Justice and several other potential allies at the time".

The decision to ignore this advice caused Cameron a big headache last summer. US foreign policy expert David Rothkopf suggested that Cameron might have to be "ditched at the altar" by President Barack Obama because of his association with such ultra-conservatives. And Stephen Fry attacked the Tories for allowing Michal Kaminski, a PiS member, to attend the Tory party conference in Manchester because of his blatant homophobia.

The Observer claims to have asked the Conservative party for an explanation as to why Cameron ignored the secret report, but has received no response.