Mention of Nigel Farage deleted from Tory conference pamphlet
A debate between Nigel Farage and Bill Cash has been deliberately deleted from the Tory conference fringe listings guidebook, organisers said today.
The Bruge Group debate between the two eurosceptics, with Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne in the chair, is taking place on Monday at 13:00 BST, but it was left out of the official guide despite a £250 payment for its inclusion.
"It is wrong that they are trying to hide this meeting from party members at the conference," Robert Oulds, director of the Bruges Group, said.
"I am concerned that the party may be trying to stifle debate on this subject. Instead of ignoring the problem, we have to start to have a debate and to understand each other."
Oulds said he had been told the event was deliberately left out to avoid mentioning Farage, who is attending several fringe events outside the conference zone, much to the irritation of Conservative HQ.
The subject of the debate was: 'Conservatives and Ukip: enemies or allies?'
The event was large enough for organisers to rent out the Manchester Town Hall in order to deal with the numbers expected to attend.
The row comes as Cameron insisted he would not include Farage in a leaders' TV debate at the general election, because it should only include people who "could be prime minister".
