A blog about politics, education, Ireland, culture and travel. I am Conor Ryan, Dublin-born former adviser to Tony Blair and David Blunkett on education. Views expressed on this blog are written in a personal capacity. Thursday, 29 October 2009 The simple fact is that the Tories' approach to the European Parliament is quite mad Iain Dale is demanding that those who criticise the Polish MEP Michal Kaminski should apologise because the Chief Rabbi of Poland has been prevailed upon to say that the man is not an anti-semite these days and to criticise a headline run by the New Statesman suggesting he was asking the UK Tories to ditch their alliance with him. Yet, as Toby Helm points out , Rabbi Schudrich said in an email to the New Statesman that he has not retracted : "It is clear that Mr Kaminski was a member of the NOP, a group that is openly far-right and neo-Nazi...Anyone who would want to align himself with a person who was an active member of NOP and the Committee to Defend the Good Name of Jedwabne, which was established to deny historical facts of the massacre ... needs to understand with what, and by whom, he is being represented." Moreover, Helm explains that the new comments come as a result of 'enormous pressure ' - bullying in plain terms - from Kaminski's Law and Justice Party to retract, but he has not done so . As Helm says: I suspect that if one really