There is no ‘philosophy’ behind ‘conservatism’ (if such a thing exists separate from self-interested parties banding together to subborn the state to their ends of self protection of those interests). There is therefore nothing that stands up sufficiently to honest analysis to be described as ’sound’.

In short, Blaney is chief executive and co-founder of the Young Britons Foundation, an organisation which “identifies, recruits, trains and places philosophically sound conservative activists in politics, academia and the media”. There’s more about him here. He is very actively involved conservative politics and has particular interest in training young conservatives.

He’s also a solicitor. Acting on behalf of Paul Staines “Guido Fawkes”, he has recently threatened to take legal action against Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads:

http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2008/02/paul_staines_le.asp

And he writes a blog which Iain Dale has been attempting to boost the profile of.

You can get the full story by following the links in the post above but the central point is that he wrote an unsubstantiated ad hominem attack accusing his critics of not having the courage to participate in “honest debate”. I wanted discuss that post and his own attitude to honest debate. It didn’t go well.

When it comes to Blaney and his ilk, I’ve adopted a new personal rule. I borrowed it from the Situationists.