A Tory at any age has no conscience, no scruples, is riddled with self-interest and believes in the devil taking the hindmost. Unless, of course, he's stupid.

Here's a quote from a piece in the Guardian entitled "The Tories' response to raging Islamophobia? Turn a blind eye" It actually makes horrifying reading:

On Thursday’s BBC Politics Live show, the Conservative MP Henry Smith dismissed claims of Islamophobia in the Conservative party, citing the fact he personally had not seen any anti-Muslim discrimination.

Yet we have a fair idea as to just how Islamophobia has taken hold among the party’s support base and how its leadership is responding to such attitudes.

The latest report from Hope Not Hate gives some indication of where these sentiments may come from. Almost half (49%) of Conservative voters see Islam as a threat to the British way of life, with a similar number (47%) believing the false conspiracy theory that there are no-go areas where sharia law dominates and non-Muslims cannot enter.

Islamophobia and negative attitudes towards Muslims are very much established within sections of British society – where 18% of people believe “Muslim immigration to this country is part of a bigger plan to make Muslims a majority of this country’s population” and 31% of young children believe Muslims are taking over England.

However, the latest statistics split by party preference show that there is a particular tendency for anti-Muslim racists to vote for the Conservative party, over and above others.

While we cannot be certain of the driver, it is noticeable that these sentiments appear at the same time as the Conservative party is being seen to be trying to placate the hard right. Let’s look at one of the statistics – about Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (popularly known as Tommy Robinson), who is described as a far-right Islamophobic extremist by Hope Not Hate.

An unbelievable 42% of Tory voters have a positive view of the way Yaxley-Lennon highlights issues ignored by the media (compared with 18% of Labour voters).

One might have assumed that such a positive view about a widely reviled and hateful figure would not have any place in a modern Conservative party membership.

Worth remembering when we read constantly only about the confected and highly hypocritical brouhaha about "Labour antisemitism"...