Tories - are EU still just pretending?

Has former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten inadvertently blown a hole in a Conservative Party smokescreen over the European Union? Or are the newspaper's making something out of the Conservative position on Europe that isn't actually there?

The now Lord Patten yesterday expressed the view that he would be "very positive" about the idea of becoming an EU Foreign Minister. Or rather, that's an edited version of what was said.

The full quote which appeared in yesterday's Financial Times read: "I’m not campaigning for the job. But if I was approached, which I think is unlikely, I would certainly be very positive about it."

It seems from the words with which this quote opens that Lord Patten was responding to a question on the issue. Nonetheless, he does still express positive interest in such a future role.

So, we were then rather mystified by a responding quote from William Hague which appears in The Guardian.

Hague is quoted by the latter publication as stating: "Speculation about who should fill a post whose shape we do not yet know is certainly unwise and, given the nature of European politics, likely to be unhelpful to any possible candidate".

Excuse us for being a little over analytical in the age of Twitter, Strictly Come Dancing and Big Brother (the TV show rather than the ZaNuLiebour reorganisation of the State) but...

...William Hague's words hardly sound like a reassurance that there will not be an EU Foreign Minister to go with the constitutional Lisbon Treaty, do they?

If anything, it appears - appears - that it was "unwise" for Patten to say what he did because it has been "unhelpful" to the Conservative Party's hopes of securing 'eurosceptic' votes. Or even further haemorrhaging these to UKIP.

And the Conservatives seem to be leaving suspicious and understandably distrusting 'eurosceptics' to engage in the "speculation" that Hague is worried about.

Only, for clarity's sake, the politically engaged 'eurosceptic' might go to the Conservative Party's website to try to get some context on these media quotes and find out what the party has to say about the matter in more detail...

...only to find a rather worrying silence. Which leads one to "speculation" about what truths such a silence is concealing.

As there is no elaboration on these intriguing media titbits, the 'eurosceptic' will probably have to file this mysterious passing of a handful of words in the same folder as the mysterious and still unexplained "we won't let matters rest there".

Though if Gormless called a snap election tomorrow, those wavering between the Conservatives and UKIP might give their vote to the party that is upfront about it's EU intent - and that party simply isn't the Conservatives.

Indeed, as each month passes by, the Conservative position on Europe still continues to be akin to an unsolved 'X File'.

And if the Conservatives must draw comparison between their policies and The X Files, we need only remind readers that the Smoking Man would surely vote UKIP who have a policy to partially overturn the smoking ban.

So what is the Conservative Party's real intent on the European Union? In the iconic words of the best of sci-fi shows, 'the truth is out there'...

Or is it? When faced with deep, dark mysteries, the hardened and weary 'eurosceptic' might choose to adopt another phrase from The X Files - 'trust no-one'.