CONTINUING my lone crusade to convince someone — anyone, in fact — that David Cameron’s detoxification strategy has been 100 per cent cosmetic and zero per cent substance, here’s the latest piece of evidence.

Louise Bagshawe, the novelist and Tory candidate for Corby, has Twittered that Sarah Palin is her "heroine". And no, I don’t think she was being ironic, judging from some of her subsequent Tweets.

Bagshawe is one of the Tories’ most high profile candidates, frequently appearing, presumably at the request of Central Office, in media articles profiling the Tories’ "next generation".

And Sarah Palin is her heroine.

Sarah Palin, who made an international, as well as a national, laughing stock of last year’s Republican presidential campaign.

Sarah Palin, who the Alaskan state legislature concluded had abused her powers as governor by persecuting her sister’s ex-husband.

Sarah Palin, who actually believes  that dinosaurs and humans co-existed because she believes in the literal interpretation of the book of Genesis.

Sarah Palin, whose good ol’ fashioned folksy charm just wasn’t enough to hide the fact that she was one of the least qualified vice-presidential candidates in modern political history. You betcha!

John McCain, by all accounts a decent and principled man, holed his own bid for the Whitehouse below the waterline by appointing her as his running mate, while simultaneously prompting the world to reassess whether he had the political judgment after all to be elected to his country’s highest office. After all, someone who thinks it a good idea to put Sarah Palin within a heartbeat of the presidency can hardly be trusted to make other, less important decisions in government.

As an Obama supporter, I obviously would like to see Palin become her party’s standard bearer in 2012. But even the Republican Party, I strongly suspect, don’t have that much of a death wish. They might opt for her if Obama looks like being unbeatable by then, in which case she’ll be rendered as harmless as Bob Dole was against Clinton in 1996. But if Obama’s looking remotely vulnerable, I expect the party will want to nominate a credible candidate instead.

The interesting question is: how many other Tory candidates and MPs actually take Palin seriously and want her to become president (other than Nadine, obviously)? An interesting survey of Tory candidates today at ConservativeHome reveals that as many supported Obama as opposed him. We know that Dave himself supported McCain (although his endorsement came before Palin’s nomination for VP).

Bagshawe has since Twittered that she doesn’t agree with Palin on gay rights but she does on abortion. Well, throw a stick into any Southern Baptist church in America and you’ll hit someone with the same views — surely Palin’s got more going for her than that? Apart from the glasses, of course, which I admit are very fetching.

Palin is an extremist. She is also a fool. I would question the political judgment, therefore, of anyone who describes her as their "heroine". 

UPDATE at 11.00 am, 4th July: Louise herself has replied by Twitter, suggesting that the accusation that Palin thinks dinosaurs and people walked the earth at the same time is a smear. If what I wrote above is untrue, then I apologise. But again, most people don’t believe this either and it doesn’t qualify them to be president. Can anyone provide a link to a direct quote by Palin denying the whole One Million years BC scenario?