After his pledge to quit the EU's main centre-right bloc was criticised for isolating him from Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, recent attempts to avoid xenophobic allies are causing friction with his Czech partner. The Czech ODS, led by Mirek Topolánek, the former Prime Minister photographed naked at Silvio Berlusconi's villa, wants as many parties as possible to join Mr Cameron's group of MEPs to give it extra clout. But Mr Cameron is resisting the more populist candidates, such as Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League and the similarly inclined Danish People's Party (DPP). While the Czechs have no objections to Umberto Bossi's Northern League, the Tories fear that it would bring bad publicity.
After his pledge to quit the EU's main centre-right bloc was criticised for isolating him from Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, recent attempts to avoid xenophobic allies are causing friction with his Czech partner.
The Czech ODS, led by Mirek Topolánek, the former Prime Minister photographed naked at Silvio Berlusconi's villa, wants as many parties as possible to join Mr Cameron's group of MEPs to give it extra clout. But Mr Cameron is resisting the more populist candidates, such as Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League and the similarly inclined Danish People's Party (DPP).
While the Czechs have no objections to Umberto Bossi's Northern League, the Tories fear that it would bring bad publicity.
I still can't find a list of parties in this new group, though. A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous
