It seems that the shuffling of the minor deckchairs in Tory ranks is about as interesting as anything else Cameron has done this week (yawn) but for the news that his new Minister for Apologetics and Queer-Bashing, Sayeeda Warsi, has been given a minder in the form of Paul Goodman:

Perhaps the juiciest appointment so far is Paul Goodman’s move to assist Sayeeda Warsi at community cohesion. Given his robust views on the muslim issue it’s safe to say he has been appointed to ‘keep an eye’ on her.

And to be fair, if this article at Tory Home is anything to go by, Goodman is a cut above the usual run of ranting right-wing idiots in his analysis of the issues, even if he does spoil the overall effect by drifting a little creepily into Mad Mel territory right at the very end:

This is not so much an abstract “war on terror” as a concrete struggle for the identity and nature of our country – whose value system has been built upon the practice of decency, tolerance and fairness, themselves the shared inheritance of our mainstream political parties. A new battle of ideas is taking place. At its heart are conflicting conceptions of who we are, of how we’re to live together – of what sort of people we want to be. A battle for Britain has begun.

Still it will be interesting to see how this pans out and whether Warsi will be expected to defer to Goodman’s altogether more robust line on Islam at all times or whether they’ll divvy up the duties down the lines established by Warsi during her unsuccessful attempt to become the MP for Dewsbury, with Warsi confining her apologia to the Asian language press, while Goodman handles the Daily Mail/Express – which would be the Cameron thing to do…

…try and face both ways at the same time.

And with that in mind, Dale’s next observation comes as a bit of surprise:

I also understand that Dominic Grieve will no longer cover diversity issues, which move to Community Cohesion. I have just spoken to Dominic Grieve who assures me that there will be a Community Cohesion ‘troika’ of himself, Sayeeda and Paul.

Between Cameron’s Janus-like qualities and Warsi’s penchant for queer-bashing one might have thought she’d have got Alan Duncan as her other minder, but apparently not.

And with that its time to head off the bookies to see if they fancy offering odds on the song that the Tories will use to introduce Cameron at this year’s Tory Conference. My money’s on the Stealer’s Wheel classic ‘Stuck in the Middle’…

“Clowns to the left of me. Jokers to right…’