There are days when you’ve just got to laugh…

£8m donor to Tory party was delusional, son tells court

I have to say that from where I’m sitting that seems to be less a headline and more an axiom but do go on…

When David Cameron became leader of the Conservatives in November 2005 he must have been thrilled to know that the party was about to receive a huge £8.2m bequest from one of its staunchest supporters. But nearly two years on, the Conservatives yesterday found themselves in the high court trying to prove they are entitled to the money, after their supporter’s heirs claimed Belgrade-born millionaire Branislav Kostic – known to his friends as Bane – was suffering from “insane delusions” when he made his will.

I’m intrigued – just how insanely delusional does someone have to be to be to donate £8 million to the Tory Party?

Andrew Simmonds QC, for the Tories, argued that he gave the party the money because he was disappointed with his family and because “of his great and long-standing affection for the Conservative party and his admiration for Mrs Thatcher”.

Well yes, that might well qualify, although there’s rather a lot of it still about.

He was, according to Ms Montgomery, “gripped by delusions concerning conspiracies, dark forces and plots to kill him that had already begun to poison his relationship with his wife and sister and came to distort much of his world view.

Your average neo-con forum troll/blogroach then, so I guess the sheer weight of numbers militates against that as conclusive evidence of insanity.

In December 1984 he wrote to Mrs Thatcher telling her she was the only person in the free world who could save “us” from bestial monsters. “You are the only hope for a dignified decent and honest future,” he wrote.

Mmm… things are starting to look a little dicey…

“Please rehabilitate Cecil Parkinson he is a victim of organised crime … I am sending a cheque for £5,000 to fight the evil and wicked demons and satans and I am fully at your disposal.”

Pardon? Is he suggesting that it was the Mafia that got Parkinson’s secretary up the duff?

He also sent a £3,000 cheque to Lord Tebbit, then chairman of the party.

Well at least that confirms what we’ve thought all along. Norman Tebbit (Witchfinder General) does have a plausible ring to it…

In 1987 he wrote to then Conservative MP David Mellor, asking him to be a trustee for a new will that would leave everything to the Conservative party and disinherit his own family. He asked for his help against the “dark forces” massed against him.

Now that clinches it – he wrote to David Mellor and asked him to be a trustee for his will? That’s about as open and shut as it gets – give the family their money back…

The court heard that at two meetings and two lunches at Simpsons in the Strand with a solicitor from the firm, Kostic made two new wills – tearing up one – and then settled on one he had written himself, aiming to give the cash to a new organisation called the Margaret Thatcher Revolution.

So had she not been unceremoniously ejected from Downing Street by her own party, Thatcher’s retirement plan seems to have been that of hosting her own late night Channel Four comedy/chat show? I’ll bet that ‘Four Fascists and a Piano’ were a bit pissed off when that gig feel though… still it does go some way to explaining 18 Doughty Street.

Mr Simmonds, for the Conservatives, said Kostic had been described by friends and family as warm, generous, gregarious and a man of great intelligence. His letters demonstrated a love of language and an “appreciation of metaphor and hyperbole”.

You see, he wasn’t mad, just literate…

He added that, while it was accepted that Kostic suffered from a delusional disorder, it was not accepted that this rendered him incapable of making a proper will.

<PAXMAN> Yeeeeeeeessssssssss! </PAXMAN>

I guess that if this proves anything, its that you don’t have to be mad to donate money to the Tories…

…but it sure does help!