At least two or three times, of late, I’ve made the point that if the Tories are serious about shaking off their reputation as the ‘Nasty Party’ when it comes to their approach to race and ethnicity then they have to be given room to clean up their own little messes without us going over the top and demanding a public hanging every time one of them drops a boner in public.

So, with that in mind, would someone from the Tory side like to ask Barnet councillor, Lisa Rutter, exactly what she’s alluding to is this particular remark, which, according to Recess Monkey, appears in an article attacking ID cards (source unknown at present as RM’s PDF of the original is currently screwed).

With the demographics of the country constantly changing as a result of immigration, we might one day have a government that is not benign. If this ever happens, we do not want the infrastructure in place to allow a police state to come into existence.

Now, there seem to me to be two possible interpretations one can put on this statement:

Interpretation 1.

We may one day have a less benign government because hyperventilated and overblown public fears about immigration could, hypothetically, result in the election of members of a far-right nationalist party to the House of Commons in sufficient numbers to push Britain down the road to fascism.

And…

Interpretation 2.

There are too many Muslims entering the country as it is, and if its not stopped soon, we may find them taking over completely and imposing Sharia law in Britain.

Interpretation 1 is stretching credibility, even as a piece of political rhetoric, but is otherwise a fairly benign interpretation.

Interpretation 2, on the other hand, has rather nasty undertones and takes us in directions that I’m not entirely sure that Cameron’s new model Tories are going to be particularly keen on.

Now, unlike RM, who’s made his mind up already, I’m prepared to take a more non-committal view for the time being and simply suggest that someone on the Tory side might like to have a bit of a chat with Ms Rutter and ascertain precisely which of the two interpretations she was thinking of in putting together her remarks and then, if necessary, pointing her in the direction of the correct interpretation.