Is anybody doing international PR for the Tories? They need it and so does UK.

The Pierre Lallouche outburst in the Guardian by the French Europe Minister has been building up for some time.  Reading the French media for a number of years, which I do, both online and print, it is clear they find the Conservative position on Europe totally baffling.  The word "autistic" used by Lallouche which may be politically incorrect but is an interesting choice of words as it is a condition which I think the medical profession find somewhat baffling to understand the causes, hence its controversial use in this context.

For many years, the Tory party had the wonderful brand even if unofficial of the "natural party of government" and a strong feel for international affairs.   After all it was a Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who helped set a post-Empire agenda with his "winds of change" speech.  All that instinct seems to have disappeared from the Conservatives, hence Lallouche's comments and sense of bafflement. 

 French media tend to highlight the Conservative leadership as coming from a narrow elite and also one which has no experience of working in industry compared with their énarques.  (The famous Bullingdon dining club photo with David Cameron and Boris Johnston.)

Worryingly for the Conservatives and UK plc, other governments are giving the same message to the Conservatives and its position on Europe with both the US and German positions made clear in briefings to senior journalists.

Are the Conservatives concerned?  Probably not as being attacked from France will play well in marginal seats where they are fighting UKIP and perhaps the BNP, which incidentally has become the most actively visited political website of the UK parties.  However almost certainly the Foreign Office is concerned and I would have thought the City and wider business community is starting to worry that this uncertainty over Europe makes the UK an increasingly uncertain base for a stable long term investment climate.