It seems that there is more than meets the eye to last week’s BBC2 hatchet job documentary exploring the life of former Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) president Joe Cooke. Guido has learned the camp silver-suited boy-of-the-people is facing claims that he personally and deliberately organised the programme in an attempt to smear his political opponents. The dirty tricks start at a young age.

When OUCA were originally approached on behalf of the BBC the response was an unequivocal “no“. Cooke himself warned that it had the “potential to be a disaster“, while another Oxford Tory says: “the overall verdict was that they’d make us look like tw*ts“. However, Guido is told that Cooke then independently emailed the television company to suggest making a programme focusing on himself. His motivation has come into question from those involved:

“Cooke wanted to use the BBC to attack his potential successors in the national press, it was more than coincidence that a camera crew turned up as soon as he became president. He has a history of smearing his opponents, you can see from the show he how he attacked his predecessors. He was also after a safe seat in Yorkshire.”

That despite Guido seeing an email from Cooke in which he warned his colleagues: “we must not allow vanity to harm the association“. Says the boy with the silver-topped cane…