A close ally of the ‘Senior’ Minister of State at the Foreign Office has gone tonto on the Tories this afternoon. Former soldier turned Dudley North Tory candidate Afzal Amin claims that “the general perception is that the party remains a racist party”. Which should endear him to the party leadership who are already rather concerned about the alarming ways in which Amin’s name keeps popping up.

Last month the excellent Ted Jeory exposed the links between Amin and the walking disaster zone that is Sayeeda Warsi, who stands accused of bunging her buddy a government contract without opening out the process to anyone else. As Labour said at the time:

“It would be a scandal if a Tory Minister has given a Tory candidate a public contract worth thousands of taxpayer pounds without advertising it fairly. There are serious questions to answer here and people expect David Cameron to urgently investigate these claims to see whether one of his Ministers is guilty of misuse of public funds.”

Warsi and Amin have known each other since 2008 and the word is that there are further messy developments to come here. Is Amin feeling the heat? Now Guido is never one for conspiracy theories, but the timing looks awfully like a warning shot…