IT’S been a torrid time for anyone of a Conservative persuasion in Worcester over the last couple of weeks, fresh from being on the receiving end of a Lab/Lib coup at the city council.

You would think losing control of the Guildhall after a 13-year reign, with the loss of future prospects, status and all the influence it brings, was bad enough.

But another kick in the teeth was soon to follow, amid revelations that a member of David Cameron’s innercircle had branded grassroots Tories “mad, swivel-eyed loons”.

The quote has been denied vociferously, but among many Conservative activists the damage has already been done, with trust between both sides being eroded in full media glare. The Source has now been copied into an alarming e-mail trail over the gay marriage row. The chain starts with Andrew Grant, president of the Worcester Conservative Association, and leads all the way to MP Sir Peter Bottomley, one of the Prime Minister’s buddies.

Not one to mince his words, Mr Grant, who is totally opposed to gay marriage, accused Mr Cameron of “lacking political astuteness” and being “sly” in trying to get it through Parliament.

Among those copied in were Councillor David Tibbutt, former Mayor of Worcester and a true blue Tory, who wrote “it is a persistent issue on the doorstep, folk will not forget”, adding ominously: “Ifear this will all come back to bite us in the general election in 2015.”

Sir Peter, a loyal former roads minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, hit back, writing “it helps if people maintain respect”, adding that the Tory activists who appeared outside Downing Street with a critical letter for Mr Cameron last weekend “gained a wave of publicity unhelpfully”.

The veteran MP then claimed the economy “is coming right again”, but that it is being overshadowed by the internal rows, signing off with: “I regret that”. Can this lot bear to be in the same room as each other?

e In Wednesday’s Worcester News we published a letter from Oliver Orr, who was in attendance at the city council meeting where the infamous Labour coup took place.

The letter, which mainly criticised the Conservatives, ended with: “I am sure that the Conservative Party will not forgive the Liberal Democrats for at least a generation for deciding to support Labour”.

Could this be the same Oliver Orr who is a fully paid-up member of the Lib Dems and has made numerous attempts to get elected to the city council for the party? Politics. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.