Tory chair Lord Feldman 'was handed dossier on bullying five years ago', party activist says

The chair of the Conservative party was handed a dossier detailing claims of bullying within the Tory youth wing as far back as 2010, a former activist has claimed.

Patrick Sullivan, who run a Tory-aligned think-tank, says Lord Feldman was handed the 20-page dossier as a hard copy by Ben Howlett, who is now an MP.

Lord Feldman, a close ally of David Cameron says he was not made aware of any written complaints about bullying before August 2015, however.

But Mr Sullivan told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: “He had a strong anti-bullying stance in the campaign because there had been a culture of bullying.

“As soon as he was elected Ben [Howlett] and myself helped compile a dossier and that dossier was given by Ben to Lord Feldman and Sayeeda Warsi."

Mr Howell, the MP believed to have handed the dossier to Lord Feldman, had previously told the same programme: “Feldman has known about Clarke for a long time.”

The former activist at the centre of the allegations is Mark Clarke, who denies all claims against him.

He has been alleged that he bullied, sexually harassed, and schemed to blackmail other activists in the party’s youth wing.

Interest in the allegations picked up after the apparently suicide of Elliott Johnson, who is believed to have left a note naming Mr Clarke.

Mr Clarke was put in charge of running a key project bussing young Conservative activists around the country to campaign in marginal seats at the 2015 general election. He was due to run a similar “Road Trip” campaign in 2020, having set up a preliminary .Road Trip 2020 group.

Last week Conservative MP allies of Lord Feldman MPs tweeted their support for him, with half a dozen tweets issued in a 15 minute period.

The Sun newspaper reported at the time that a Downing Street official had circulated through parliamentary offices to encourage the MPs to send the messages.

Baroness Warsi wrote to former minister Grant Shapps about the allegations after being handed the dossier.

Mr Shapps recently resigned over his response to the scandal, after it was alleged that he did nothing to challenge the culture.

The former Tory chair says he was not “forced” to resign but “in fact I chose to resign to do the right thing by Johnson family who've lost their son”.

Mr Sullivan, who runs the think-tank Parliament Street, added: “The dossier is not the only thing.

“There were complaints about Mark Clarke in 2008. So complaints about Mark Clarke had been something that Conservative Central Office have known about for a very long time.”

Lord Feldman said: “I was wholly unaware of allegations of bullying and inappropriate sexual conduct by Mr Clarke prior to August 2015.

“Such behaviour is abhorrent to me and had this been brought to my attention I would have taken immediate action to investigate, as I have done since I received the complaint in August 2015.”