The European Resource Bank conference begins today at Guildhall, and will be attended by right-wing lobby groups from both the US and the UK. But of most interest will be the attendance of those who back the Tea Party, a loose alignment of right-wing thought that has germinated in the wake of Barack Obama's election win, and stretches from fiscally conservative Republicans to cranks who think the President is a Marxist Muslim hell-bent on America's ruination.
Backed by their wealthy financiers, the group has managed to insert itself into the American body politic. As detailed in The Guardian, many of the lobbyists who have turned the Tea Partiers into a major concern will be at the event today.
Yet will their message of small government, tax breaks, privatisation, and an opposition to Obama's healthcare plan, translate into a message that could work in Britain? Or are they, as Liberal Conspiracy suggest, only over here to visit our free museums?
