Willetts goes bats on Radio 4

David Willetts, Shadow Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills, appears to have been more influenced by his short stint as Shadow Trade Secretary under the last Conservative leader Michael Howard than the public realised. Interviewed by Ed Stourton on BBC Radio's Today Programme this morning, 'Two Brains' Willetts said one of the intellectual tenets of the Conservative Party ought to be co-operation.

By way of illustration, he offered the example of vampire bats. They go out each night, he said, to draw blood. And those who manage to draw blood share their blood with those who don't manage to draw any blood. Stourton could only rejoin, "Well, all that sounds rather lovey-dovey to me."

It was Ann Widdecombe who in a Commons statement in 1997 made the infamous remark about Michael Howard that "there is something of the night about him". It led to cartoonists invariably depicting the short-term Tory leader in Dracula get-up, surrounded by vampire bats.

THE MOLE: TODAY PROGRAMME

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 20, 2008