Cameron and United Russia in Council of Europe

I read a report in the Guardian a couple of days ago that David Cameron's conservatives were to no longer sit with United Russia members in the Council of Europe, read here. This was supposedly as a result of some baiting by the completely odious and contemptible Denis Macshane, which struck me at the time as extremely improbable as the likely cause for such a move. I have now discovered that President Putin had accomplished a bit of a coup in the Council at the end of last June over the organ harvesting affair revealed by Carla del Ponte in Kosovo, read here. These older items make interesting reading in view of the recent developments over Georgia, the final press conference of Javier Solana as Nato Secretary General and an IHT report on earlier efforts by President Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner to get Putin in line over Kosovo. Other links and background to various reports now circulating the internet may be found here.