Will Tories Really Rebrand as the Workers' Party?

Are David Cameron's Conservatives really planning to go into the 2015 election campaign re-branded as the Workers' Party having abandoned the tree logo and adopted a ladder as its symbol instead?

Astonishingly, the answer appears to be yes. At least in part anyway.

Backbencher Robert Halfon recently suggested the move was urgent because the Tories were in desperate need of reconnecting with working people.

But, while many believed it was, let's be kind and say "tongue in cheek", it appears he meant it and, what's more, party bosses have taken the message to heart.

Perhaps it is something to do with recent claims that five out of the six people involved in writing the Tory party election manifesto are old Etonians, like the prime minister.

Whatever the reason though, Conservative Chairman Grant Shapps delivered a speech to party candidates in which he extended the current message that the party was on the side of "hard working families" declaring: "That's the message we have to get across to people. The Conservatives are the Worker's Party and we are on your side." (The capital letters are his)

In a further deliberate attempt to shed the party's old school tie image he made his shock announcement while standing alongside former Tory prime minister Sir John Major – the Brixton, working-class-boy-made-good, who has recently urged the party to re-engage with working people.

Shapps introduced Major, saying: "His life is a symbol of our party. It shows whose side we are on. As David Cameron has said many times, we are not here to defend privilege, we are here to spread it.

"Sir John Major campaigned for what he called a "classless society". And I would argue that this Government is fighting to secure that kind of society today.

"A Britain where it doesn't matter who your parents are, where you can go as far as your talents and hard work will take you and where work, rather than benefits, is what pays," he said.

Now this might all seem a bit like over-compensating after a raft of stories about the preponderance of Old Etonian "toffs" on the Tory frontbench and David Cameron's habit of surrounding himself with advisers from a similar social background.

But have they thought this through. Let's ignore that fact the Workers' Party was the name taken by the official IRA when it separated from the Provos in 1969.

What about the fact that there are already groups with similar names, such as the Workers Revolutionary Party (perhaps , surprisingly, not Tory but Trotsykite).

And how will the new Workers' Party differentiate itself from the Socialist Workers' Party. Surely there is room for confusion on ballot papers. And the Conservative Workers' Party or Capitalist Workers' Party labels defeat the object.

And what symbol will the party choose to replace the tree, which no one really got anyway. The hammer and sickle and tainted, to say the least, and the clenched fist is way too aggressive. Perhaps a simple red flag?

Of course this is all very silly and won't happen. Surely.