A senior Conservative on the Welsh Assembly has quit two key political posts after calling Italians “greasy wops”.

Alun Cairns announced his resignation today, after apologising for his comment on live radio.

On a Radio Cymru discussion show, Dau o’r Bae, contributors had been asked which country they would support in the Euro 2008 football tournament.

One said she had written “boring” next to Sweden on the list of tournament contenders, “nice flag” next to Portugal, and “nice food” next to Italy.

Cairns retorted: “I’ve written greasy wops.”

Presenter Vaughan Roderick immediately asked the Tory politician to apologise, which he did.

Cairns is the Conservative Party candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan, a Westminster Parliamentary seat currently held by Labour’s John Smith that the Tories had hoped to win.

But today, Cairns resigned as Shadow Education Minister, and as chairman of the Assembly’s finance committee.

The imbroglio is the latest embarrassment for the Conservatives, who have been trying to rebrand themselves as a diverse, multi-racial party but have sometimes been let down by their own representatives’ comments.

Patrick Mercer was sacked as David Cameron’s homeland security spokesman last year after telling Times Online it was a normal part of military life for an ethnic minority soldier to be called a “black bastard”.

The previous Conservative leader, Michael Howard, withdrew the whip from Ann Winterton, a backbencher who had made a joke about the deaths of 20 Chinese cocklers in Morecambe Bay, Lancashire.

Last year, Nigel Hastilow, Tory parliamentary candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis in the West Midlands, resigned after writing in a newspaper column ‘Enoch Powell was right’ on immigration.

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