I HAVE been trying to decide whether the Conservative Party’s summer ball on Monday night was merely tacky or actually offensive. Young waitresses in hotpants and bikini tops handed out champagne; Eastern European models paraded during dinner in skimpy swimming costumes under the pretence of performing a fashion show, to the delight of ageing Tory luminaries.

But as the marketing manager of Veuve Clicquot, who sponsored the party, confirmed to a reporter: “Let’s face it – fashion isn’t the main reason. How many swimming costumes will they sell? It’s a cheap way to get pretty women to look at, isn’t it?” The presence of two young men in swimming trucks didn’t even come close to covering up the fact that this was an evening for wealthy Conservative supporters who had paid £400 a ticket to leer at pretty young girls wearing barely any clothes. And not only at the models, apparently: the after-dinner auctioneer hailed one bidder as “the woman with an almost perfect bosom”.

Somebody pinch me. Which generation, which world, is this new Conservative Party from? And what was David Cameron, the guest of honour, thinking of to allow the event in his name? If Tony Blair hosted a bash like that, or Gordon Brown (the thought of it!) they would be flayed alive by female backbenchers and Labour Party activists, and rightly so.

It was a long hard fight in the Labour Party to get them to begin to take women seriously. The Conservative Party has barely begun the process, and Mr Cameron is making strenuous efforts to get more women to come forward and be selected in winnable seats. But as the Labour MP Lynda Waltho asked the Minister for Women in the Commons this week: “What policy does my Hon Friend think would be most helpful in encouraging more women to come forward for election to this place? Would it be all-women shortlists or the employment of bikini-clad women to serve drinks at a £400-a-head summer ball?” As the founder of Women to Win, the campaign to get more female Tory MPs, Ann Jenkin was a little dubious about the event too. “But it sells somewhere,” she said. “It’s possible that girls flicking through Heat magazine on the top of the bus say, ‘Oh look, Tamara Mellon’s there’. It appeals to a non- political audience.” But does it appeal to potential female Conservative MPs? “The women now getting involved in the Conservative Party are pretty serious about their politics and there probably wouldn’t have been many of them there.”

So, true, the evening may have helped to shed the reputation of the Tory party (and its parties) as stuffy, bouffanted and ballgowned. But to replace it with the Tamaras (Beckwith and Mellon), guests in skimpy designer gear and a DJ flown in from a club in St Tropez that caters to the international jet set; and then to go on to dance at the private nightclub Boujis, the Sloaney haunt of Princes William and Harry? Is this the new inclusive Conservative Party, reaching out? And this in the week that Mr Cameron was placed at the top of Tatler magazine’s annual list of top party guests.

I wondered what the Labour MP Denis MacShane, who campaigns against the sexual exploitation of women from Eastern Europe, made of it. “The Tory summer ball made the WAGs in Baden-Baden look like the Bloomsbury set,” he said.

Even some guests at the party were made to feel uneasy. One, a fully signed-up Cameroon, told me the evening had made him uncomfortable because he was neither rich nor beautiful enough. So much for inclusivity.

The Conservatives estimate that they raised £200,000 from the evening. Which should pay for lots of impoverished young Eastern European gels to strip at the party conference in Bournemouth this autumn.

• Reports I picked up in the Commons this week and didn’t read: Enabling Acquisition Change – An examination of the Ministry of Defence’s ability to undertake Through Life Capability Management; Integrated Public and Stakeholder Consultation to inform the Energy White Paper (A process designed and managed by IPPR, UK CEED, New Economics Foundation and Dialogue by Design on behalf of the DTI); The Pension Service Business Plan 2006/07; Tidal Lagoon Power Generation Scheme in Swansea Bay; Consumer Credit in the European Union: Harmonisation and Consumer Protection; Watching the Directives: Scientific Advice on the EU Physical Agents (Electromagnetic Fields) Directive; and The Sewel Convention: the Westminster perspective.

  But I did flick through a report, The UK seafood industry – sustainability and profitability, in the hope of learning something. The words from the chief executive of Seafish, the industry authority, weren’t promising: “Most recently, we facilitated meetings under the sustainability heading.” Ploughing on, I was rewarded with two interesting facts: first, that seafood consumption in Britain has grown by 11 per cent in the past three years; and secondly, that in Cornwall they have been trying out a trawl just above the seabed for underused fish such as black bream, John Dory, squid and cuttlefish. Expect to see more of these, then, in the supermarkets. Anyone know any good recipes for cuttlefish?

Times Recommends

• Everyone will get vaccine against swine flu
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC jets out stars to tout for prizes