The best of the fest so far sees the Coen brothers meditate on mediocrity and modernity in the 1960s New York folk scene – but not be so sombre as to forget the laughs

Cannes audiences just heard a clean, hard crack: the sound of the Coen brothers hitting one out of the park. Their new film is brilliantly written, terrifically acted, superbly designed and shot; it's a sweet, sad, funny picture about the lost world of folk music which effortlessly immerses us in the period.

The musical interludes are stunningly achieved: a pastiche chart single about President Kennedy and the moon mission brought the crowd I was among close to bopping in the aisles. This has something of Woody Allen movies like Sweet and Lowdown and Broadway Danny Rose; there's a playful allusion to Breakfast at Tiffany's and even a weird casting echo of Walter Salles's On the Road — and this movie is incidentally everything that dull film wasn't. But it is through-and-through a Coen brothers film, as pungent as hot black coffee.

Inside Llewyn Davis recounts a desolate week in the life of a fictional singer-songwriter of pre-Judas folk music in early-1960s New York: Llewyn Davis — a quietly angry, depressed and penniless young man, dragging his guitar from apartment to apartment, sleeping on couches, annoying everyone, unsure whether to continue in a world that does not understand him, and preparing to abandon his dream and returning to work in the merchant marine. There comes a time with any artist, when failure has become too painful and losses have to be cut. Has that time come for Llewyn Davis?

He is played with cool, shrewd, watchful restraint by Oscar Isaac, with longish black hair and an unkempt beard, looking for all the world like a young Martin Scorsese. The name "Llewyn" with its Welsh associations, of course deftly brings the word "Dylan" into our minds, although the question whether Llewyn is supposed to be a specific fictional variant of the great troubadour is resolved in the final moments. It could also, at a second subconscious remove, suggest the doomed figure of Dylan Thomas, who succumbed to celebrity and hard liquor in the United States.

Llewyn has been attempting a solo career, having just split from his performing partner, with whom he produced a poignantly unsuccessful and heartrendingly entitled LP, If I Had Wings, and the well-observed cover design is a joy, although the Coens are not looking for big laughs, like Spinal Tap or the folk spoof A Mighty Wind, but elegantly asserting design mastery, allowing us to savour how their exterior shots of New York do look exactly like these LP covers. Now he has a record of his own, Inside Llewyn Davis, unsold copies of which take up a big heavy cardboard box in his agent's office, a box he is brusquely invited to take away with him. Again the title is ironic: these moody opaque songs don't get us anywhere close to being "inside" the singer's mind.

He has a tense relationship with a successful folk duo, played by Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan, and strikes up a quick friendship with another would-be folk star, Al Cody, gloriously played by Adam Driver, whose booming single notes during the "Hey Mr President" recording session make that scene such comedy gold. Llewyn figures he might be able to make an audition in Chicago, and to that end shares a car with a smoulderingly Kerouac-y poet, played by Garrett Hedlund and a pompous jazz musician played by John Goodman with a habit that keeps him detained a long time in the men's room.

The film has some classic Coen tropes: wide establishing shots of eerily empty spaces and interiors with receding perspective lines, deadpan faces, querulously bespectacled old ladies and the mandatory old guy in a semi-darkened office. But the authorial signature is not quite so emphatic as of old, and the Coens treat themselves to a lot of straightforwardly funny lines.

Ultimately, the heartrending thing about Inside Llewyn Davis is its meditation on career success and career failure, and the unknowable moment when the one turns into the other. The Coens allow us to be unsure about the point of Llewyn's music: is it obviously brilliant and destined for success? Or is the point rather that he is talented, but not in a way that guarantees triumph? Llewyn is at least partly depressed about the way mediocrities do well in this world: silly singing acts in cable-knit sweaters. He could just be ahead of his time, but will the imminent arrival of Bob Dylan mean that his kind of difficult music will finally get what it deserves? Or just consign him even more brutally to an honourable second place? The intense sadness that permeates every chord and every note of his music, could be a desperate requiem for his own dreams, his own musical career. What an intense pleasure this film is, one of the Coens' best, and the best so far at Cannes.

Rating: 5/5

CHICAGO, IL - Only two days after President Obama issued a major disaster declaration for 11 Illinois counties, FEMA teams were out providing information to those affected recently by severe storms and flooding.

More than 10 FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams (DSATs) are canvassing areas hit by the disaster to provide information and give residents an opportunity to register for disaster assistance. DSAT members can also provide referrals to additional resources when unmet needs remain.

Gulf hydrocarbon producers emerged as the 13th most powerful economy in the world in 2011 while strong oil prices allowed them to become the fifth largest exporter with the highest trade surplus, according to a Bahraini minister.

Hassan Fakhru, minister of trade and industry, estimated the combined GDP of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council /GCC/ at around US$4ر1 trillion in 2011, the 13th largest in the world. He put the global GDP at around US$70 trillion in 2011, according to a local newspaper.

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BARCELONA, Spain — Rayo Vallecano won 3-2 at Levante led by Francisco "Piti" Medina's double to stay in the hunt for a Europa League berth next season.

Piti opened the scoring 20 minutes in by firing in a rebound before Robert Acquafresca leveled for Levante in the 52nd.

Franco Vazquez finished off a Rayo counterattack four minutes later and Piti scored his 17th goal of the season from the penalty spot in the 72nd to make it 3-1.

SACO, Maine — The body of a 58-year-old Maine man has been found in the rubble of his home following a fire that he's believed to have started during a standoff with police.

The state fire marshal's office says the body of Charles Scontras was found late Saturday night inside his Saco home.

Scontras' estranged wife and a police officer went to the home around 2 p.m. Saturday so she could retrieve belongings. They retreated when they saw smoke coming from the house and heard at least one gunshot.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad and the American CIA spy agency.

Sunday's report says Mohammad Heidari, who was accused of providing Mossad with classified information in return of money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, who allegedly gave the CIA intelligence on Iran, were hanged.

The report didn't say when the men were arrested or tried.

Iran occasionally says it has dismantled Western spying networks in the country and announces arrests of individuals on espionage charges.

Tunisian police fired tear gas and shots into the air in Tunis on Sunday to disperse some 500 supporters of the hardline Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia who were protesting and throwing stones at police after their rally was banned, according to Reuters news agency.

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Just wanted to see how much you guys have pissed other redditors off.

The reporters must have known they were being a bit fly, but a story's a story, especially a story about Europe

The controversy over the unidentified source of the "mad, swivel-eyed loons" remark about Tory activists, attributed to one of David Cameron's closest advisers – the one with "strong social connections to the PM", hint, hint – has taken on a life of its own in the Tory press. What the press doesn't spot, as usual, is how the incident also exposes the hypocrisy of the newspapers involved.

Lord Feldman, top-drawer barrister and Oxford chum of Cameron's, denies that he was the senior Tory who made the remark about the party faithful in a brief exchange with a pair of political reporters as he passed their table in a Westminster restaurant. Which is just as well since he is co-chairman of the party, in charge of membership – a task he is performing as badly as co-chair Grant Shapps is doing on the propaganda side of the job.

The alleged exchange took place on Wednesday night, but the reporters sat on their little scoop until Saturday's editions, knowing that it would make more impact at the weekend. Sure enough, Sunday's newspapers solemnly report the denial issued on Saturday by Lord (the title came with the job from Dave) Feldman, though they also describe it as a high-risk strategy and quote other sources – also anonymous – as saying the story is true and that Feldman is the man. Feldman denies using the phrase.

There is no question that Feldman was at the scene of the crime, the Blue Boar Smokehouse, attending a Conservative Friends of Pakistan dinner, or that he spoke to the reporters. The issue is whether he said what the pair say he said. Two others present and the foursome's guest, a civil servant whose identity is also being shielded, appear not to have heard the fateful exchange.

What should readers who have other things to worry about yet have paid good money for the newspapers concerned think about all this? I know no more than what I have read in the papers, but I have worked in this particular snakepit for 30 years or so. I think I can guess what probably happened, and definitely know what I think should have happened.

Let's assume that drink had been taken and the mood was informal. Feldman hoves into view and is subjected to banter – this being the night when 113 Tory MPs, some of them emphatically swivel-eyed, I have the luxury of confirming, had voted against their PM for not being Eurosceptic enough, a futile vote that will do much more harm than good to their cause.

Probably thinking he is engaged in a harmless private chat, Feldman – who has never stood for public office and has less to do with the press than the average ambitious policeman – lets his copious hair down a bit about the pressure on MPs from the party's increasingly elderly activists. (Here's ex-MP Paul Goodman's sensitive take on the grassroots mood.)

Did Feldman use the offending phrase? If he did, it was both wrong and unwise – shocking, in fact. One Tory MP is quoted on Sunday as saying Mrs T would never have treated the activists this way, and he's right. Her mistake was to treat her ministers, MPs and large swathes of society disrespectfully, but she loved the activists. They were One of Us. Ministers and MPs got their revenge: they sacked her.

But what about the press ethics? The reporters concerned, let's call them Tadpole and Taper to protect their anonymity, know to whom they spoke. There are two of them, four at a pinch, and it is their word against his in any libel suit. So why not identify Source X outright? Here's where the hypocrisy comes in.

Tadpole and Taper must have known they were being a bit fly, just as reporters who record private lunches with doddery old ex-ministers or Vince Cable's constituency surgery boasting about Rupert Murdoch know they are being fly. T and T were engaged in post-prandial banter, not interviewing Feldman for a page-one splash.

But a story's a story, especially a story about Europe, which plays to a wider narrative about the elitism of the Cameron regime – all Eton and Oxbridge – and its disdain for the activist base outside the golden triangle of David Cameron's life. It's the triangle between his west Berkshire childhood home near Newbury on the M4, his Witney seat just up the A34, and Westminster, back down the M40 in London. Oxford and Eton are within that space.

The newspapers – the Times and Telegraph to the fore, the Labour Mirror (less impact) reporting too, the Mail for once running to keep up, perhaps distracted by the McCann case again – are Eurosceptic cheerleaders, as are their proprietors, most based outside Britain for tax purposes. The Tory trio have all become much more so in recent years – recent months, in the case of the Times's new editor. They are also chippy and provincial in the public stance they often adopt, at variance with private lifestyles in many instances.

Newspapers are competitive, even though this one required a bit of routine collaboration. So got for it, lads! The office editors back in what once was Fleet Street will have been thrilled. As a gesture to the disreputable circumstances of the exchange, Taper and Tadpole split the difference and do not name their source.

What would I have done at their age? I'm not sure. Probably tucked the phrase away for future use to indicate the disdain that some Cameron's familiars – the unelected metropolitan idiots – have for the rank and file. It's the disdain we see in bankers. But to use a remark gleaned in pub banter as a page-one splash and make it cowardly clear where it came from in almost every detail? I hope not. That's not playing straight.

Cover-up, Mike? No. It's not as if it's news that some senior Cameroons feel this way, is it? Old story. The mischief, deeply destructive of public trust in institutions, lies in fingering someone close to Cameron, knowing that the era of social media – the internet and Twitter – will all but guarantee the name will circulate online and emerge soon enough.

The editor of the Telegraph himself felt moved to tweet the story to help ramp it up. Not sure his predecessor, Bill Deedes, would have done that, but he was once a Tory cabinet minister. Not sure senior execs at the BBC will be playing that game any more either, after getting their fingers burned.

But outing people they can't/won't name themselves via social media is a game the mainstream media and its useful online idiots play all the time now. Ask randy footballers. Ask poor Lord McAlpine. Here's Guido Fawkes making hay with "Loongate". Ask Andrew Mitchell, the ex-chief whip, stitched up by a police/tabloid scam, in which the press is now backing calls on the Met's commissioner to resign over private briefings to the press itself against Mitchell. The cheek!

It's a rough old business and all three sides play with fire in an age where former conventions and courtesies – conspiracies if you prefer – have been corroded by new technologies and flagging sales. At bottom that's what the Leveson inquiry and report was about. It's also part of the Loongate story. Anything to weaken Cameron's hand as last-minute efforts are made to reconcile the rival versions – parliament's and the press's own – of the royal charter to regulate the press.

Fair's fair. You fight your corner and protect your interests. What sticks in the craw is the hypocrisy of it all, dressing up a catfight as something it isn't.

The JDRF walk is a great way to show your support for all those living with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and to raise funds for JDRF , which is the leading global... Read more on Examiner.com

Health secretary says he does not believe Tory co-chairman made disparaging remarks about grassroots Tories

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has offered strong support for the Conservative co-chairman Lord Feldman, who is fighting allegations that he made disparaging remarks about Tory activists.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, Hunt praised Feldman as a man of great honour, adding that grassroots Tory activists reflect the views of the vast majority of British people.

Feldman issued a categorical denial on Saturday that he had described grassroots Tory activists as "swivel-eyed loons".

The Times and Daily Telegraph reported an unnamed senior Tory as saying that Conservative MPs face pressure over Europe from their local associations. The Tory made the alleged remarks after being asked about the decision of 116 Tory MPs to defy the prime minister and vote in favour of an amendment regretting the absence of a EU referendum in the Queen's speech.

The newspapers quoted a senior member of the prime minister's inner circle as saying: "It's fine. There's really no problem. The MPs just have to do it because the associations tell them to, and the associations are all mad, swivel-eyed loons."

Hunt was asked whether he believed Feldman had made the remarks. He said: "No I don't. The person who is alleged to have said that has denied it and I know the individual and I trust him. He is a man of great honour."

The Mail on Sunday reported that the use of the words "swivel-eyed" reflected the views of the prime minister. A recent profile of Cameron in the Financial Times, in which the newspaper was briefed by senior Tories, reported a well-placed Conservative as saying that the prime minister described people who repeatedly ask him about Europe as swivel-eyed.

Hunt was asked whether that reflected Cameron's views. He said: "It certainly doesn't reflect the views of the prime minister. If you look at this prime minister so much of what he has done has been informed by the views and the opinions of hardworking grassroots Conservative campaigners whose views, incidentally, are in very much in tune with the vast majority of the British people.

"They are the ones who said we have got to do something about immigration and Theresa May has cut immigration by a third. They are the ones who said we have got to reward hard work and get rid of this something-for-nothing culture and we have introduced a benefits cap … the views of those people are incredibly important to the DNA of the policies that we are putting into place."

Feldman said on Saturday: "There is speculation on the internet and on Twitter that the senior Conservative party figure claimed to have made derogatory comments by the Times and the Telegraph is me. This is completely untrue. I would like to make it quite clear that I did not nor have ever described our associations in this way or in any similar manner.

"Nor do these alleged comments represent my view of our activists. On the contrary, in the last eight years of working for the party, I have found them to be hardworking, committed and reasonable people. They are without question the backbone of the party. I am very disappointed by the behaviour of the journalists involved, who have allowed rumour and innuendo to take hold by not putting these allegations to me before publication. I am taking legal advice."

The newspapers are standing by their story. The Conservative party acknowledges that Feldman talked to some journalists at the Intercontinental Hotel in Westminster on Wednesday night when he popped out of a dinner hosted by the Conservative Friends of Pakistan. The journalists were eating in the hotel's restaurant. But Feldman strenuously denies having made the remarks attributed to a senior unnamed Tory by the newspapers.

McConnell is open to the idea of a special prosecutor, but he hasn’t decided whether to ask for an appointment.

Yes, these bozos in the branch office shouldn't have done it. That's why the IRS made them stop, and had an investigation, and apologized, and why heads are probably going to roll and then some. On the other hand, it's not exactly hard to see why any person of average human intelligence would note that there have been a metric bucketload of organizations cropping up these last few years with oddly partisan names like "Tea Party Wankers" or "Anti-Tax Patriots for Electing Republicans On The Sly" and claiming to be tax-exempt, nonpartisan organizations and think to themselves that there were likely to be a considerable number of scammers mixed in with that lot. Mind you, Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS is one of these 501c3 outfits that gets somehow deemed sufficiently unpolitical, making the whole category into something of a scammer's paradise from the get-go; again, though—bad IRS bureaucrats. Bad.

Still, I find it difficult to get too worked up with world-shattering apoplectic outrage over it, which makes me a bad person, or possibly (even worse!) just not a conspiracy theorist. That's the problem; from McConnell down to the Kings and Gohmerts and Stockmans, all of conservatism has devolved into one big conspiracy theory. It's Breitbartism, all the way down. It's writ right into the movement now, and defined as synonymous with patriotism. You can go from Agenda 21 to ACORN to United Nations gun-grabbers to the powerful solar panel lobby to Benghazi all in one sweeping step; what the precise conspiracy is supposed to be or whether there is f--k-all worth of evidence to support your pet theory is unimportant; it's all about the theater, the very important and very politically motivated and very career-enhancing performance art of presuming everything to be connected to everything. Some IRS officers in a branch office screwed up? For real? Good God—Darrell Issa was probably rendered near-unconscious on his office floor when he heard it, breathing into a paper bag and waving off staffers asking him whether they should call for an ambulance.

Yes, yes, I should be more outraged. Sorry. I already have outrage fatigue, and I've had it for 10 years. The reasons, below the fold:

HANNOVER, Germany — Several hundred Fortuna Duesseldorf supporters clashed with police after their team was relegated from the Bundesliga with a 3-0 loss in Hannover.

Hannover police said Sunday that 10 officers were injured in clashes after Saturday's match, two of whom were unable to continue their duties.

Police arrested 19 Duesseldorf fans and two were charged with causing public disturbances.

Duesseldorf was relegated after one season in the top flight.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A man in his 40s died Saturday evening after falling from a 16th floor balcony at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront downtown.

Sgt. Jay Farhat with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said a preliminary investigation points to suicide.

The man, who police were still trying to positively identify, checked into the hotel Saturday afternoon. He fell about 7 p.m. He is believed to have been a Jacksonville resident.

He landed on an unoccupied Lexus in the valet parking area of the hotel.

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A man was shot and killed around 11 p.m. Saturday night in the 1500 block of West 21st Street, Jacksonville police said.

Sgt. Jay Farhat of the Sheriff's Office said police were called after shots were fired at a crab boil attended by about 15 to 20 people after an argument broke out. Farhat said a man pulled a gun and shot another. The victim, in his mid-40s, was taken to Shands where he was pronounced dead.

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HANOI, Vietnam — A popular Vietnamese cable television provider has stopped providing CNN and BBC, saying the channels don't have the licenses needed under a law stipulating that much content on foreign channels must be translated into Vietnamese.

Foreign governments and a leading pay TV trade group have urged the Vietnamese government to modify the decree, saying it is tantamount to allowing it the right to censor.

Last week a small provider cut 21 foreign channels. On Sunday, one of the largest providers, VTV CAB, also cut CNN and BBC.

Man, who has not been named, was skiing along ridge with friend near Aiguille du Midi when he fell during high winds

A UK citizen died after a skiiing accident in the mountains around Mont Blanc on Saturday evening.

The man, who has not been named, was on a ridge near Aiguille du Midi when he fell.

A second man who was with him managed to reach the nearest ski-lift.

He told the emergency services that he and his friend had been trying to reach Aiguille du Midi, which rises to 12,460 ft (3,842 metres) in altitude above Chamonix, to take shelter from unexpectedly high winds.

He said the pair had intended to ski the Vallée Blanche, a popular itinerary along the glacial valley at the heart of the Mont Blanc range, but were forced to change their plans because of the weather conditions.

Fierce winds appear to have caught several climbers and skiers by surprise. Rescuers found a 21-year-old Frenchwoman, who disappeared last Tuesday, suffering from hypothermia in the Mont Blanc range also on Saturday.

JEDDAH: Yet another case of novel coronavirus infection in the Kingdom has been identified and the patient is an 81-year-old woman, the World Health Organization's (WHO) said, quoting a report...

Move to ensure olive oil is served in non-refillable bottles condemned as weirdest decision since curvy cucumber ruling

EU bureaucrats have been ridiculed for shifting their focus from fighting the eurozone's debt crisis to impose strict rules on how restaurants serve olive oil.

From 1 January eateries will be banned from serving oil to diners in small glass jugs or dipping bowls and forced instead to use pre-sealed, non-refillable bottles that must be disposed of when empty.

The European commission said the move was designed to improve hygiene and reassure diners that olive oil in restaurants had not been diluted.

But critics say the rules are a sop to Europe's olive oil producers, and will only add to the frustration felt by many towards a bloated bureaucracy regarded as out of touch with ordinary people.

The commission said its proposal was supported by 15 of 27 EU-member governments, including the continent's main olive oil producers – Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal – which are among the countries worst affected by the euro crisis.

Germany opposed the plans in a private vote; Britain, which regularly cites perceived meddling from Brussels as the reason for its strained relationship with Europe, abstained.

The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung described the move as the "weirdest decision since the legendary curvy cucumber regulation", referring to now-defunct EU rules on the shape of fruit and vegetables sold in supermarkets.

The regulations are based on those in force in Portugal since 2005 and are part of an EU initiative to help olive oil producers hit by rising operating costs and falling profits in recent years.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi newspaper says a vegetable seller who set himself on fire in Riyadh after police confiscated his goods for standing in an unauthorized area has died.

The website for newspaper Sada reported that the man, identified only by the family name of Sureihi, died in hospital late on Friday.

The self-immolation emulated that of a street vendor in Tunisia, whose 2011 death sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.

Outgoing Bank of England governor blames regulatory failure for banking crisis and not individuals

The outgoing governor of the Bank of England has called on the British people not to "demonise" bankers for the financial crisis.

Sir Mervyn King said on Sunday that the failings of the financial and regulatory system were the root cause of the turmoil which struck the world economy almost six years ago.

King, who leaves the Bank this summer, told Sky News's Murnaghan programme that there was widespread risk-taking in the runup to the credit crunch, and it had been a mistake to give the banking sector such a lofty status in the good times.

"Where the banks contributed to the problem was that they themselves had taken too many risks on their balance sheet and they simply didn't have enough capital to absorb the losses that were likely to come along and people took fright, they lost confidence in the banks, they didn't provide money to the banks so the banks couldn't lend to businesses or households.

"I would say to people though, don't demonise individuals here. This wasn't a problem of individuals, this was a problem of failure of a system. We collectively allowed the banking system to become too big, we gave them far too much status and standing in society, and we didn't regulate it adequately by ensuring it had enough capital."

Asked if he regretted not doing more to prevent the crisis, King said he and the Bank had issued warnings.

Conservative MP Brooks Newmark said King could not escape some responsibility for the errors that helped to cause the biggest financial crisis in generations.

"He is governor of the Bank of England ... that's what it says on the tin," Newmark told Murnaghan.

Lord Myners, the former City minister, agreed that King had failed to see the problems in the runup to 2007, and had become "hung up on moral hazard" once the banking sector was being bailed out.

"The judgment of history, which for bank governors is written in about 100 years, will say he failed in those two ways, and also failed to modernise the banks," Myners added.

King also expressed concern over Britain's new Help to Buy scheme, which involves the government guaranteeing up to 15% of a mortgage on properties worth up to £600,000.

The scheme, which begins in January 2014, is due to run for three years. King warned that there is "no place" for a permanent scheme of this kind.

"This scheme is a little too close for comfort to a general scheme to guarantee mortgages. We had a very healthy mortgage market with competing lenders attracting borrowers before the crisis, and we need to get back to that healthy mortgage market.

"We do not want what the United States have, which is a government-guaranteed mortgage market, and they are desperately trying to find a way out of that position.

"So, we mustn't let this scheme turn into a permanent scheme. Now when is the right time to terminate it will depend on economic conditions at the time."

King also warned that the struggling eurozone economy remains the largest threat to the UK, and criticised European leaders for driving their economies into a "downward spiral".

Britain's "modest recovery" could be derailed, he warned, if the single currency region remains trapped in recession or only achieves low growth.

"It is very difficult to see that they will be growing quickly for a long while, and that downward drag on exports from the UK to Europe, they account for almost half of our exports, and the fact that our banks still have some exposure to the euro here is undoubtedly the single biggest factor dragging down on our economy."

The eurozone economy has now been shrinking for the past 18 months, with sharp recessions in countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece where tough spending cuts and tax rises have been imposed.

Leader of France's far-right Front National tweets to say she is fine after falling into empty pool and fracturing backbone

Marine Le Pen has rushed to reassure party activists and supporters of the far-right Front National that she is fine after her father revealed she had fractured her back falling into an empty swimming pool.

On Sunday, party officials joined in the chorus to play down the accident in which Le Pen apparently damaged her sacrum, the large triangular bone at the base of the spine that joins the lowest spinal vertebrae, the coccyx and the two hip bones.

Le Pen was reported to have slipped into the pool while mowing the lawn at her country home near Perpignon a week ago.

"Don't panic! Fracture of the sacrum last weekend. It will be long, it's painful, but nothing dramatic!" Le Pen tweeted on Saturday.

The accident came to light after Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, founder of the FN, stood in for his daughter at the launch of the party's municipal and European election campaign in Limoges on Saturday.

Explaining her absence, he told the gathering: "Marine couldn't come because she has had a quite serious accident that prevents her from travelling. She fell into her empty swimming pool and has fractured her spinal column."

A party spokesman, Alain Vizier, said on Sunday that Mr Le Pen had "dramatised" the incident, adding that the Front National leader "was fine". "Marine Le Pen slipped, that's all," Vizier said.

FN officials said the injury would limit Le Pen's travelling, but would not stop her taking part in meetings, press conferences and interviews.

"It means a slight lightening of her workload, but will not prevent her from continuing her activities," said a party statement. "We would like to reassure party activists and supporters about the state of the [party] president's health and thank you for the numerous messages of sympathy she has received."

Health secretary says he does not believe Tory co-chairman made disparaging remarks about grassroots Tories

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has offered strong support for the Conservative co-chairman Lord Feldman, who is fighting allegations that he made disparaging remarks about Tory activists.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, Hunt praised Feldman as a man of great honour, adding that grassroots Tory activists reflect the views of the vast majority of British people.

Feldman issued a categorical denial on Saturday that he had described grassroots Tory activists as "swivel-eyed loons".

The Times and Daily Telegraph reported an unnamed senior Tory as saying that Conservative MPs face pressure over Europe from their local associations. The Tory made the alleged remarks after being asked about the decision of 116 Tory MPs to defy the prime minister and vote in favour of an amendment regretting the absence of a EU referendum in the Queen's speech.

The newspapers quoted a senior member of the prime minister's inner circle as saying: "It's fine. There's really no problem. The MPs just have to do it because the associations tell them to, and the associations are all mad, swivel-eyed loons."

Hunt was asked whether he believed Feldman had made the remarks. He said: "No I don't. The person who is alleged to have said that has denied it and I know the individual and I trust him. He is a man of great honour."

The Mail on Sunday reported that the use of the words "swivel-eyed" reflected the views of the prime minister. A recent profile of Cameron in the Financial Times, in which the newspaper was briefed by senior Tories, reported a well placed Conservative as saying that the prime minister described people who repeatedly ask him about Europe as swivel-eyed.

Hunt was asked whether that reflected Cameron's views. He said: "It certainly doesn't reflect the views of the prime minister. If you look at this prime minister so much of what he has done has been informed by the views and the opinions of hardworking grassroots Conservative campaigners whose views, incidentally, are in very much in tune with the vast majority of the British people.

"They are the ones who said we have got to do something about immigration and Theresa May has cut immigration by a third. They are the ones who said we have got to reward hard work and get rid of this something-for-nothing culture and we have introduced a benefits cap … the views of those people are incredibly important to the DNA of the policies that we are putting into place."

Feldman said on Saturday: "There is speculation on the internet and on Twitter that the senior Conservative party figure claimed to have made derogatory comments by the Times and the Telegraph is me. This is completely untrue. I would like to make it quite clear that I did not nor have ever described our associations in this way or in any similar manner.

"Nor do these alleged comments represent my view of our activists. On the contrary, in the last eight years of working for the party, I have found them to be hardworking, committed and reasonable people. They are without question the backbone of the party. I am very disappointed by the behaviour of the journalists involved, who have allowed rumour and innuendo to take hold by not putting these allegations to me before publication. I am taking legal advice."

The newspapers are standing by their story. The Conservative party acknowledges that Feldman talked to some journalists at the Intercontinental Hotel in Westminster on Wednesday night when he popped out of a dinner hosted by the Conservative Friends of Pakistan. The journalists were eating in the hotel's restaurant. But Feldman strenuously denies having made the remarks attributed to a senior unnamed Tory by the newspapers.