What a muddle the Conservatives have got themselves into over regional development agencies.

Are they going to abolish them or not? And has Ken Clarke demanded a review of the party’s official stance towards them? The answers, respectively, appear to be: they don’t know, and yes he has.

But officially, the party denies there has been any U-turn or confusion over the policy.

This matters because we are months away from an election which the Conservatives may well win, and this isn’t really a debate about regional development agencies. It’s about how a Conservative government will support businesses in “the regions”.

I know regional development agencies (RDAs) don’t sound exciting, even though the West Midlands RDA spends £300 million of our cash each year, but the business community knows exactly how important they are. That’s why bodies like Birmingham Chamber have been so vocal in their criticism of the Conservative stance.

The confusion became clear back in 2008 when Eric Pickles, then the Shadow Local Government Secretary, told delegates at a party conference fringe meeting: “You could only possibly say we were looking towards restructuring them if you felt that Anne Boleyn received a restructuring from the guillotine.”

The Post reported that RDAs faced the chop. But I was then told by Alan Duncan, then the Shadow Business Secretary, that this wasn’t the plan at all.

Then in 2009 the party published said councils would be invited to set up their own, local enterprise boards – to replace their local RDA. Strictly speaking, this means RDAs might stay if councils declined the invitation. But Conservative MPs continued to talk, with some relish, about their plans to scrap them.

Ken Clarke, the current Shadow Business Secretary, has now revealed the policy is being reviewed. At least, he has said: “I’m one of those insisting that we go through it with colleagues.”

But I can report that party officials insist “going through it with colleagues” is not the same is reconsidering the policy. Well, I don’t see what else it could mean.

It’s particularly embarrassing for the Conservatives because they have made reviving Britain’s industrial heartlands such as the West Midlands a priority.

That’s very welcome, but you’d think they’d know how they planned to do it by now.