Despite memories of their deeply unpleasant 2016 campaign still lingering in the memory of many Londoners, the Tories have already set their sights on the 2020 Mayoral election, apparently determined to mount a serious challenge to Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan. But hardly had they selected their candidate than their challenge was effectively over.
Shaun Bailey
The Blue Team has a problem figuring out London: the capital now has a Labour MP representing Kensington, previously safe seats like Putney, Chingford and Woodford Green and even Uxbridge and South Ruislip (cripes chaps!) looking vulnerable, and MPs like Diane Abbott sitting on a 35,000 majority, with over 75% of the popular vote.
What kind of Tory candidate would appeal to Londoners? Ones with notoriety (“Shagger” Norris) hadn’t cut it, and nor had those with obscene amounts of wealth, like Zac Goldsmith. So next time, seeings Labour will field a brown man, they’re going to field a black candidate, so there. Step forward Shaun Bailey.
However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, hardly had Bailey secured the nomination from London’s Tories than his past returned to haunt him. As the Guardian has reported, “Accommodating Muslims and Hindus ‘robs Britain of its community’ and risks turning the country into a ‘crime-riddled cesspool’ as a result, the Conservative candidate for London mayor declared in a thinktank pamphlet he wrote a decade ago”.
Do go on. “Shaun Bailey voiced concern about the marking of Muslim and Hindu festivals, claimed that children were being taught more about Diwali than Christmas and argued Britain ‘removing the religion that British people generally take to’ had allowed immigrants to bring their country’s cultural problems with them”. It got worse.
“In his No Man’s Land pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies, about the problems faced by inner-city youth, Bailey also appeared to confuse Hindi speakers with the Hindu religion … ‘You bring your children to school and they learn far more about Diwali than Christmas. I speak to the people who are from Brent and they’ve been having Muslim and Hindi days off’”. The condemnation was immediate.
Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain, Virendra Sharma MP, Ms Abbott, journalist Shehab Khan, pundit Owen Jones and others passed severely adverse comment on Bailey’s comments. And now his own party is starting to wobble.
The Guardian, to its credit, was back on the case yesterday. “The Conservatives’ deputy chairman has conceded that the party’s newly selected London mayoral candidate ‘could and should’ have made clear he was not singling out Muslims or Hindus when he wrote about the impact of multiculturalism … James Cleverly insisted Shaun Bailey had been misunderstood”. Yeah, right. But Bailey retains the Tories’ full confidence. For now.
“Cleverly said Bailey would not be reprimanded and that he had the party’s full support to take on Labour’s Sadiq Khan in two years time. ‘It was ridiculous to suggest he was selected on anything other than quality,’ he said”. Interesting way to say “on a wing and a prayer”. The problem for Cleverly is that Bailey is already bust.
Still, they can spin it as playing a long game and looking at 2024. What a total shower.
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6 comments:
Is that the same Emma Dent Coad (maj. 20) who called Shaun Bailey "A token ghetto boy"?
Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain, Virendra Sharma MP, Ms Abbott, journalist Shehab Khan, pundit Owen Jones and others (like who?) passed severely adverse comment
Therefore looking at that list of islamic apologists oxygen wasters, it looks like Bailey must be on the right lines! None of the above want a multicultural Britain, they want want and have in London, Birmingham and many other cities and large towns (Bradford, Oldham, Blackburn, Halifax etc) a divided Britain, a British cultural existence enjoyed by many different races being imposed upon by the demands of islam. Which of course should rule the world; how Jones would fair in if is a moot point!
Your average Britain, be they from wherever, doesn't want a multicultural Britain. They want to share British values and live the British way not turn our street into an image of the hell-holes some of them came from. And yet we are allowing Islam to do just that.
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”
Look at Hounslow, Tower Hamlets, Bradford, Luton, Blackburn, Dewsbury etc etc, look at the way they are run and say those prophtic words were wrong!
Which just goes to show bigotry isn't limited to the colour of someone's skin, religion, location or political preferences.
Something, of course, ignored by British "journalists".
Anonymous @13:04.
Let me help you out here. It was Thatcher and her puppet masters who asked "Is he [or she] one of us?" and said, courtesy of the White Russian nazi Ayn Rand, "There is no such thing as society". The same people who divided the country, got us into wars and produced a society where one one quarter of the population live in poverty. The targets weren't Muslims. They were and are white working class citizens, now extended to Muslims because it is "racially" and politically convenient. This is cowardice of the very worst kind.
Given history, it isn't the first time nor will it be the last we see this kind of disgusting behaviour.
That could sink him badly enough in London to cost him second place.
If people go and vote for the Lib Dems or Greens first vote and Labour second, then they still don't risk a Tory mayor and create a chance to completely humiliate them.
Anonymous,
I stopped reading your comment soon after I started. How boring, nonsensical and downright batshit your 'commentary' is. You must be an incredible bore in person.
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