Philip Lardner is the Conservatives' Westminster candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran. David Cameron suspended Mr L as a Tory candidate last June after the 41-year-old primary school teacher from Renfrewshire gave his view on Ian Smith, Enoch Powell, and Edward Heath.
Mr Lardner referred to Smith as a "British hero who came from the Empire and fought for his country", said Powell's fears on immigration had "in a small way come true" and to Heath as a "rat", who "lied about the EEC in terms of its effect on sovereignty".
The BNP invited Mr Lardner to join them, but Tory HQ has just announced: "His suspension has been removed. His candidacy has been reinstated. He has expressed regret for any offence caused. The matter is now closed." The candidate had been "hauled over the coals".
Labour found Mr Lardner's words "utterly disgraceful", and the reinstatement "outrageous."
[All this is reported in the Herald Political Blogs this morning].
While it is clear that Mr Lardner would not find a home in the Labour party, with its received political stances and authoritarian thought control to a cheap, ill-considered correctness, what had Mr Lardner said that required coal hauling? We may not like Iain Smith's actions in Southern Rhodesia, but Zimbabwe is precisely what Smith feared; we may or may not accept large-scale immigration into the United Kingdom as beneficial, but Mr Powell certainly pinned a few problems out for consideration; and as for Edward Heath - what Mr Lardner said.
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5 comments:
Coal hauling? Keel hauling?
The interesting thing about all this is that Mr L merely expressed what millions of ordinary Brits feel. Cameron must be dimmer than I thought if that was his initial reaction. Strains of his knee jerk reaction to Patrick Mercer's innocent blooper. When will he grow up and start being a real Conservative leader?
I always thought coal hauling was what Arthur Scargill's mates did? Mayhap you meant keel hauling, a swim that would be highly recommended for a number of those (of all Parties) currently polishing the benches at Westminster?
'Hauled over the coals' is a quote from a Labour party 'source' in the original report. If you are hauled over the coals is that not being coal hauled? I do agree about keels but coals might be nearly as nasty, particularly if hot.
They did reinstate him, though, Nomad. It would help all round if the ill-considered and often ill-informed correctness imposed by the current regime (in its wider sense of those with their hands on the cultural megaphone, not just the government) was toned down. It only irritates large numbers of not particularly right wing, sensible people into loathing anything to do with Labour. Who formulated this 'no platform' strategy anyway. What distasteful trotskyoid movement gave birth to political correctness and censorship of reality?
"and as for Edward Heath - what Mr Lardner said." was correct? I'm not sure Mr Cameron would call him 'a rat', but he certainly would not be a Cameroon.
Thanks for your clarification of coal hauling - I think both Elby and & I failed to make the connection with your earlier reference. I am sure everyone knows the expression of being - and indeed at some point has been, figuratively, - hauled over the coals.
I was unaware (from living in the backwoods of beyond) that Patrick M had been reinstated - but to his previous job??
I think political correctness, like most such idiocies, started in the US. For a lovely (but intensely infuriating) example of outright lunacy, read this:
http://obotheclown.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-am-not-making-this-up.html
(sorry I can't do those one click embedded blog ref techniques).
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