“Almost bestially stupid”: top Tory’s verdict on Islington residents
Written by Mark Pack on 16th April 2007 – 12:12 pmPaul Newman is Vice-Chair (North) of Islington Conservatives and had this to say recently on Iain Dale’s blog:
“I have to confess that the denizens of Mildmay [a ward in Islington] are almost bestially stupid . There is not a lot you can do with them…they live from road kill and sleep under Newspaper.”
Ah bless, aren’t they a lovely party?
Posted in Opposition watch
16th April 2007 at 2:12 pm
“top” tory?
16th April 2007 at 2:12 pm
Yes, a bad news day…
16th April 2007 at 2:51 pm
Oh for Christ’s sake you po-faced twerp I meant our lot who lost the papers .It was what is called a ‘joke’ and was directed at my good friends who cocked it up.
I wonder where you come from I really do. Somewhere there must be a vat into which they pour sanctimonious ness , creep juice ,bad haircuts and dishonesty. Infuse with irrelevance allow to fester and serve with a sauce of dreary censoriousness
Bon appetit
Shudder
16th April 2007 at 2:56 pm
http://www.tottenhamconservatives.com/news_detail.php?nid=465
16th April 2007 at 5:08 pm
Mr Newmans getting exercised because I corrected him when he was boasting that the Tories had ‘even fielded candidates in every ward in Islington’ Er, not true, they cocked up their nomination papers in my ward - Mildmay, which helped with the overall result of the elections- for us!
Hence his put down for his fellow party members/ my constituents!
Having not met any Tories in my ward, I can’t possibly comment on his verdict..
16th April 2007 at 5:47 pm
Meral Ece - are you the same person who propped up a rotten Labour administration in Hackney, defected to “Hackney New Labour”, electorally saw the writing on the wall, moved to Islington and joined the Lib Dems?
16th April 2007 at 6:29 pm
If the point of your comment was to show that really you’re a lovely, polite chap, I don’t think it’ll have worked somehow Newmania
Nice to know that all is clear and correct on what passes for decent behaviour in the Conservative party.
16th April 2007 at 8:01 pm
The fact is that every vote for the Conservatives in Islington helps prop up the failing Labour government, and I hope Mr Newman is proud of the vital role that the candidates who did manage to sign on the dotted line played in electing Labour councillors.
16th April 2007 at 8:23 pm
Almost the perfect thread on “why political blogs won’t do anything to reconnect politicians with the electorate”
1) An over-the-top quote of exaggerated importance to the political situation (sorry Mark - this is such a piece of irrelevant nonsense!)
2) A response filled with low abuse from a political opponent that doesn’t help him win the argument or attract any friends. Nothing wrong with political abuse per se - Disraeli handed out plenty of it but with SO much more class!
3) An ad hominem attack on another poster on something only tangentially related to the issue
4) Done by someone hiding behind the cloak of complete anonymity.
The last step would be the deeply pompous comment criticising the behaviour of other posters and declaring “a plague on all your houses”. Ah we seem to have got that one to!
All we are missing now is an attack based on someone’s spelling and a Hitler comparision
16th April 2007 at 9:18 pm
Some of the spelling above is a bit dodgey and some of these people seem to be acting like Hitler with their “no other view than mine is acceptable” view. I’m appalled
16th April 2007 at 11:09 pm
Shorely their akting laik Hilter
16th April 2007 at 11:20 pm
Good god I have been sent a link to this place by three people now .. Mark if your trite little ‘so there’, was a defence against the charge of being a pontificating twerp I would have another go . Thus far the charge sticks , lighten up Margot !
Chris every Liberal vote props up the Labour Government nationally why don’t you disband your silly preening hobby and make a decision.? Many others have drifted towards the Conservative Party hence your miserable 18% at a time when you should be surging on. No hope for you, of course ,in a close election which this next one will be
Morgan - Sorry you feel I come from the wrong class. We have never despised the Working Class the way the Liberal Party do . With all that nasty patriotism and social conservatism I wonder you can bear to accept their votes at all . Godwin`s law laws last impressively mentioned some years back but otherwise I rather enjoyed your Lady Bracknell shtick to be honest .
Cheerio Fib Dums ..feel free to get back to your usual ..um …predelictions when I`m gone
17th April 2007 at 7:22 am
Newmania makes me laugh: Typical stupidity about “every Liberal vote props up a Labour Government nationally”, which of course it can’t unless we’re in coalition with Labour (just doesn’t want to accept that you don’t have to be Tory to oppose Labour; too much for him to understand?). And his little rant about class - you’d have to read Hywel’s post in an extremely odd way to think he was talking about social class - or more to the point, you wouldn’t have understood it at all . . .
17th April 2007 at 10:55 am
You have to be a Conservative to oppose Labour effectively its like six pointer,( an analogy I am confident will flummox you ). It is precisely the same as the comment Chris made as everyone looking in will grasp expect you .A Fib Dum coalition with the Labour Party is one the cards anyway, especially if the SNP do as well as a hidden Survey revealed in Scotland and the Labour Part offer PR. It will wreck the constitution and hand our government to vacuous minorities such as yourselves but this they will do before disappearing forever from England . The Liberals get a chance to play their usual whorish games which emanate from being a Party with no principles, or rather all principles, so they will be happy .There has been a lot of speculation on this score actually. You should take an interest in politics its really rather bracing..
The relationship between class , status and literary style is an interesting one but as I am employed in the wealth creating side of the economy I don’t have the time to give you a lesson in that right now.
BTW in the end a total of six separate people alerted me to this post. Amazing .
17th April 2007 at 11:19 am
As I said, not able to accept you don’t have to be a Tory to oppose Labour. Both parties’ have more in common than either would like to admit.
And as for
“The relationship between class , status and literary style is an interesting one but as I am employed in the wealth creating side of the economy I don’t have the time to give you a lesson in that right now.”
Well that showed me. Oh yes. I’m sure there is supposed to be some dig in there about Lib Dems not being involved in wealth creation(?). As I suspect many of them are, your post just seems a bit odd. You’re clearly not creating that much wealth that you can’t resist replying to our posts in a way that doesn’t really flatter your abilities.
17th April 2007 at 3:22 pm
Oh dear Three Horse your last post is so jejune its endearing. I hadn’t realised before quite how young you are and I feel a little mean spirited now.
Toodles
17th April 2007 at 3:27 pm
Chew that carpet newmania….well named.
17th April 2007 at 3:32 pm
‘No-horse race’ really is confused! Rather than ‘prop up a rotten Labour administration’ I resigned from Labour, along with 17 others, causing Labour to lose control of the Council, and stood as a Lib Dem in Hackney back in 1998, and won.
Do keep up ‘No Horse Race’ (what is that?)
17th April 2007 at 4:02 pm
Newmania, I know you’re trying to be patronising and annoying, but you might want to look back over your own posts again before you suggest anyone is lacking in maturity.
Admitidly, it will probably be hard for you to read them given you’re so busy making money, but do try.
17th April 2007 at 5:16 pm
Keep it up Mr Newman! You’re showing the political instincts that have put Islington Tories in fourth place behind the Greens, who at least have a councillor
17th April 2007 at 6:11 pm
So, Meral, you were a councillor, defected to Hackney New Labour and then to the Dim Lebs - you don’t dispute any of these facts, do you? Hackney has always been rotten - why did you join Hackney Labour in the first place, let alone sit and vote with them for years?
I seem to recall that when you stood in Islington that you still actually lived in Hackney - didn’t you rent a shed in Islington in order for your candidacy to be accepted?
17th April 2007 at 8:52 pm
Quote: “Hackney has always been rotten”
Now, what does this mean?
Lots of dry rot in the housing stock?
Or perhaps too many people from ethnic minorities?
Quite a collection in Hackney. From Satu Mare to Diyarbakir. From Galway to Jamaica. Plenty for the nastier, snooty kind of Tory to carp about.
Where you have so many minorities, and no majority (as in New York - or Hackney), no one group can dominate. Which suggests there might be something potentially healthy about politics in Hackney.
17th April 2007 at 10:11 pm
Angus J Huck - you clearly have a racist mind to be thinking along those lines!
Hackney is rotten - dirty street, run-down estates, poor-performing departments, poor educational results, high crime rates, cover ups of paedophile activities carried out by Labour Party members, and sky-high taxes thanks to decades of complacent, arrogant, incompetent and could-care-less Labour administrations.
17th April 2007 at 10:14 pm
Not even Diane Abbott would agree with you, AJH. Where do you live? Clearly not in Hackney!
17th April 2007 at 10:29 pm
No, it’s the Tories who think along those lines. Like the member in Cheltenham who complained about having a “bloody n****r” as a candidate. Or Sir Gerald Nabarro, who fulminated against coffee-coloured half-casts, Most Tories I’ve met are racists. You’re the one with the racist mind, sunshine. Stands out a mile.
17th April 2007 at 10:45 pm
You’re talking bollocks! If you cast your mind back to the Cheltenham contest, the Lib Dem slogan was “a local candidate for local people” - everyone knew what that meant! So, where do you live?
17th April 2007 at 10:46 pm
And how many black or Asian MPs do you have? Remind me…
17th April 2007 at 11:19 pm
How many blacks or Asians in the Carlton Club?
Oh, I see. Nigel Jones is not allowed to tell people he lives in Cheltenham. Lib Dem candidates always make an issue out of being local. Ah, but you’re saying they shouldn’t if the Tory candidate is black? But wouldn’t that be racist?
“Everyone knew what that meant.” Yes, you are the one with the racist mind!
Terry Dicks MP once described West Indians as “lazy good-for-nothings who come to this country to scrounge of state benefits”. I forget if any action was taken against him. I suspect not. Major needed his support.
18th April 2007 at 12:03 pm
Meral’s flat may not be up to ‘no horse race’ standards, whatever they are, but hardly a shed. At least she’s not “sleeping under Newspaper”…
As for changing party, again the Islington Tories set the bar very high. Consider their star 2006 council candidate Dave Barnes - Labour, Independent, Lib Dem, Independent, Labour, Independent, Freedom Party, Conservative.
I may have left out a few of his changes but you get the drift….
18th April 2007 at 9:31 pm
Thanks Bridget, ‘no horse race’ clearly thinks that the great unwashed, including us Turks, live in sheds. My 3 kids and 3 cats find it very cosy.
What is it with weird Tories hiding their true identity??
I’ve been a Lib Dem cllr for nearly 10 years, and am proud of it, and the number of Turks and Kurds joining me is increasing every month.
18th April 2007 at 11:12 pm
Who mentioned Turks or Kurds? You’re crazy! Briget, you looking forward to losing again? If Barnes if such a nutter, as you suggest, why did you have him? Paul Fox was right in his assessment of you…
18th April 2007 at 11:13 pm
Who said I’m a Tory?
18th April 2007 at 11:59 pm
Another Tory MP who got away with a blatantly racist remark was the late Nicholas Fairbairn, who denounced Bob Geldof as a “publicity-seeking Jew” (actually a Roman Catholic).
Put the odd whisky inside these Tories and the truth starts dripping out.
19th April 2007 at 10:53 am
How desperate - that you have to qoute dead MPs from the 1970s.
19th April 2007 at 11:36 am
Actually, it was in the 1980s that Fairbairn said it.
Not so smart, are you?
19th April 2007 at 11:42 am
OK, the 80s. Want a list of embarrassing quotes from Dim Lebs?
19th April 2007 at 8:48 pm
Wow… I really don’t know which is worse. Labour, who swept to power by claiming to love the workers and then betraying them, or the Tories, who simply hate them…
19th April 2007 at 11:05 pm
Angus, what’s your view on the Lib Dem councillor and Grp. Leader of Darlington Council nominating a BNP candidate?
Nast lot.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2007/04/maude_calls_on_.html
19th April 2007 at 11:47 pm
Sorry, One Horse, I’ve never set foot in Darlington. Can’t comment.
But I do recall a certain Tom Finnegan standing for the Tories in Stockton South (just down the road) at the 1983 General Election. Even though said Tom Finnegan had stood for the National Front in Birmingham Erdington (from memory) at one of the 1974 General Elections.
Local Tories said they had no idea Finnegan had ever been an NF member. Oh, come on! I remembered the guy’s name! And I’m not even a Tory candidate vetter!
Recall Sir Keith Joseph and Nigel Lawson both doing a runner?
And it was the SDP’s Ian Wrigglesworth who kept Mr Finnegan out of the Commons, but by a very narrow margin. Badge of honour there.
20th April 2007 at 11:10 am
Not sure what I’m doing leaving a reply here because I’m certainly not a Lib Dem. Mind you I’m not Labour or Tory either. My only interest is in the words, “I have to confess that the denizens of Mildmay are almost bestially stupid.”
From the front page of the Tribune today I see that Mr Newman’s political opponents are making as much mileage out of this as possible. Good. He shouldn’t have said it. I normally hate political sniping but people should think before they open their mouths. People shouldn’t make bloody stupid comments that local people can only interpret as yet another insult to them or about where they live / their HOME.
I’ve only lived in Mildmay for 20 years but my partner’s family moved up here from Clerkenwell in the 1880s. She is not ‘almost bestially stupid’. Nor are any of the neighbours she grew up with. Nor am I. Nor is ANY participant in the time bank I run here in Mildmay.
Yes there are some ‘almost bestially stupid people’ around. Two (or three?) people were shot on the south side of Newington Green on Monday night and that story didn’t even get into the Tribune.
Do something about it. I don’t know if those two live here or were just trying to take over somebody else’s little, local ‘business’ but most people who DO live here just want to get on with their lives without the risk of getting caught in crossfire.
In this case I do think Mr Newman shouldn’t have said what he did but I can’t but feel that if all you politicians could all stop scoring clever points off each other and actually stopped this sort of awfulness happening, you’d be very, very popular.
Peter
20th April 2007 at 11:23 am
Peter, as I understand it, Mr. Newman was poking fun at his Conservative colleagues in Mildmay for f***ing up the nomination papers, not at ordinary residents. Trust the Lib Dems to make a mountain out of a molehill. Mildmay residents deserve better than this kind of Punch and Judy-style politics, which is damaging to the political process and democray in particular.
20th April 2007 at 11:33 am
Hmmm I haven`t seen it yet but what worries me is that Peter Gruner spoke to me and knew very well that this remark was not directed at the residents of Mildmay…Tut tut Lib Dems Lying and now the Press assiting them for a silly story .
I am shocked (in the best casablanca style )
20th April 2007 at 1:34 pm
Before I return to my world, these comments are directed at your guest Mr Newman.
I’m even less impressed now. The Peter Gruner Tribune article you defame (without having read!) is perfectly unbiased and he quotes your denial at length. Mr Gruner is a very good journalist.
A simple logic point. That doesn’t mean he KNOWS that your comment wasn’t directed at us Mildmay residents. He’s a journalist, not a mind-reader. He reports what you SAY.
He has told us what you typed on a Blog (I have checked and you did) and that you now say you were having a laugh and referring to Conservative colleagues.
You are, I assume, an experienced politician. You will therefore appreciate that most people aren’t going to believe you. Most people will think ‘Well he would say that’. Other people will just hear on the grapevine that a(nother) politician has said we’re all scum. So it goes.
Afraid the Casablanca comment is above my head but I do remember Rick saying,
“You’ll excuse me, gentlemen. Your business is politics, mine is running a saloon.”
…and I think I’ve wasted quite enough of my time on this too so goodbye.
21st April 2007 at 11:53 am
I have commented at the paper:
This seems like a storm in a tea cup. Remember Lib Dem Jody Dunn and her “drunk, flanked by an angry dog, or undressed” jibe at the people of Hartlepool? Well here in Manchester Chorlton we’ve had a local candidate caught calling the local people “bastards” as in “none of the bastards will open the door to me” talking on his mobile, probably to the local LD MP John Leech. The Tories are forever bitching about their local organisations. Iain Dale and others have attacked their Scottish colleagues for example. I am a Labour member and blogger and from my point of view Lib Dems are by far and away the ones with the LEAST POLITICS and the LOWEST OPINION of the voters.
http://chrispaul-labouroflove.blogspot.com/2007/04/chorlton-paul-ankers-godfather-writes.html
Really Mr Pack you lot are excellent at these foot in mouth moment and insulting the intelligence of the voters. Just get a grip and stop drawing attention to it.
22nd April 2007 at 12:30 pm
So, Mr. Pack, what your view on Judy-come-lately’s commenst?
22nd April 2007 at 9:46 pm
Oh, come on, Bird Watcher! What about Anthony Crosland swanning along the Brighton seafront late at night moaning about “f***ing proles”? This was a politician who believed it simply wasn’t worth talking to people who hadn’t been educated at Oxbridge. Yet he was a Labour Foreign Secretary. And they call it the “people’s party”?!
23rd April 2007 at 9:59 am
Sounds like it’s a bit of tit for tat.
23rd April 2007 at 10:59 am
So where can one find a saloon in Mildmay then?
23rd April 2007 at 1:16 pm
Mildmay person “I am am shocked shocked that gambling takes place in the saloon….your winnings sir?” Come on you remember.
My business is not politics I work for a living , you need a little lie down I think, you are clearly over excited.
Perhaps its the diet ?
( I `m kidding)
It seems rather salubrious to me as a place.I suspect the residents live from sundried Jalapenos drizzled with Olive Oil suffused with something .
( But don`t quote me )
23rd April 2007 at 4:54 pm
This is terrible. The Lib Dems are making the Tories look intelligent. Why shouldn’t Newman insult his fellow Tories for gross incompetance? Surely that saves you lot doing it?
23rd April 2007 at 10:02 pm
Lilith, Pack has lost the plot. Cowley Street wll soon give him his P45.
24th April 2007 at 4:35 pm
I knew I shouldn’t have returned to look at this thread…
Newmania: “My business is not politics I work for a living”.
- Ditto.
Newmania on me: “You need a little lie down I think, you are clearly over excited.”
- Thank you - and I have to say I think you come across as a pale imitation of Boris Johnson, only without any of the wit or the charm. Insulting your (ex?) colleagues isn’t very endearing either.
Newmania on Mildmay Ward: “It seems rather salubrious to me as a place.I suspect the residents live from sundried Jalapenos drizzled with Olive Oil suffused with something.”
- Yes, politics very clearly isn’t your business or you’d know a little about Islington history or might have explored it more. Largely decent but largely poor would be nearer the mark for Mildmay.
- The Ward was one of the original 88 Neighbourhood Renewal Areas.
- Due to the recent influx of ’suits’, the largely intact street of mid-Victorian houses I live in is now only in the bottom 11% in the country on the Index of Multiple Deprivation. Shame we rent.
- The Mayville LSOA area where I work is two streets away and in the bottom 4%.