So say, umm, a Conservative from Norfolk talking about the controversy over Lizz Truss’s selection as a candidate:
John Mortimer, 62, a member of the Swaffham Conservative club in the constituency for 20 years, said … “They make out we’re stupid, saying details of her affair were on Google, but no one in Norfolk knows how to use Google”.
No comment needed really.
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20 Comments
NFN, eh.
And yes, I KNOW THIS IS A SHORT COMMENT. THAT WAS THE BLOODY POINT. Stupid software.
Surely it’s not the ‘fact’ that no-one in Norfolk (or even Norfolk SW Conservative Association) knows how to use Google, which seems unlikely, but that nobody in the county and/or the CA even KNOWS anyone OUTSIDE who can use Google or who, having heard that this woman was on the shortlist, could have picked up the phone.
If you accept the premise that Lizz’s past makes her an unsuitable candidate that is…
I never understood why Liz wanted to be MP for an area like Norfolk SW. I would have thought that Esher and Walton would have suited her far bettter in so many ways…
Are we really going to mock people who can’t use Google? Do you believe that’s the key issue here?
Russ – it is a key issue if members of Norfolk SW Tories are attacking Liz Truss on the basis of past behaviour which was widely reported at the time and which could have been found out about via a bit of very basic research (via Google or any other basic research method).
Even if Mark is saying ‘How laughable that no one did the research’, I think the implicit message is also ‘How laughable that they aren’t IT literate’. Which is both cheap and condescending, and a shameful attitude to direct at a man in his 60s.
As so often on LDV, I think the general point being made is a fair one – the local Tories clearly are behaving poorly. But if that is the key issue, why address it in a snide, superior tone that is more alienating than attractive?
Isn’t the clue in the name “Conservative Party”? If a Conservative Party can’t have conservative attitudes, who can? Sometimes it seems the metropolitan elite won’t rest until all three major political parties are offering just subtle variations on the one theme of economic liberalism.
The idea that parachuting some Oxbridge-educated London businessperson who works for a political think-tank into a country constituency will cause people to think “Wow, the Conservative Party is putting people forward really different from the conventional political stereotype” is a bit, well … I think it illustrates nicely the point I was making about why all-women shortlists and the like will serve only to give a massive advantage to a certain sort of woman and not really open up politics to people who don’t fit the image of what a politician is. When the problem is that people feel politicians are some remote alien class, wouldn’t it be better to place the emphasis on local people in their local party selecting someone local to represent them, rather than have someone imposed from on top by the political elite as “one of us”?
Funnily enough, I find that Mrs Truss is a councillor for my borough and the ward next to mine, though I have never heard of her. Doesn’t look like she’s the sort to make much of a campaigning impact. On the other hand, she quotes some stuff she’s been involved with on A-levels and school Mathematics education which, at least on a brief skim, I agree with.
On her having an affair, well, she seems happy enough to push the “happily married mum with kids” image on her website, so I say fair game. If her personal life doesn’t matter, take that stuff out as well.
Some people may feel that having the personal strength not to give in to sexual temptation, or the commitment to family life and to the solemnity of the marriage vow, etc are important enough issues that they need to be taken into account in making a selection like this. Who are we to tell them they should not think that way? If we are liberals, shouldn’t we let people think how they damn well like and not seek to impose our own ideology on them?
Matthew, she kept her maiden name when she married, so I guess she’s Ms Truss, not Mrs.
Did none of her opponents know how to use Google either? Or were they far too nice to bring the issue up?
I think it’s much more likely that people did know at the time but those who didn’t support her now find it convenient to bring it up.
I’m sure the married MP she had an affair with has/will face similar questions and deselection attempts.
(like many ex-LDYS from the mid 90s I don’t hold any desire to advance Liz’s political career in her new party but I do think she’s been/being treated very badly).
I’m saying neither Russ. What I think is baffling in a mildly humorous way is that someone could decide to say in public that no-one in their area uses Google. Even saying that no-one in their 60s uses Google would be rather odd given just how many people in their 60s are online and use Google. But to extend that to a whole county is, well, baffling. You don’t have to be online yourself to have noticed that lots of other people are. And to say otherwise would be just as baffling a comment if made by an 18 year old who is online 12 hours a day as by a 70 year old who doesn’t have a computer in their house.
“No comment needed really.”
Twelve comments later….
I’m slightly curious: the Daily Mail article’s title in the weblink is “Revealed Cameron Cutie wanted scrap Queen”, and some of the comments mention the monarchy and Ms Truss’ supposed support for its abolition. But there is nothing about that in the article. Has something been removed? Perhaps it was an opinion she held in her radical LDYS days?
Actually, to be honest, I find the attitude that it isn’t reasonable to expect people to have some basic IT skills to be patronising and condescending, myself.
It is my observation, having had the privilege of living in the county for a few years in my youth, that its natives have a terribly dry sense of humour.
I have a strong suspicion that Mr Mortimer was joking.
The comment about ‘no-one in Norfolk knows how to use Google’ might be ignorant, and saying a lot about the make-up of a certain section of the Conservative Party membership, but far more worrying is that so many people in South West Norfolk Conservatives think that a woman having an affair is enough to deselect her.
With relatively few exceptions, a candidate should be judged on their ability, their policies and their ability to do the job. In circumstance’ like this, a person’s private life should be their private life – and agree that, whatever her politics, Elizabeth Truss has been appallingly treated by her local party.
The fact that so many in the Conservative Party apparently disagree with that statement says a lot about how little the Conservative Party has actually changed under Cameron – and about how hard we need to be working to hold them to account at the next election.
And what about Iain Dale, eh? Apparently he sees the whole affair as just another excuse to attack the Lib Dems – saying Lloyd George was “one of the randiest old goats in the country?”
Thre is certainly something of a backwoods feel to Swaffham – a town in the middle of the countryside with a noticeable lack of new private housing and modern industrial states, both obvious signs of economic vibrancy that country towns within 150 miles of London tend to have in abundance (unless they are located in the black hole of North Kent). Other Norfolk towns are not like this (Wymondham, for instance, has a booming population). Rather sad, when you look at the huge 18th century merchants houses around the main square.
Now, why is it that a town that is not doing too well and most of whose inhabitants are working-class, votes Tory, when vastly more affluent towns (like Winchester and Cheltenham) vote Lib Dem?
It was not always thus. In the 1950s, much of rural Norfolk was Labour, and Norman Lamb has shown what can be done in the admittedly more middle-class North Norfolk (Mr Dale please note). And let us not forget that the neighbouring town of Thetford is the birthplace of the freethinking rebel, Thomas Paine, whose statue graces the main square – I wonder what Mr Mortimer has to say about that?!!
As some-one who has lived in SW Norfolk and whose parents still do, I have 2 observations on this debate: Firstly, parts of SW Norfolk have some of the worst quality broadband in the UK in terms of access,, coverage, quality and speed.
Secondly, I suspect that LLH is correct and the Norfolk sense of humour is more subtle than many expect. Local radio called the statement a joke.
“Local radio called the statement a joke”
By this I meant that they understood the comment in its context to be ironic rather than a sophistical political position.
Make that “sophisticated”.
Sorry, 3rd time lucky!!