Conservatives send Vaisakhi, Passover and Easter messages
As the holidays begin with their extra significance for practising Christians, Jews and Sikhs, Francis Maude, Chairman of the Conservative Party, has sent a message to the country.
He expressed his "good wishes and that of the Conservative Party for peaceful and happy celebrations to all of our citizens who are celebrating the great festivals of Easter, Pesach and Vaisakhi."
That does come from the consevative cental office.
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Posted by Anonymous to swanage view at 11/09/2006 09:06:50 PM
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31 comments:
Is that early for next year or late for this year?
Tania Branigan, political correspondent wrote on this
Wednesday November 8, 2006 in
The Guardian in case you missed it.
I can't wait for 20 years: Asian Tory despairs of safe seat selection
· Would-be candidate praises Cameron
· Blame attached to 'kicking and screaming' activists
David Cameron's attempt to transform his party's image suffered another hitch yesterday as a leading Asian Tory member warned that Conservative activists were still unwilling to choose a non-white candidate. Ali Miraj, who works in the City, said he was thinking of giving up on attempts to become an MP because of grassroots members who are "kicking and screaming" against modernisation. His comments came a day after the party suspended a councillor because an offensive email about illegal immigrants was sent from her account - and hours before Bernard Jenkin was removed from his role as deputy chairman in charge of candidates in a mini-reshuffle.
Mr Cameron has promised to make Tory MPs more representative of the country as a whole, but had to water down his scheme to get "A-list" potential candidates into safe and winnable seats because of protests from grassroots activists.
Mr Miraj, a member of the party's "priority list" of potential candidates, said that when he applied for the safe seat of Witham, Mr Jenkin and two other Tory MPs told him: "Good luck Ali, but I would be shocked if they didn't pick a white middle-class male." Witham has trimmed its shortlist, rejecting Mr Miraj, but has not yet chosen a candidate.
Mr Jenkin said he did not recall the remark and Mr Cameron's spokesman insisted it had "absolutely nothing to do" with the decision to remove him from the high-profile role.
But the comments provide further embarrassment for the Conservatives, who on Monday suspended Ellenor Bland, a councillor and approved candidate, after an illegal immigrants poem was forwarded from her email address. She said her husband had sent the message but insisted it was "lighthearted".
Mr Miraj, who introduced Mr Cameron at the launch of his leadership campaign and sits on two Conservative policy commissions, said he had been a dedicated Tory councillor and activist, and had fought two marginal constituencies for the party - but had been rejected for a string of safe seats. "David Cameron is a brilliant guy doing his best to modernise a party which is kicking and screaming," he said yesterday. "I think he will eventually succeed in turning these buggers round, but I don't have 20 years to wait. I've put in nine years of solid graft. I'm not saying: 'I'm brown, give me a safe seat.' I have always fought on merit."
He said racism was "too hard a word" for the attitudes of grassroots Tories, but added: "Call it preference, call it prejudice - it boils down to what you feel comfortable with."
Writing on his blog, he stressed that Mr Jenkin, John Whittingdale and Brooks Newmark had not sought to discourage him, but he had been determined to prove them wrong. "These three MPs, one of which has overall responsibility for candidates, understand the inbuilt 'preferences' of party members living in their patches extremely well," he wrote.
"They were just being honest. Similar candour was displayed by Michael Howard and Keith Simpson when I applied for Folkestone & Hythe and Mid-Norfolk, respectively."
He said he had been given some hope by the election of two ethnic minority Tory MPs in safe seats in 2005, but now feared they were an exception. Mr Miraj's remarks echo those made by another would-be MP three years ago. William Hague's former press secretary Priti Patel, who was then on the approved list and is now a priority list candidate, said: "I think there are racist undertones and attitudes. Racist attitudes do persist within the party ... There's a lot of bigotry around."
Hazel Blears, the Labour party chair, said: "David Cameron has said that the test of whether the Conservative party has changed lay in the candidates they select. The truth is that, despite the PR and the warm words, the Conservative party has not changed."
Mr Cameron's spokesman said 35% of candidates selected since the introduction of the priority list were women, and another 10% were from ethnic minorities.
ahhhh the gaurdian the ultra right wing paper ? perhaps it racism perhaps not, but if they put him up for a safe seat just because he IS of a different ethnic origin is that not positive racism? a thing the labour and BBc are bloody good at. thers a lot of dam good candidates that dont get selected from parish level up to euro mps its allways the same when they dont get selected some buggers elses fault.
Strange.
Assuming that 2:52 is a Tory ...... shouldn't have done that, but after his Guardian comment he's probably not from the left or the centre ....
Racism - mentioned only by the Tory and him.
Why?
well if its not racism ie NON white candidate it must be his calibre as a candidate so if he mentions his non choice he is either saying Im not the right type of candidate ie not good enough or Im not chosen because of my ethnic background which is it?
he could be saying that he hasn't been chosen because of the attitudes of others.
mentioned by "the tory" said like its some low life ? BANG here come the comments,
as we get many misspellings and poor use of English on the website, I'll post what I meant to say.
mentioned only by the Tories and him.
OK.
if he says its because of the attitude of others then he is infering racism ? again if its the attitude of the others its either because of his ethnic background or his calibre as an candidate its fairly simple
I'm not sure who you mean by 'he', but if you mean Mr Miraj then read the 12:57 reponse above, or do some googling and find out what he actually said.
This is a very strange discussion which is missing the point. Mr Miraj has a grievance. He thinks he has not been adopted for a safe tory seat because of the colour of his skin. However much it is possible to squirm and come up with other possible reasons for this the fact remains that after being a member of the conservative party for 20 years he feels aggrieved about the way it conducts its affairs. Its the fact that he can come to this conclusion and that it has to be taken seriously tells us everything we need to know.
would that be everything we need to know such as, the grassroot tories are racist?
Mr Miraj seems prepared to give the benefit of the doubt according to the report.
"He said racism was "too hard a word" for the attitudes of grassroots Tories, but added: "Call it preference, call it prejudice - it boils down to what you feel comfortable with.""
So there you are, the majority of tory grass roots members are thoroughly nice, decent people but ask yourself this, would you want your daughter to marry one, even if he was 50 years younger?
Why do we get so hung up on racism?
5:19 said:
This is a very strange discussion which is missing the point.
He then went on to say:
he feels aggrieved about the way it conducts its affairs.
That is the point.
Get off the easy one about racism.
Look around at others who've e-mailed bad taste jokes etc, this is about modern standards.
Equality and Diversity.
The point being that we treat each other as we wish to be treated ourselves.
Not mind shatteringly new, just a re-itteration of an old maxim.
ahhh but does that maxim work the other way Im affraid it does not, a lot of ethnic minorities use the racism card if they dont get what they want, and to be honest its up to the local constituants to have whom they want, why dont white christian party activist get chosen in ehtnic seats ummmmmmmmm because the locals would not vote for them it cuts both ways, racism ?you decide
naturally you've missed the point and turned an unbiased principle into a club for bashing whoever you want.
It's about standards and ethics.
Some people have these and lead their lives by them.
We hope that others will begin to appreciate such ethics and begin to live by them.
"a lot of ethnic minorities use the racism card if they dont get what they want"
What a thing to say, blaming the victim.
Really the inability of this poster to see the point underlines it again and again. If the conservative party runs its affairs in a way that enables a dissapointed would be candidate for a safe seat to blame prejudice they need to do something to their selection methods to ensure it does not happen again. Does anyone doubt for a moment that such an accusation is credible? No, and trying to sweep it aside as this posted did only adds to its credibility.
I quite agree, but don't just limit to the Cons.
I must stop calling them that.
Lets put it another way. On a scale from 0 for not at all to 10 for a racing certainty where would you put the probability that Mr Miraj does not get selected for a safe conservative seat because of his colour.
Do you deliberately miss the point?
It's nothing to do with his colour.
It's to do with the Conservative membership.
But to answer your point ZERO.
hang on a mo chap and chappses all I said was that racism cuts both ways a fact that it does sorry to say a point I have suffered twice in the last 3 yrs in swanage and #2 its up to the local constituants to have whom they want if thats classed as racism so be it, but again I made a valid point it cuts both ways politics is down to votes you will not get votes if your CORE members dont like the candidate, white christian members dont get elected in inner city areas with large ethnic pops why? my opinion is that the candidate is not to their liking a fair point I think. and the poster who said blame the victims unfair I never said that. thers lots of cases of positive racism in life . anyway all this PC stuff is beging to get tiring, not even allowed to send birthday cards with age comments on now.
This is where we differ. I consider the chances of a selection committee being influenced by consideration of a candidate's colour on the vote they would attract very high. Its just that it is not a legitimate consideration.
I don't know what is meant by "It's to do with the Conservative membership"
Does to do with mean "because of the characteristics of the membership" or does it mean that "the membership is at liberty to choose its own selection criteria"? If its the first then that accepts the point argued, that the memberdship is biased, if its the second then its up to them to ensure that they can demonstrate they have acted without bias.
One Google
Gerry Sutcliffe
Terrance Rooney
Both MPs
Both in Bradford
Both White
Both Male
Dear 10:58
You said that you don't understand the:
"It's to do with the Conservative membership"
comment.
Then you described 2 situations.
I agree with both.
You said:
"Its just that it is not a legitimate consideration".
That's what matters.
P'raps I should reword my comment.
The problem is the Conservative membership.
George Galloway, Edmonton, Respect Party, Sarah Teather, Brent East LibDem. etc etc
Now he is suggesting that theres some sort of breakdown of MPs by ethnicity with areas with large minorities not electing whites. A little bit fanciful. There are in fact only 15 black and asian MPs, 12 lab, 2 tory.
By the way, George Galloway who is white, ousted Oona King, who is black, by campaigning against the Iraq war which rather goes against this suggestion.
There are 4 muslim MPs. If elected in numbers in proportion to their presence in society, there would be 20 so the vast majority are represented by members of other religions or of no religion.
Labour seems to be ahead but clearly still has a long way to go.
george gallaway was elected because he was against the iraq war, true but was his wife not a muslim? is not his constituants mainly muslim ? as i have said elected on that score because of what he stood for something that was at the heart of that particular area.
As someone said, the problem is the conservative membership, but that is exactly what Mr Marij said.
I am amazed that one poster thinks it inconceivable that bias played any part in the decision making on the occasions when Mr Marij was not selected. He must meet different tories to the ones I come across. This used to be safe conservative seat. Can we imagine a colour blind selection here? I give it about 30 seconds before someone pipes up, "He's a nice fellow but is he really suitable for Dorset? Wouldn't he be better standing for an inner city seat?"
Here is part of what Wikipedia says about Galloway's seat:
"The seat also has a large non-white population, estimated at around 58% of the population. The largest group in this number is the Bangladeshi community (36%) [1]
In the 1997 general election, there was a swing of 5% to the Conservative Party at a time when the national trend was a landslide swing against them. Bethnal Green and Bow was one of only two constituencies in the country to have any sort of pro-Conservative swing. This unusual result was ascribed to problems over the selection of a Labour Party candidate, following the retirement of Peter Shore. Oona King, who won the selection, was not well known and many in the local area would have preferred a candidate from a Bangladeshi background. However the leading Bangladeshi candidates were identified with the left and were excluded from the selection.
Following British participation in the invasion of Iraq, an action deeply unpopular with the muslim community in the constituency but nevertheless supported by Oona King, the newly formed Respect coalition gained support. They topped the poll in Tower Hamlets in the 2004 European Parliamentary elections and subsequently won their first local council seat in a by-election. In the May 2005 general election, the seat was narrowly won by former Labour MP George Galloway, one of Respect's leading figures. Respect also won seats in the 2006 local council elections although its performance was not as strong as many observers believed it could have been."
It depends whether you think the Iraq war is a political question or an ethnic one. The voters in Galloway's constituency thought it is the former and went for an anti war white mp against a pro war black one.
I use Wikipedia a lot myself.
BUT, just to be awkward
Who the hell can believe anything written by the Great World Public?
Or, does it prove that we can trust the public?
good point 1235, but GW is a bit of a loose cannon and also I think his marriage to a muslim lady and his KEEN like of saddam makes it more of a religous election than perhaps clour Im sur a white college educated tory who said I dont agree with the war would not have gotten elected.
I know nothing about Bethnall Green etc, but based on the Wikipedia extract, it seems a rather complex situation.
The swing away from Oona King could be seen as a protest vote.
If the people of B.G. are inclined that way G.G's election could be the same?
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