The actions of the Tory candidate in Watford whose hate filled campaign against the Lib Dems may now see him go to prison ought to serve as a salutary lesson to anyone who thinks that hatred is a good enough reason to be involved in politics. It would also be wrong to blame all Tories for this or to use it as an excuse to lambast the Tory Party as an organisation. But there are some in the Tory Party who ought to hang their heads in shame over this whole affair.
In particular, as Sara Bedford points out, the Tory PPC - Rachel Joyce from Harrow West defended Ian Oakley is such a way as to make out that the scores of incidents of abuse, criminal damage and hatred were the fault of the Lib Dems, not one hate filled Tory candidate. Rachel Joyce, hang your head in shame.
If the Tories do want to leave the tag of the nasty party behind, and I do not believe for one minute that all Tories are nasty, then they need to take serious action against all those who sought to defend Ian Oakley and in particular do something about those who offered excused for his totally inexcusable behaviour.
Update : Lanson Boy points out that David Cameron was warned about the bad behaviour of Watford Tories, but did nothing. From what I have been told about Cameron by Tories and non Tories alike, it does not surprise me.
6 comments:
Not as easy as it sounds. If Ian was indeed working with other people, CCHQ will be powerless to intervene unless the police produce evidence.
I say let the law do the talking.
Nich, it may have been ill-advised for people to speak in these terms. But at the same time I believe these comments were made before the full facts of the case were known and Oakley had not been found guilty of any offence.
What action do you propose should be taken against people who cast doubt on reports they had read in the press, because they were sceptical of Oakley's guilt? The whole thing was so outrageous it would be easy for some people to doubt what they were reading.
How can the Conservative Party be deemed to be nasty just because of the comments of a tiny number of people on websites who align themselves to its policies? Or the comments of one PPC who was so shocked by the claims her default position appeared to defend a colleague who was still innocent in the eyes of the law?
The nastiest stuff, Tony, is all the blame-the-victim comments from Rachel Joyce and other Tory commenters. Whether or not the full facts were known, there is no need, and no excuse, for that sort of thing.
I hope you saw my comments as being fair?
There are people in all political parties who stretch the election laws to the extreme but what this guy did was disgusting. I am peturbed that all that he did might have required more than one person to do and that is why Cameron needs to launch an enquiry. Similarly, this guy was Tory agent in 2005 and you might imagine that his actions let Labour back in then.
I understand the Labour candidate was also targetted
it wouldnot be an issue if the Tories did not go on about law and order aka Boris who claimed ending knife crime in London was so easy
this Tory activist lived in London (Hillingdon) and I know some of the nasty torieslive in this Borough aka Mr Barnes of the GLA
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