By his own admission, Peter Davies would make a dreadful Foreign Secretary. Aside from the fact that he has never been in a plane and has been abroad only once (a four-day break to Paris in 1988), diplomacy is not his forte.It would be interesting to check what kind of any business-links or opportunities ever come from these kind of twinning operations; I suspect not that many, or at least not enough to justify the all-expenses trips to race-courses and the like.
This is, after all, a man who proudly proclaims his contempt for 'diversity'.
So the week after next it is going to be interesting when Mr Davies welcomes a delegation of German VIPs on an all-expenses-paid visit to his home town - and tells them not to bother coming back.
'I have only two words of German: "Auf" and "Wiedersehen", ' he says. 'But those are the only words I need.'
And no one is going to stop this proud Yorkshireman. To the shock and dismay of many local councillors and MPs, most of Westminster and the entire Government, the assiduously straight-talking Mr Davies has just become one of the most powerful politicians in Britain.
If that's indeed the case then I'm not sure why we, the mug taxpayers, should be paying for these kind of jollies just for the sake of obtaining another nice badge on our town plaque.
15 comments:
O'Neill,
I can't believe I'm writing this, but I like the sound of this guy. His English parliment idea is right. Cutting all the junkets and the number of councillors is right. This twinning thing is ridiculous.
We could do with someone like that down here. Our Dail (parliament) is WAY too big, our politicians are wildly overpaid, and don't get me started on the absolutely pointless Senate.
Then there's the foreign trips our politicians take at mad expense for no particular reason. (They always say it's about trade but I don't believe them).
Rory
Don't be fooled. The policies obviously look fantastic and seem to be what the people of England want nowadays. However, the way the EDP carry themselves in debate is pathetic. They refuse to engage with their critics and are quick to call anyone who questions them 'fascists' or 'traitors'.
The following is a message I received from a Mr. Ben Weald, prospective MP for Enfield & Southgate, London.
"Hey little BOY TAKE A CHILL PILL AND LEARN TO GROW UP AND BE GOOD , ASK YOUR MUMMY AND DADDY TO CHANGE YOUR NAPPY WHEN YOU FIND THEM.
OH AND BEFORE YOU MOAN AND RUN CRYING TO THE PEOPLE ONTHE ANTI DAVIES PAGE I AM TYPING IN CAPITAL LETTERS SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ME FULLY AND DONT MAKE ANY MISTAKES ABOUT WHAT I AM SAYING.
BOY"
This was in response to some criticisms of his party and senior members of the party.
Do some digging and you'll be surprised at how little the members of the party are prepared to indulge in debate.
LoudMimeDave,
I'm not fooled, since I live in the ROI I can't vote for them anyway, but it would be refreshing to hear one of our politicians talking like this. Most of them are greedy b******* looking for junkets and expenses all the time.
Rory
"...the way the EDP carry themselves in debate is pathetic. They refuse to engage with their critics and are quick to call anyone who questions them 'fascists' or 'traitors'"
Firstly, I do not believe that Ben would send such a message. Prove it was him can you? You should be able to do that quite easily. Anyone can claim that "so and so sent me this", "isn't he a so and so", "look at what he posted?", etc, etc I Have viewed many of ben's posts and I have never seen him get angry like that. Of course, you may well have made some nice comment about the fact that he is deaf prior to the alledged post he made to you. Who knows ah? Maybe you forgot to mention that.
The English democrats never do refuse to engage their critics. That is a straight out lie! They have a group on FaceBook. I think it has more members than the tories have, i.e. about 60,000
Are you getting worried?
http://i509.photobucket.com/albums/s332/VirtuaTennisDave/proof.jpg?t=1251577373
There's your proof. It's a screenshot of the inbox with message and nothing has been edited. I have not ever made a comment about Ben being deaf and would never consider using this fact as a slander against him. Personally, I'm insulted that you would even accuse me of such.
On the topic of the English Democrats and their critics, may I point you in the direction of the ENGLAND page on facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/English.Democrats )
The admins on this page are quick to ban people and delete posts based on if they agree/disagree with what's being said. I know this from personal experience as me and several other people opposed to the way the EDP is being led have been banned from posting on the page. Parties that are so quick to silence their critics will surely face problems when confronted with the media and will have to answer questions that they have otherwise ignored.
Mr. Davies´ is doing nobody any favours by being rude to foreign visitors, regardless of the merits of town twinning. He should know better than to behave like a thick little-Englander.
John Henry,
Little-Englanders who want to live in England and have an English parliament are fine by me. Westminster has become a joke since devolution. There should be an English parliament and a smaller parliament in Westminster to deal with federal UK issues. I am so glad I don't live in the UK.
At least we have only one parliament and are just itching for an election so we can kick the f****** out.
Who rules NI? Or Scotland? Or Wales? No one knows anymore.
It's a mess.
Look at the way the buck is being passed over the Lockerbie release.
Rory
Rory,
I was talking only about that gentleman´s rudeness to foreign guests - for example saying he only knows two words in German, "Auf" and "wiedersehen".
all the best
JH
Regarding the comment made by the Anonymous poster in reply to LoudMimeDave, that the EDP never refuse to engage their critics, and that he told an outright lie; might I suggest you go here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40331215@N04/
and have a look at the screencaps entitled Julia and DFLetc..(short for David Ford Lane, their National Secretary).
They show clear evidence of how critical posts are deleted from the EDP so-called open Facebook page, to which Anonymous referred.
It takes an interesting combination of dishonesty and stupidity to come on to a blog like this and lie about things that can be so easily proved - the English Democrats are not short on either.
BTW, Ben Weald is by no stretch of the imagination their worst representative, in fact he is one of the best, although on this occasion it seems he lost his temper, so LoudMime whacked him for it - fairs do's I think.
Oh, and the Hardman piece quoted above? One-sided, lazy journalism - Google Davies and get a more representative set of opinions and information.
John Henry,
No worries, I get confused sometimes by the complexities of UK politics. It's all so weird.
Rory
I've dreams of orca wales and owls but I wake up in fear. German's a lovely language they always sound vaguely jolly when they talk to you.
The admins on this page are quick to ban people and delete posts based on if they agree/disagree with what's being said. I know this from personal experience as me and several other people opposed to the way the EDP is being led have been banned from posting on the page. Parties that are so quick to silence their critics will surely face problems when confronted with the media and will have to answer questions that they have otherwise ignored.
Firstly, the admin do not just ban people for no reason. You are lying. They delete posts of people who try to cause trouble. So what? What's it to yer? ALL political party blogs/groups/threads do this. Are you saying that you should be able to do as you please? Sorry son, life doesn't work that way.
Secondly, they do not have to seek YOUR approval. Do they? Well, you might arrogantly think they have to; they don't have to.
Thirdly, are you sure you're not talking about new labour, the liberal democrats, or the conservatives? Hang on, what about the snp or plaid cymru? I think youre grasping at straws mate.
I don't think you like it because the English democrats are becoming uber popular. Too bad mate. We'll decide our own future thank-you very much.
O'neil
Surely if this guy is the mayor he could simply decide to de-twin, considering that twin means two and some of these places are twinned with umpteen places. Doesn't mean he has to be a nasty wee arsehole to foreign guests. A bit like your boozy Anglelander abroad @ home.
Well, I'm an English Democrat candidate and I always engage with honest critics - and we're the ones who continually have to put up with accusations like "Fascist" and "Traitor" so what you are alleging sounds like a pack of made up lies to me. Unless of course your abuse engendered some in return?
As for Doncaster's twin towns, when Peter asked how many Doncaster had they couldn't even tell him - it was somewhere between 5 and 11 they thought. And there's me thinking that 5 twins meant "quintuplets"...
Peter wants to reduce Council Taxes whilst concentrating resources on the front-line, the people who actually do the real jobs cleaning streets, helping children and so on.
Note that he isn't just mouthing platitudes. He is actually doing something about it.
Hence the vilification from the different wings of the LibLabCon Party.
Everybody,
This is not an EDP blog so there's not a great deal of point debating their commenting policy here.
Tony and John Henry,
Yes, I agree with the point about rudeness and also it's never that clever to boast about a lack of knowledge. But he has a very good point about the whole twinning concept which I hope other councils will take on board.
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