Parliamentary candidate resignations?

BBC report

A Conservative Party candidate has stepped down after a row over his comments, in a newspaper, that Enoch Powell was "right" on immigration.

Personally I don't believe that he should have been sacked by tory central office, as has been suggested.

 

I don't think he was sacked for thinking it rather he was sacked for being stupid enough to express it in that way. If he had said some thing like 'unregulated immigration as practised by NuLabour is potentially damaging to this country, he would even have many of the established immigrants backing him and the press digging up old stories about the Home Office being unfit for purpose. The man was clearly a liability.

 

I believe that Enoch got it right in his speech. Unfortunately anything stated that hits of interfering with our foreign interlopers immediately makes the person making the statement a racist.
Time for a change of policy?

 

He wasn't sacked. Why do people keep saying he was sacked?
Personally I believe that Enoch Powell was pretty close to the mark. Oops I must be rascist for saying that in public :roll:

 

No, he wasn't. However some are saying he should have been, essentially that Cameron failed to act decisively and is hence a poor leader; allowing a resignation was a cop-out.

I think that it's highly likely that he was pushed though.

Personally I don't think he should have resigned and if it had come to it he shouldn't have been sacked. I'm not really all that concerned by what he said, but the fact that he did say it and has failed to stand by his principles and continue as a candidate is pretty disappointing. It really just demonstrates that politics has become bland and uninteresting, as amorphous candidates are paraded in front of an unthinking and uncritical electorate in an exercise of media friendly white noise.

 

He had a little chat with the party chairman and decided to resign. What do you make of that, be a good boy and we will give you another chance when you have learnt to engage brain before opening mouth.

When you consider Enoch was considered over the top back then before the race relations act qual opportunities and all that stuff he did push the boundaries. Even the immigrants when they have got here agree control is required, and since 97 no control has been exercised, mainly through incompetance.

As I pointed out his comments could have been put differently and had the Scum and Wail braying for NuLabor blood. He went because the way he said it had every one after Tory blood. If he hadn't gone of hs own 'free' will he would have been sacked. If he is good enough he will be back.

 

This has similarities to Patrick Mercer giving insight to real Army life. Further proof that politicians can now only say that which is deemed socially and politically acceptable rather than what they really know or believe. How can we respect any section of society, and the people that form it, when they are only allowed say, not what they think, but what they believe is what we want to hear?

Powell was right when he made that speech and very little has changed in the meantime. The underlying problem was never tackled but simply papered over by legislation and behavioural modification by threat of punishment. That man saw the nation's boiler pressure rising and drew attention to it. We did nothing other than shout him down and clamp down the safety valves to prove he was wrong. Well, we can clamp down the safety valves as tight as we want but when the boiler eventually blows, it will be all the more spectacular. The events we saw in the former Jugoslavia were possibly a crystal ball to our own future. For now, though, we can pretend that there isn't a little of the Serb in each of us.

 

I agree there are similarities with Mercer, and once again was not so much the content ofwhat was said but the way in which it was said that allowed it to become an issued that put the party in a potentially bad light. Regretably the days of straight talking are over, and many polititians are finding that their opponents will and do twist what is said to distort the intended meaning.

Powellwas different and equally he was talking about a very different sit to the one we find ourselves in today. Iremeber correctly about the only people who supported him were the NF who were even nastier than their successors in the BNP.

Now I do agree there is a problem today mainly down to the total mismanagement of immigration by the home office for at least the last 10 years. I can remember when if you didn't have a UK passport you were logged in and out of the country now we don't do that and we haven't the slightest idea who is here.

Because not enough people have been making babies we have a demographic problem, before to long unless we get more workers in there will not be enough people working in this country to pay yor and my pension, now that is worrying. Even so we do need to get the right people in and be able to 'dispose' of those we do not need.

 

POL Wrote: This has similarities to Patrick Mercer giving insight to real Army life. Further proof that politicians can now only say that which is deemed socially and politically acceptable rather than what they really know or believe. How can we respect any section of society, and the people that form it, when they are only allowed say, not what they think, but what they believe is what we want to hear?

Now is the crux of the problem with politics today? They no longer represent the people, only their party and its policies regardless of any vestitudes of free thinking they might actually have remaining. Perhaps all political parties should be outlawed, the PM should be elected by the public and all politicians stand as independents so that they actually have some chance to work for what they allegedly believe in ... or not?

SF

 

Enoch Powell may well have been correct in his "Rivers of Blood" speech but what many people forget is that whilst Powell was Minister of Health he oversaw the influx of a large number of immigrant workers into the National Health Service. They were Commonwealth immigrants, Powell wanted to end the Commonwealth because he was a staunch anti-imperialist, it was his belief that Britain could no longer lay claim to be a major world power.

His speech had nothing to do with immigration, it was about the Labour Goverments Anti-Discrimination Legislation. This legislation would in effect take priority housing away from the British National and give equal access to housing for all, both Nationals and Immigrants.

To have given the speech in the context that many assume it was given, would be very hypocritical.

 

The Victorian House of Commons was much more independent, but that was because the whipping system was weak and MPs before 1911, relied on private means rather that a Parliamentary salary and Prime Ministerial patronage. Having said that MPs may have paid closer attention to their constituents as there were far fewer of them. It is also worth remembering that in 1914, 75% of the population had no vote in either local or Parliamentary elections. Financial autonomy makes an enormous difference in how people behave - in Parliament or in the workplace.

 

All very true, but whose fault is it, theirs or ours. After all a party that is not untited with an apparently common view on policy will not form a government due to lack of electoral support, look at Labour post Two Left Feet, and the Tories in recent years. Having all your candidates 'on message' is now an essential part of winning an election. After all however they may behave once elected, we electect the *******s