Friday, November 30, 2007
Patrick Mercer Brought in From the Cold
Patrick Mercer, the former Shadow Homeland Security Minister, who was sacked by David Cameron in March has been brought in from the cold to advise the Party on the treatment of troops and their families. Cameron met with Mercer earlier this week to affect a rapprochement and Mercer was only too pleased to accept. Good for both of them. More HERE.
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23 comments:
good news, this was a bit of a running sore in the Party.
Iain,
You've been very quiet today.
Have yuo decided that given the Labour party are in self-distruct mode, you dont have to write anything and can just sit back and watch 'em emplode.
You nubber necker you...
Fun thou!
Peter, I was chairing a conference this morning, hence the silence.
Good - this was something that needed to be settled. Patrick Mercer is an honorable man, a respected MP and ex-soldier.He would make an excellent Minister for Armed Services when Cameron forms his first administration. In the meantime his knowledge will prove invaluable in this area
Mercer said: "I came across a lot of ethnic minority soldiers who were idle and useless, but who used racism as cover for their misdemeanours. I remember one guy from St Ann's (Nottingham) who was constantly absent and who had a lot of girlfriends.When he came back one day I asked him why, and he would say: 'I was racially abused.' And we'd say: 'No you weren't, you were off with your girlfriends again.'"
Quite rightly Cameron sacked him - but now hew is back. So Dave's big tent includes racists as well as recidivists does it? I bet Jeffrey is waiting by his phone...
I am pleased about this. It showed Camerons lack of judgement to have sacked him in the first place. The Tory party needs to move out of its timid mode, ( as shown by whats his name on Newsnight last night) On to the attack. The Tories must bear down on Labour as Labour did on John Major. They must show strong leadership to be the alternative and keep off green issues and the like.
Dave realised what a clunking mistake he'd made when he dramaticallyh sacked Patrick Mercer for nothing to prove his leftie credentials. First, black soldiers who had served under him came storming forward to defend him. Then there was a violent whiplash from the Conservative public. And Dave was left with egg dribbling down his chin.
Mr Mercer will do a great job. What a climbdown for Dave, though!
Dave The Boy Blunder isn't worthy enough to lick Mr. Mercer's already well-polished shoes clean.
P.S. Paddy Briggs is falsely accusing Mr. Mercer of racism when his comments were nothing of the sort. If telling the truth is racist, then I don't want to be a political-correctly liar like Harriet Harman.
Bunter Soammes is without doubt the very best speaker on the armed forces but good luck to Mercer. If and I say if we must have armed forces then it is only right and proper that we look after them.
Paddy Briggs - Forgive me, but some of us on this blog are brainists and we are prejudiced against stupid people vomiting up lefty bile.
1. The black soldiers who served under Mercer said he was right. Some black slackers excused themselves for slacking off using the excuse, for some bizarre reason, that they were black.
2. There are also white slackers who use a variety of excuses. It's just that the black ones all used the colour of their skin.
3. Black men who had served under Mercer came storming forward to defend him.
4. I would sincerely recommend a course in remedial reading for you. The socialist education system in Britain has badly let you down and you are to be pitied.
5. Dave doesn't have a big tent. That is Gordon Failure's gig. Unfortunately,Gordon's big tent is full of ungulates and smells of piss and you can't move around in it without stepping in a pile of doo-doo. Some of it named Mr and Mrs Harriet Harman. Some of it named Alastair Darling. Etc.
Little Paddy Briggs, is that your mother calling you?
Johnny Norfolk - Agreed. Stay off the fake "green" issues. Every Tory with the exception of those in the Shadow Cabinet knows this is phony.
I wouldn’t welcome back into the fold a man so naïve as to believe control-freak McBroon would really listen to his advice. Seems to lack judgment also in connection with the “racism” incident. I don’t think it was racist, but I think it was unforgivably disingenuous not to realise it would be jumped upon and taken out of context.
Verity
Your comments about me are bilious, personal and offensive. My OPINION is that Mercer's comments were racist. Your OPINION is that they were not. It's a debateable point and I'm debating it. Hold fire with the abuse a bit will you?
Talia - You really think a man who commanded a regiment is naive? Or is he cannier than you, perhaps?
Paddy Briggs - "Hold fire with the abuse bit, will you?"
No, actually.
You were vicious and vacuous enough to quote an entire contentious paragraph that has already been disproved.
Mercer is anything but a racist, yet you close with "so Dave's big tent (he doesn't have one) includes racists - dear God, can you read, man? - and recidivists now does it?"
So no. You don't get a pass.
He needs to apologise to the party membership, then the air would be cleared.
I thought Mercer was working for Gordon Brown - in his 'big Circus'?
He does seem to be politically naïve. And no need to get so personal, Verity. I wasn’t comparing him to myself.
Paddy ignore for the moment Verity.
What is about P Mercer's comment on the behaviour of some ethnic minority soldiers that make them racist. It seems to me that you may be implying a motive which is not evident. I could be wrong.
This is excellent news and shows a level of common sense and maturity by David Cameron. Patrick Mercer was a soldiers soldier. You know the sort. Never ask your soldiers to do something that you would not be prepared to do yourself. First class man and his advice and experience will be of enormous benefit. Our Forces need someone who knows and cares and can talk with experience rather than just use them for a photo opportunity. Welcome back Patrick. Confined to Barracks mind.
Paddy Brigs.
If you dont like what Verity has to say I would most respecfully suggest you **** *** Blog somewhere else. If you start the insults dont complain if you are answered back. This is a blog where people say what they feel and we are not driven by PC as you are.
Savonarola - You made a point I should have made myself earlier.
From a personal point of view, I loathe thought fascism, and that is what David Cameron - and, of course, Mercer's critics on the Left - was exercising.
Mercer commented on something he had observed during his years in the military. There are slackers of every description in just about every area of human life. Mercer noted that often slackers in the Army, who are black, themselves play the race card by claiming to be victimised when they're just lazy. Whites use different excuses for laziness.
If Mr Mercer were indeed that over-used, all-controlling word "racist", would so many black men who had served under him come forward so quickly to his defence?
Cameron mishandled that and played right into the hands of Blair & Cie.
As I predicted, Mercer had his public image laundered by the enemy.
And all because they thought they could get him to defect during the Party Conference.
"I came across a lot of ethnic minority soldiers who were idle and useless,” was Mercer’s remark for which he was sacked by Cameron.
Racism is (inter alia), according to the OED, “…the theory that human abilities are determined by race”. In Mercer’s view “ethnic minority” soldiers were “idle and useless”. Presumably, therefore, the soldiers who were not from “ethnic minorities” were not - i.e. they had “abilities” that the ethnics did not.
In my view (and presumably at the time Cameron’s view) Mercer was being racist is what he said.
My posts to this excellent blog will continue to express my points of view as coherently as I can make them. I will not resort to abuse.
The poster Verity has called me “little”; “vicious”; “vacuous”; a “stupid person” who “vomits up bile”; said that I need “remedial reading”; suggested that I had a “socialist education” (I didn’t actually - not that it matters); and he has even managed to insult my late mother!
The poster Johnny Norfolk has told me to “**** ***” and stated that my posts have contained insults and that I am “driven by PC”.
I will repeat again my request to Verity and Johnny to respond as they wish to my posts with reasoned arguments and stop abusing me
Glad he's back. I thought he was a lovely man when I met him, on 18 DS.
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