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Some of those Tory controversies revisited
Tuesday 27th March 2018 | Jake
Notable members of the Conservative party are rounding on Jeremy Corbyn following allegations of antisemitism in the Labour party and the controversy surrounding the leader’s response, in the interest of perspective and balance, here’s a reminder of some of the memorable controversies that have hit some of the leading lights from the Tory party.
Theresa May
There are many things wrong with our Prime Minister, ranging from her extremely uncomfortable attempts to act human to the cruel policies her party unleash on society. But unlike some of her workmates, May tends to avoid controversy, but this isn’t because she’s uncontroversial, it’s more to do with the madmen she surrounds herself with.
Her response (or lack of one) to the Grenfell Tower fire has been unforgivably weak and she infamously hid from the survivors, choosing to talk to emergency services rather than survivors. Meanwhile, Corbyn spoke to both at length.
Before her stint as Prime Minister May was head of the Home Office for six years. During these six years she repeatedly clashed with the Police, who were furious with the cuts to their budget. To this day May is deeply unpopular with large amounts of police officials.
She was also strongly anti-immigration during her time heading the Home Office and was accused of language associated with the far-right when she ordered a pair of vans to carry the message “in the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest”. May wanted more vans to bear the message and drive around the country intimidatingly, but the Advertising Standards Authority banned them.
Boris Johnson
Should you ever doubt your ability to achieve your goals you should remember that Boris Johnson or ‘BoJo’ was London Mayor. Yes, the Trump-haired lunatic with views and language usually associated with the very worst from 19th century England was mayor of one of the most diverse cities in the world.
BoJo would be funny, and occasionally an innocent laugh is appropriate, such as when he suggested we could build a bridge across the English Channel. But behind his silly, slapstick, bumbling appearance lies a simply terrible person that should have been booted out of politics a long time ago.
In 2002 BoJo wrote a column for the Daily Telegraph saying he imagined the Queen enjoyed visits to Africa because she was met by “cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies [a racist term for black children]” and went on to predict that "tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles” when Tony Blair arrived in Congo. Six (yes, six) years later BoJo apologised, saying he was “100% anti-racist”. Ok then. Theresa May made him foreign secretary in 2016, and his time has unsurprisingly been spent lurching from idiotic comment to idiotic comment.
Perhaps most notoriously, however, is BoJo’s sacking from the Tory front bench in 2004. BoJo has been accused of cheating on his wife on a number of occasions, and in 2004 it was revealed he had impregnated a mistress and demanded she have an abortion which he would pay for, BoJo had a wife and four children and repeatedly denied the allegations.
In the interests of keeping this article short we’ll move on from BoJo, listing even 10% of his rotten exploits would keep us here for a long, long time.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Recently Mogg has been touted as a future Tory leader and he would be the ideal candidate, were we one hundred years in the past, possibly more.
Mogg is a traditionalist, hard-right, Brexit-supporting Tory, who enjoys spreading lies everywhere he goes and attempting to boost his profile at every opportunity. Just last week he tweeted outright falsehoods about the savings to be made from Brexit, published in the Sun, while the Sun eventually admitted it was all lies, Mogg has kept his tweet up.
His unorthodox approach has worked to some extent, Mogg is a backbencher with little experience and pull within his party, however, young Tories enjoy his charming, old-school approach. He’s a little like Moss from the IT Crowd if Moss was an insufferable, uppity wanker. Mogg is a throwback to the nasty party at their nastiest, completely disconnected from the general public and unconcerned with their plight, but canny PR work has rebranded him an oddball, quirky but thoroughly decent chap. He’s not, and a by-product of his new stardom is the spotlight is now on him, and his thoroughly horrible beliefs are impossible to hide away.
Professing to be a strict Roman Catholic, Mogg has stated that abortion is wrong in any case, even rape. He also says he is “not proud” that same-sex marriage is legal in the UK, although he insists that he would never change the law based on his religious beliefs.
