(not satire – it’s the Tories!)
Perhaps not quite the level of pleb – but referring to your predominantly rural electorate as “straw-sucking yokels” is perhaps not the best way to win over voters.
So it will be interesting to see if these remarkable comments by Peter Heaton-Jones – the Tory candidate for the very rural constituency of North Devon – affect his chances for election on May 7th.
To be fair, in the same article Heaton-Jones also referred to “chinless foxhunters”, so he obviously wasn’t completely off the mark:
Conservative candidate says ‘straw-sucking yokels’ jibe was ‘not my view’
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Pride's Purge 
Reblogged this on markcatlin3695's Blog.
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NORTH DEVON VOTING AREA
24,305 Lib Dem win in 2010
23,187 did not vote in 2010
18,484 votes for Tories in 2010
VOTE COMMUNIST IN NORTH DEVON
Communist Gerry Sables
COMMUNIST MANIFESTO 2015
PENSIONERS
£175 per week state pension for all
Universal pensioner benefits without means testing
Increase that state pension to best of RPI, CPI, earnings or 2.5 per cent each year.
Legally binding Dignity Code to improve quality and standards of care for older people
Deep cuts in household fuel prices
Return rise of retirement age back to 65.
VOTE THE WORKERS – COMMUNISTS OFFER
Living Wage £13.59
Boost public sector wages to make up for years of below inflation rises.
Ban workfare and work programes.
NICE TURNING PAGES OF THEIR MANIFESTO – BEST PRESENTED SEEN SO FAR ON A WEBSITE:
SAVE NORTH DEVON FROM NIL STATE PENSION FOR LIFE COMING WITH THE FLAT RATE STATE PENSION 2016
See why at end of my petition, in my WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT section, at:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
NORTH DEVON
Pensioners in benefit poverty – 28,750
Carers claiming benefit – 2,190
Disabled welfare supported under 65 years – 5,360
Jobseeker claimants – 2,740
NUMBER DISABLED VOTERS 14,082
Total Voters 74,508
VOTE DIFFERENT – A FEW COMMUNISTS IN OPPOSITION IN UK PARTLIAMENT WOULD BE GREAT
TUSC and RESPECT BOTH OFFER REVERSING THE RISE IN RETIREMENT AGE
RESPECT offers retirement age at 60 for men and women.
So between the Communists – back to 65 – pay decent state pension all these parties – and Respect’s saying 60 for both men and women. Nice group of anti austerity parties to have on your side.
http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk
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Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Heaton-Jones has tried to excuse his comments, made when he was a DJ in Wiltshire, as just something he said in order to stir things up a bit. At the time he was trying to be a shock jock. Among other comments he made, he said he was sick of whingeing farmers, and their complaints that they were being ripped off by the supermarkets. I know farming folk in Wales, and this isn’t a whinge: it’s a legitimate complaint. They are not getting a fair price for their produce and it is hurting them, and so damaging our countryside.
Heaton-Jones wrote his piece in response to a march through Wiltshire by members of the Countryside Alliance in support of fox hunting. He’s right about the stupid cruelty of the fox hunting brigade, but completely wrong about some of the real issues that may also have motivated some to join the protests.
Since they emerged in the 17th century, the Tories have always been the party of the ‘landed interest’ – the aristocracy and the large gentlemen farmers. This, however, shows the real contempt they have for rural Britain, and how low an opinion they have of its people.
This isn’t really particularly surprising, as the Tories now represent the London metropolitan elite. Nobody else really matters, and certainly not the ‘straw-sucking yokels’ outside the capital. A few years ago, the Daily Mail’s Liz Jones filled her column with bile and hate about her new home and neighbours in Exmoor. She had moved to that part of the West Country following the break-up of her marriage. The pieces she wrote tended to be long, extended laments about how unfortunate she, a proper urban sophisticate was, to be living in out in the boondocks with such uneducated peasants. The Mail loved it, but her neighbour’s didn’t: somebody fired a shotgun at her letterbox.
Heaton-Jones seems to have much the same attitude and prejudices as Jones, but possibly without the same grotesque, maudlin self-pity. His prospective constituents should give him the heave-ho on the 7th.
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