Local Tory Councillor Gaynor Sinar has had to apologise after blaming local Labour canvassers for a rise in burglaries in her Cheshire ward.
In a tweet, Cllr Sinar linked a rise in crime with the fact some Labour canvassers had accents from nearby Liverpool:
“How to lose a vote 102 – ship in Liverpool Momentum to Northwich. After a few burglaries and drugs incidents traced back to Liverpool over the past few years, we prefer to see local people leafleting and canvassing.”
However, in an attempt to take her foot out of her mouth, Cllr Sinar only succeeded in stuffing her other foot in there as well, alongside the other.
Explaining she had been misunderstood, and had not meant to insult people from Liverpool, the hapless Councillor went on to clarify that her problem wasn’t just with people with Liverpool accents, it was with people with any accent at all other than the local:
“It does not matter whether they are from Liverpool – it is just the fact that they have got a different accent. It just happens to be that they were from Liverpool.
If they were from Birmingham or Manchester or anywhere else it might have been a bit scary for people in Winnington when they have had break-ins. I think it would be better if they had local people canvassing.”
Aha, as Alan Partridge would say. So that’s all right then.
PS. Another example of the Tories getting so desperate, as a strategy they’re going all Royston Vasey in the run up to the local elections (this election leaflet is real):
Pride's Purge 
Yeah I’m a Brummie living in Barnsley and I get the police carting me off regularly because my out of place accent makes me prime suspect for all the local crimes.
The ladies on the supermarket checkout quake in fear as I threaten them with phrases like, “Alroit bab? It’s luckin a bit black ova Bill’s mother’s ayntit?”
They just take all the cash out of the till, stuff it into a carrier bag then thrust it into my hands.
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I’m worried about anyone at all, with any accent, even referring to Brexit. Which party that might be doesn’t concern me at all. They won’t get my vote tomorrow. This ludicrous spat above on the councillor’s part reminds me of the years when TV broadcasts were forbidden to screen live comments from Jerry Adams etc. Ch4 news did a wonderful job in drawing its teeth by having actors mimicking, even to coughs and hiccups, anyone from N.Ireland. What was truly priceless was their dubbing a speech by the then PM, John Major, to give him what sounded like a mid-Belfast accent. I still haven’t stopped laughing at that. Suddenly, as a result, the rule ‘words voiced by actors’ vanished. Still, the councillor’s comments do shed light on something more troubling: the sheer depth of xenophobia still in the UK, on much of which the Brexit campaign originally drew strength. Michael Igoe
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Highly amusing – not. A North Cheshire accent,generally, differs little from a scouse (a little less flem, perhaps). If a person’s accent differs greatly, then they must be from the beautiful South, and the question must be “Why the heck are they in Cheshire!” Answers on a Theresa May picture postcard please.
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