Thursday, April 01, 2004
The member for Monmouth
Good old David Davies, he has done it again. There really is no stopping him from expressing his bigoted views and in his attempt to move from Assembly Member to MP for Monmouth.
Actually David is a very pleasant person to talk to. He is intelligent, cultured, multi-lingual, married to a Hungarian and an expectant father. Despite all that he does not seem to be able to get past the stock prejudices of the Tory faithful. All the tabloid cliches about the promotion of homosexuality in schools, the decline of the family unit and the crusade against political correctness come tumbling from his mouth. He can wind up most of the Assembly Labour Group just by walking into a meeting. And yet he spouts these views because he genuinely believes them and he tries his best to put across his opinions logically and reasonably. All he succeeds in doing however is in making things worse.
The decision of the Welsh Tory Leadership to put David on the Equal Opportunities Committee therefore was either an act of foolishness or a cruel joke. If it was a joke I am not sure who the intended victim was - David or the members of the Committee? Because wrong as David often is, there is no better way to bring out the worst in him than to put him in with the zealots of political correctness who tend to visit and inhabit that Committee. And who is to say that he has not got a right to hold these opinions and express them in this forum or any other? David is the genuine face of the modern Conservative Party, accept no substitutes.
Actually David is a very pleasant person to talk to. He is intelligent, cultured, multi-lingual, married to a Hungarian and an expectant father. Despite all that he does not seem to be able to get past the stock prejudices of the Tory faithful. All the tabloid cliches about the promotion of homosexuality in schools, the decline of the family unit and the crusade against political correctness come tumbling from his mouth. He can wind up most of the Assembly Labour Group just by walking into a meeting. And yet he spouts these views because he genuinely believes them and he tries his best to put across his opinions logically and reasonably. All he succeeds in doing however is in making things worse.
The decision of the Welsh Tory Leadership to put David on the Equal Opportunities Committee therefore was either an act of foolishness or a cruel joke. If it was a joke I am not sure who the intended victim was - David or the members of the Committee? Because wrong as David often is, there is no better way to bring out the worst in him than to put him in with the zealots of political correctness who tend to visit and inhabit that Committee. And who is to say that he has not got a right to hold these opinions and express them in this forum or any other? David is the genuine face of the modern Conservative Party, accept no substitutes.
