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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/polit...or-2159587.html

 

Let the unemployed pick fruit, says Tory councillor

 

By Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor

 

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

 

A senior Conservative councillor provoked anger after he suggested jobless Northerners should travel south to pick fruit.

 

The party distanced itself from the remark by David Shakespeare, the leader of Buckinghamshire County Council. He made the comment at a Local Government Association meeting over how authorities should respond to lengthening dole queues in less affluent parts of the country.

 

Mr Shakespeare said: "The North may replace the Romanians in the cherry orchards. That may be a good thing."

Labour MPs called on Mr Shakespeare, who is the leader of the Tory group on the LGA, to resign. In a letter to David Cameron, the MP for Barnsley East, Michael Dugher, denounced the comments as "out-of-touch, insensitive and insulting". Tom Blenkinsop, the MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, said: "To see Northerners in this second-class, undermining and disrespectful way is typical for a very Southern-orientated political party like the Conservatives."

 

The Tories stopped short of disciplining him. But a spokesman said: "This is an unacceptable use of language and does not represent the views of the Conservative Party."

 

Last night Mr Shakespeare said the comment was a joke and everyone at the meeting where it was made had laughed at the time. He said: "I'm sure anybody with any kind of sense of humour wouldn't have taken it seriously, but it's being peddled around maybe for political purposes."

 

The former frontbencher, Howard Flight, who is about to become a Tory peer, caused uproar last month by suggesting child benefit changes would encourage "breeding" among the poor.

 

 

I disagree with the Tory Spokesman, I'm sure this is what every Tory politician (and probably most of the people who voted Tory) feel about the 'North'. I'm actually quite thankful for people like Mr $h!tspeareShakespeare and his friend Howard $h!te Flight I think they are only verbalising exactly what most Tories in the affluent South think.

 

Frigging hell ... if they have cherry picking down as a job option for northerners, just what the f*ck has he got in mind for the Scots?

 

Kath

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Cleaning fruit

 

:lol: :lol:

 

I don't know whether $h!tespeare's original comment or the way he tried to back out of it by saying 'it was a joke' is more insulting.

 

I'm just waiting for the next Tory to say those northerners under a certain annual income must sell their second child to wealthy childless southerners ... and their subsequent children to go up chimneys.

 

Kath

I live in the south, hopefully with some help from the Tory government I shall get my very own Northern slave one day.
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I live in the south, hopefully with some help from the Tory government I shall get my very own Northern slave one day.

 

If you promise to treat us well - myself, my husband and 17 children (and some of their fathers) could come down anytime after Christmas.

 

Kath

If you promise to treat us well - myself, my husband and 17 children (and some of their fathers) could come down anytime after Christmas.

 

Kath

I'm sure I could find things for some of the other fathers to do :lol:

The poor Polish, what would they do :drama:

 

 

I think the Scots are to become slaves of the Northerners.

Ruddy hell, just when I thought we'd seen the last of 'Bushisms' from politicians, these Conservatives are going one better by enforcing every single upper class stereotype about how they feel about the lower classes.
Ruddy hell, just when I thought we'd seen the last of 'Bushisms' from politicians, these Conservatives are going one better by enforcing every single upper class stereotype about how they feel about the lower classes.

Even if it was meant as a joke - and I accept that it might have been, although that doesn't make it funny - it still takes a certain mindset to say something like that.

"Get on your bike".. Norman Tebbit said in the 1980s..

 

And people keep trying to tell me that the Tories have "changed" and their not the same party as when Thatcher was in power...

 

Yeah, f**king right... <_< <_<

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