It is a pity, because by all accounts he was on fine Tory realist form against Douglas Murray at a recent Spectator debate.
But John Redwood lets anyone who had not worked it out know exactly what the land of his English Parliament would be like.
Let's have a referendum on it. Or, indeed, on "English Votes for English Laws" (whatever they are supposed to be).
Watch any such proposal fail to secure even 20 per cent support in the North East, or in Cumbria, or in Cornwall, or in Devon, if not a great further south or east than that.
Watch it be comprehensively defeated, not only in London, but also everywhere more than about 80, or possibly even 50, miles from London.
Leaving a doughnut of support among Home Counties Home Rulers.
"Redwood's Doughnut" would have, so to speak, a certain ring to it.
But John Redwood lets anyone who had not worked it out know exactly what the land of his English Parliament would be like.
Let's have a referendum on it. Or, indeed, on "English Votes for English Laws" (whatever they are supposed to be).
Watch any such proposal fail to secure even 20 per cent support in the North East, or in Cumbria, or in Cornwall, or in Devon, if not a great further south or east than that.
Watch it be comprehensively defeated, not only in London, but also everywhere more than about 80, or possibly even 50, miles from London.
Leaving a doughnut of support among Home Counties Home Rulers.
"Redwood's Doughnut" would have, so to speak, a certain ring to it.
But he didn't say what the headlines claimed he said.
ReplyDeleteRead the original quote. Just as Norman Tebbitt never said "get on your bike" to the unemployed.
Jean Baudrillard would have a wry smile at how the media mangle twist and distort reality to fit their narratives. He was absolutely right.
They were both as near as didn't matter, and far too experienced to have made a mistake.
DeleteExcept that they weren't.
ReplyDeleteNorman Tebbitt's own father was unemployed (he grew up in a council house). Only the Leftwing media could manage to spin his account of his own unemployed father's search for work as "Tebbit tells unemployed to get on yer bike!".
John Redwood was recorded as saying: “When I last met a load of business people in Liverpool I was talking to them about their business pattern – they were in the service sector – and those who were earning the most were doing a day or two days a week in London, and actually saying ‘This is how I do my bit in Liverpool."
That was it.Cue utterly nonsensical headlines.
People-particularly politicians- who support this kind of hysterical media misrepresentation will one day fall victim to it themselves.
And very seasoned politicians who know that it is out there have no excuse for walking right into it.
DeleteYes, they do. It is that attitude that prevents politicians ever telling the truth about anything or ever saying anything that hasn't been doctored, spun and signed of by a PR team.
ReplyDeleteIf we don't want politicians like that, we shouldn't support hysterical misrepresentation of basic statements which lead to a political climate in which nobody (except UKIP) is brave enough to tell the truth or deviate from the PC script.
People with your attitude can't really complain that we live in a world of bland Yes-men who toe the party line and never say what they think, since the climate of Leftwing media hysteria that you support is the main reason for that.
ReplyDeleteI remember particualrly disgusting examples of it-such as Sir Andrew Green having to sue the Daily Mirror when it insinuated he was a Ku Klux Klan supporter because he had the temerity to criticise New Labour's mass immigration policy.
Or John Redwood being accused of launching "a war on single mothers" in the Leftwing press when he noted that the fact that 50% of the children in St Mellon council estate in Cardiff were brought up without fathers was not an ideal situation.
It's utter lies and hysteria that shuts down any sensible debate about anything.
None of that has anything to do with this.
DeleteTebbit had, and Redwood has, been around quite long enough to know to avoid such hostages to fortune.