Top Tory site ignores minute silence – to criticise Muslims #GE17

As most people will know, General Election campaigning resumed yesterday – but only after a one-minute silence held across the nation for the victims of Monday’s terror attack in Manchester and their families. The silence was observed impeccably by political sites, activists and social media accounts.

Almost.

Conservative Home is the leading Tory-supporting site for news and commentary from a Conservative viewpoint. It styles itself “The home of Conservatism”. And yesterday it appears to have decided not to observe – or to have been ignorant of – the silence.

At 11am, the agreed time for the silence, as the rest of political Twitter fell silent, ‘ConHome’, as it’s commonly known, decided it was time for a tweet. Not just any tweet – one targeting Muslims for criticism:

The tweet quotes the article accusing Muslims of being more interested in the length of their trouser legs than in tackling islamist terrorism – in fact, it appears to accuse most Muslims:

The SKWAWKBOX supports free speech. But to post that article at exactly that moment seems astonishingly crass.

The SKWAWKBOX contacted ConHome early yesterday afternoon for comment – via its online contact form, which appears to be the only way to reach the publication. No response has been received.

This blog also contacted the Conservative HQ press office at the same time:

As just discussed, see tweet below by ConHome. Would the party or Mrs May have any comment to make on probably the principal pro-Tory online publication ignoring the minute’s silence for victims of the Manchester atrocity – and doing so with a tweet linking to an article criticising the Muslim community?

Urgent response, please.

Again, no response was so far forthcoming.

The Tories and their Establishment media are busily attacking Jeremy Corbyn for his measured and truthful speech this morning on the consequences of Tory cuts to police numbers and resources, claiming his speech is insensitive and risky.

So it will be of considerable interest to the public to see such insensitivity and poor timing from ‘The Home of Conservatism’ and the lack of interest by May and her party in distancing themselves from such behaviour when real leaders would be uniting the country and strengthening community.

Let’s make sure they know about it.

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