Tory MP Ben Bradley has rightly been widely castigated for stating that unemployed people should be sterilised – comments chillingly reminiscent of the nazis’ eugenics-driven attitude toward supposedly ‘undesirable’ groups of people.
Unremarkably but no less shockingly, Theresa May has stood by her newly-appointed ‘youth tsar’ after the comments came to light – in spite of other offensive comments he has made, such as stating during the London riots that he would be watching police play ‘splat the chav‘.
His Tory colleagues have also defended him.
In a BBC interview, while front-bencher James Cleverly – admittedly while squirming to avoid any words of outright approval – tried to brush off Bradley’s comments as merely the kind of thing you say before you’re in politics, Conservative BBC presenter Nick Robinson appeared to struggle to find anything wrong with his ‘sterilise the unemployed’ comments:
I’m still trying to work out, what is it he said that isn’t acceptable.
As shown in the screengrab above, the BBC Politics Twitter account didn’t seem to find anything particularly remarkable about the defence or Robinson’s mystification either – although ‘the ratio’ of retweets to comments suggests at least that there was more outrage than approval among social media users.
Comment:
Few who pay much attention to Tory policies and the thinking behind them would doubt that this kind of ‘weed out the weak’ mentality is common among right-wingers.
But the fact that apologists for such thinking are now coming out of the woodwork to defend the indefensible – and worse still, to ask what’s to unacceptable about it – should be of the gravest concern, not just to the unemployed, poor and disable but to anyone with a conscience.
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I’m glad they are all coming out of the woodwork. Before this they were hiding behind a false Tory ‘respectability’. Now it’s ok to say anything, they are revealing the truth of their lack of human feelings.
So he was right to say ‘they should sterilise unemployed’ what about lets euthanize top ( and bottom) politicians and borrow Putin’s Salt Mines for top bankers and business people who corrupt the system. More merit in those last 2 ideas I feel.
one rule for them another for the rest of us – we should all be very concerned.
Government policies have caused the employment crisis and they have the nerve to attack the very people they hurt the most. What was said by Bradley can never be forgiven or forgotten. He may have apologised but it didn’t mean a thing. The nasty party is still alive and well
Bradley apologised for the language used…NOT the sentiments he expressed…
They complain of ‘abuse’ but in reality they don’t get anywheres near the ‘abuse’ they deserve.
And the idiots continue to vote Tory , maybe it’s those that need sterilising !
so only have kids if you know, in your future life, that you can afford them……so the majority of millenials and those younger should not have them?? or is he suggesting that women should date by “stud” and men should date by potential financial viabilty of a future spouse? outrageous… still eugenics by fiscal means….
An interesting piece in Friday’s Guardian. The Office for National Statistics had done some research and found the top 10% of the richest spent about £1,000 a year on average on shopping for booze, cigs (and narcotics) whilst the bottom 10% of the poorest spent £500.
Perhaps the rich need it to vote Tory and for selfishness – to sustain their cruelty and perhaps the poor need it not to live but to just exist.
But the middle class Liberal Guardian (although with perhaps a good new look) is getting at times a bit monotonous – a piece attacking Labour re anti-Semitism, a piece attacking Jeremy Corbyn and sympathetic to Labour’s right wing Neo-Liberals, Brexit and a piece calling 4 a second referendum zzzz! Come on Guardian change the broken record!
The record broke around the time of the Snowden Papers, when came a visit from MI5, who made them destroy the relevant hard-drive, despite there being copies around the world by then.
It’s been downhill into the heart of the Establishment for the Grauniad ever since, culminating in the new tabloid that looks like the Times at first glance.
That is no co-incidence!
Bradley didn’t say these things ‘before he went into politics’. He was the campaign manager for the Sherwood Tories at the time. Someone should be asking Mark Spencer MP some questions as to why he didn’t rein him in at the time.