Analysis comment

Cleverly ‘owned’ after trying to claim Tory credit for ending slavery

New Tory party chair caught out and ragged on social media after gaffe

The newly-appointed and ironically-named chair of the Conservatives has suffered cringing embarrassment on social media after trying to claim the MP behind the UK’s abolition of slavery was a Conservative – when he died a year before the party was even formed and didn’t even belong to its predecessor.

James Cleverly put out a tweet claiming that William Wilberforce, the MP responsible for the 1833 ‘Slavery Abolition Act’ was ‘a Tory MP from Yorkshire’ and an example of a Conservative having a positive impact on society:

In fact, Wilberforce was an independent MP who died just three days after hearing that the Act had been passed – and the Conservative party was only formed a year later. The ‘Tories’, the precursor to the Conservative party, did exist – but Wilberforce was not a member and Tories largely opposed the bill.

Many respondents considered Cleverly’s claim to be dishonest:

Of course, Cleverly may simply be ignorant and shoddy – and many clearly simply considered him not very bright as they piled on the ‘ownage’:

Either way, it’s already abundantly clear that Boris Johnson is not the only member of the government who just isn’t very good.

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25 comments

  1. They would have him serving up the Gin and tonic in the Carlton club next and hanging up their hats and coats and he’d claim to be helping out the TORY party…….what a lapdog….should be ashamed of himself!

  2. I learned Wilberforce’s history at school – I think all my generation did.
    Can’t imagine anyone being so stupid as to think they’d get away with such bollocks so I’m betting he genuinely didn’t know the truth.

    Imagine how the poor fucker must feel now – missed a week of school, misread a classmate’s notes and ten years later he’s joined the beneficiaries of slavery – by mistake. For a slip of the pen.
    Jezza should phone him and promise him a warm welcome and some political education to cross the floor 🙂

    The above was just whimsy, obviously – I don’t think anybody ever took Cleverly for an intellectual – but fuuuuck.

    1. Dumberly to BBC: “I don’t like political back room deals like that” he said, referring to Lib Dems winning Brecon & Radnorshire by arrangement with Plaid & Greens, “It was a dirty deal and they scraped a win.”

      Tories would never do anything like that, would they, Jimmie?
      Have you found out yet how much of a bung the Lib Dems slid under the table to the Plaids & Greens in that back room not to put up candidates?
      Was it more than the £billion your lot bunged the DUP or less?

      Was what they did worse than reinstating suspended Tory candidates five minutes before an election to “scrape a win?”

      1. David the lib dems are the numero uno of dirty dea!s.The TORY party are neck and neck with dirty dealls.The DUP will continue to recieve at least another 1.5 billion on the bribe if the parnership holds.But don’t forget the DUP fraudulent siphoning of money to Orange lodges,under the name of cultural pursuits and the money to their farmers and bank rollers under Heritage.All of these criminal activities have been swept away by the collapse of the good Friday agreement because of the criminal activities of the DUP Leader and the rest of her bible punching religious bigots The Tory party will never be forgiven for returning the gunmen to the streets,and the deliberate destruction of of the G FA and will have consequences internationally for the mainland of Britain.The only good will be a united Ireland…..who will have to take on a an unreconstructed protestant population trapped in a Sixteenth century religious fanaticism…….Their might need to be a supply agreement to ship the lunatics back to Scotland

      2. Joseph, is it just those on the other side of the divide to blame then?
        Is it only they who are trapped in mediaeval thought processes?

  3. Tories like the Libdems make all sorts of claims not attributed to them. Lies are their stock in trade, but why do so many people want to believe them?

    1. David…..simple answer…yes the protestant unionist supporters denied everthing including the vote jobs housing and even liberty!Would you ask that question if the Catholic native Irish were black?….don’t forget that when ian smith(RHodesia PM said to Harold Wilson in Downing street When discussing one man one vote….ouote…you give your Catholics the one man one vote option and I will consider this for RHodesia.To this very day Catholics suffer massive discrimination in NIreland and no British government can solve institutional bigotry..Sorry David but you could never understand despite being a decent intelligent human ….and many of my friends interned and murdered by the British system in Ireland!…..solution..get out of Ireland?

      1. And once Ireland is united the newly-dominant Catholic community won’t set its sights on getting its own back on the previously-dominant ‘Proddies’ will it?

        Joseph, I’d argue that the real answer is fully effective and publicly monitored laws on discrimination, effective enforcement of those laws in a society where secularity is enforced everywhere but inside churches, and a government building with no doors.
        Not just in NI, clearly.

      2. David…..Anglo Irish protestants have lived in peace and have merged,and Irleland is not the preist ridden country it used to be.But Ireland has a constitution that gives civil rights for all!. .British law guarantees no rights to anyone,and has no constitution.I would refer you to certain laws that specifically deny rights to Catholics in Britain…Act of settlement which even denys the office of priminister to Catholics .,and of course the medieval Crown.The Catholic emancipation act,You might then realise that the bigotory is on both sides of British system to keep power using the protestant religion enshrined in government!David I could tell you more but I do not want to argue the indefensible British rule in Ireland or the bigotory enshrined in British law against full emancipation for the Catholic in the UK!……You do not realise what I have personally encountered even in leafy Sussex,and from so called Labour party supporters……religion is little to do with it and it all goes back to the reformation and a power grab that still exists today in the establishment and the Crown…….And that is why we can never have a constitution….David its all History and it still survives today in the establishment founded on the supremacy of the protestant religion and the Monarchy.

      3. And what did I say ffs but that only enforced equality can work?
        And wtf makes you think I “could never understand” a conflict that you lot haven’t fixed in hundreds of years – only you can understand the complexity – right?
        I don’t call South Africa “fixed” by any means but they’ve got a fuck of a lot further than you boys.

  4. Not sure how much it costs to change your name by deed poll but may not be a bad move in the case of Mr Cleverly.

    1. Yes David,SAfrica have had to struggle for freedom,and I was there in Pretoria in the dying days of Apartheid.Strange but I felt the same for the native population and helped were I could,but I always looked to Ireland for insperation in ridding the country of the oppressor who judged black native Africans and anyone with a darker skin as sub human.Much the same in the occupied part of Ireland.to this day.I know both countrys and recognise many similarity s.The religion of the Boar was Dutch reform Kirk,who viewed the African as the sons of kane to be cast out!.Under British rule the tame boars were taught by ministers from…NIreland who believed in exactly the same biblical laws and again tought the children that punishment for the native was gods will.same as Nireland protestant belief that Catholics represented the Anti Christ. Ireland has equality enshrined in the establishment of the Republic and they had to eject the British to get that!.The Ulster protestant have never accepted freedom and dream of a rigid society based on biblical teaching.That belief is corrosive and unworkable in a Republic….And I am sorry you don’t get it,but then again your other veiws we tend to agree which shows to me that British rule has got to go because the only sensible conclusion is The republic unified finally.The British have always had problems in Ireland and have been unable to solve the problem even when the country was Catholic hundreds of yrs ago.So Its now time for unification and on that I hope we can agree david….and good night comrades!

      1. Yes, the Catholic church would never be so ungodly as to treat other races differently to themselves.
        Or to treat little children as sex objects or make ridiculous demands of its priests that they abstain from natural relationships.
        Or seek to control the sexuality of its brainwashed flock.
        Or call its brainwashed a “flock” to be herded ffs.
        Or have such a thing as the Inquisition, or defend Nazism, or burn dissenters or believe in a ridiculous concept of an all-powerful being and condemn to hell all who dispute its spurious existence.
        A paragon of virtue, the Catholic church.
        Just like every other religion.

      2. David… Iam not defending the Catholic church,nor do I promote religion in being part of the running of society.You seem again to misunderstand,my veiws on a republic,and seek to come out with an old bias .I think the french system of not recognizing! religion in civic society is perfect and I also admire their love for the Republic,and that is why I want a republic United in Ireland and one day in Britain.You may think by attacking my religion,you attack me.But like the S African native we are useto it.Our religion identified our distinct identity in a occupied Ireland not our devotion
        It. also identified our politics and that in many cases to this day can mean imprisonment or a bullit in the back……Solution…get Britain out of Ireland and have a United Republic !The Labour party historically recognise that fact,and do not meddle in Irish politics……simple david.come on board!

    2. Joseph, I attacked neither you nor your religion and nor did I “come out with an old bias” of ANY description – I merely pointed out, more gently than I might have, that your posts betray a certain bias on your part.
      Again – I’m for equality and enforced secularity outside churches.
      ALL CHURCHES.
      By enforced secularity I mean in social interaction as well as employment, law and politics.
      That OBVIOUSLY means no provocation of any kind including orange marches, traditional songs, chants, celebrations of old battles, no IRA or any other inflammatory gable wall paintings or any other of the multitudinous ways each community seeks to outrage the other.
      I hope that’s clear. At last.
      I won’t respond to any further deliberate misrepresentations of my views.

      1. David .. You didnt attack my religion?.. Nazis child molesting,inquisition,brainwashed flock?… Apart from that Okay?…….Its a good job you were not reffering to jews or Moslems,you would have a hard time explaining them comments.. Still we are used to it and its not that unusual!

  5. Staggering ignorance or opportunism by Cleverly?
    He should read the Black Jacobin by C.L.R. James on the life of the brilliant Black Leader (and ex-slave) Toussant L’Overture and the slave rebellion in what was to become Haiti.
    The British Imperialists realised that their role in slavery was becoming economically unviable as by transporting slaves they were actually helping their Imperial rivals such as France.
    So the British PM called in the Hull MP Wilberforce to lead on this change of policy. Of course some historians presents such people as Wilberforce as the Great Man of History as though we would have never had abolition if it had not been for him.
    But abolition was findamentally driven by Britain’s economic and Imperial interests with anti-slavery societies and slave rebellions also playing a key role.
    No wonder they built a statue to the great Toussant in Haiti!

  6. Priti Patel’s just as dumb – says she wants criminals to “literally feel terror at the thought of committing offences.”

    This from the woman who said in 2011 “I think that’s appalling” (murderers and rapists leaving prison only to offend again) “and actually on that basis alone I would actually support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent.”

    US muggers aren’t deterred by the knowledge that lots of people in their profession are on death row – or even that there’s a fair chance their intended victim will shoot back.

    It’d be more effective and less repugnant to make them “literally feel” greater fear of being caught, rather than the supposed terror of being institutionally murdered in a vain effort to save money on policing.

    1. “Priti Patel’s just as dumb – says she wants criminals to “literally feel terror at the thought of committing offences.”

      Chris Davies is presumably an exception.

  7. No matter how many times I hear and see Cleverly on TV he always makes himself look and sound like an idiot!
    I suppose it’s part and parcel of being a Tory Right Wing Bigot!

  8. I’m enjoying the renaissance of that old schoolboy term ‘ragging’

  9. To cheap and nasty spokespeople , Is there anything you dont lie about
    When was the last time you costed anything
    Why should we trust you with the NHS
    Under Boris Johnson police numbers go down
    Which Benny Hill character does he closely resemble

  10. Cleverly ‘owned’ …On a slavery comment?!

    Careful, Skwawky. You know what some are like.

    Anywho, he’s always getting owned at least on a fortnightly basis. . The dullard gets owned wherever he goes & whatever he says. He’s not clever enough to be a moron.

    The last one I remember was that one with the emojis a few weeks ago. Oh, how I got a hernia through laughing so much at his humour…

    But hes possibly the biggest corbyn fantasist of the lot of them. Any shit he will make up or twist about corbyn and he’ll do so. From Corbyn getting punched in the mosque, to complaining to the speaker he’d watched Corbyn call may ‘a stupid woman’ to making shit up about Corbyn’s lad renting out a house which a housing Ass. sold in 2010 but wasn’t bought by Corbyn Jr until 2016…

    Keep ’em comin’, Mr Misnomer

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