Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Still the same old nasty party...

A Tory county councillor faced a disciplinary hearing today into complaints that she racially insulted a group of young Asian women.

Councillor Gail Kenney (right) who represents Sawston on Cambridgeshire County Council, allegedly accused one young girl of wearing the Muslim hijab head covering because it suited her.

According to the Cambridge Evening News, she also faced complaints that she said a youth worker should intervene before another member of the group was 'married off to some illiterate man from back home'.

Today's hearing came two weeks after a separate incident when another Tory, Councillor Ted Pateman (left) resigned from South Cambridgeshire District Council after making a racist remark during a council workshop.

The case against Councillor Kenney has added significance as she chairs Cambridgeshire's committee which scrutinises children and young peoples' services. She also sits on adoption and fostering panels.

An initial investigation ruled that Councillor Kenney had been 'unintentionally' racist but had breached the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 in failing to treat people with respect.

The complaint was made by a Young Asian Women's Group after the councillor visited them last June. The group of 16- 18 year olds claimed that the Tory councillor was
'racist, arrogant, prejudiced, judgmental, patronising and did not listen'.
Sounds to me like an accurate description of the nasty party...

2 comments:

Michael Oakeshott said...

So a racist individual makes a racist party? I have always heard more racism from Labour than Tories actually. The white working class(or what is left of it) is actually racist to the core. And Labour is very careful in these areas to keep quiet about such issues. The university student might sit there and think that tories are soft right, and BNP are hard right, therefore one is just a more extreme version of the other. But anybody with any wit will observe how those Labour areas in London seem to be rallying to the BNP in elections in ever greater numbers.

So as with so much else with you Phil, your noise on the subject is simply a rouse to divert the myopics from something else.

Johnny Norfolk said...

What about the sleeze commimg out of No 10.
They would not know the truth is they fell over it.

I think you need to look around your own party before you slag off others.