…Or, as the Tory run Kent on Sunday puts it, “Ex-councillor calls for ‘spongers’ to be tackled”.
A councillor who quit after suggesting jobless people with more than one child should be sterilised has called for more to be done to tackle “career scroungers”.John Ward, 58, stepped down as a Tory member of Medway Council this week after making his comments in an internet blog piece.In the article, which was called What You Probably Won’t Read in the Press, he attacked “professional spongers” who “breed for greed”. Mr Ward, who was first elected in 2000, resigned on Tuesday after a meeting with senior Tories on the authority.
From checking his site it seems that his post no longer exists, which is a pity. So what does our modern eugenicist have to say on the situation since the local media has picked it up?
The former councillor for the Rochester South and Horsted ward told KOS Media that his controversial remarks had been in a “draft message” he had accidentally posted on his blog. But he said he was pleased that they had sparked a discussion.
Oh right, I guess that makes it okay then. The old “I wrote an utterly pointless draft blog post exposing my bigotry, then accidentally pressed the wrong button. I never intended my utterly appalling personal views to become public. Honest. I’m not lying!” excuse. And of course this has started “a debate”.
Mr Ward said: “I uploaded my draft message by mistake. But in the end I have got what I wanted and that’s a debate on the subject of benefit scroungers.“I know there are many people who 100 per cent need benefit help, but I am talking about the career scroungers.“Their children are going to see their parents grow up doing nothing but claim benefit, and the trend will continue.”
Oh good, he’s talking about the people who are scroungers, not every person who claims benefits. He doesn’t seem to tell us how he intends to differentiate between the two however.
Mr Ward, who has no children, said he has received calls, emails and even parcels to his Chatham home, congratulating him on bringing the subject up.The former supermarket worker added: “I don’t think people should be sterilised by law, but something needs to be done to create an incentive for people to do more with their lives and not simply rely on the state for a living.“I regret my comments becoming public, but it has stirred things up, and is making people think about what is happening in the country, and I don’t regret that.“It is crippling the country, and unless something is done, there is going to be some civil unrest against those people who are simply career scroungers.
“Bringing this up has cost me my political career, but in Soviet Britain, I was required to fall on my sword.” [emphasis mine]
Something about the last bold paragraph reminds me of another Tory politician who was forced to resign over stupid comments. Something about the Tiber foaming with blood if things continued? At least Enoch Powell was vaguely poetic.
And yeah, the comment about Soviet Britain? I bet he thinks he’s so clever when he says that down the local Conservative Club.
So what were these comments that Mr Ward deliberately posted meant to remain as a draft?
“I think there is an increasingly strong case for compulsory sterilisation of all those who have a second, (or third, or whatever) child while living off state hand-outs.”
The question I would like to ask Mr Ward (apart from the obvious why the hell did you think the “oops! didn’t mean to post that!” excuse exonerates him in anyway – it makes him in no way less bigoted for God’s sake, it’s just that the general public and his constituents at large actually know what’s really going on in his head) is, did you really think people wouldn’t be utterly horrified when they read those words?
Likewise, while Mr Ward doesn’t specifically reference any gender, it is clear that primarily he is referencing women.
I think Cllr Bill Esterson, Labour spokesman on children’s services on Medway Council, is severely understated when he described the comments as having
“…everything to do with some extreme and very unpleasant views about forced sterilisation of people – the sort of thing that happens in totalitarian regimes, that happened in Nazi Germany.”
I must admit, it hasn’t helped but solidify my opinion that Conservatism is something of a gateway drug to all sorts of nasty.
So what, pray tell, does Mr Ward plan to do now? On his blog he whines
I shall need some form of replacement income, and shall start working on that once my head clears of all that has been going on these past few days and I am able to concentrate properly on this task.
May I suggest popping down to your local benefits office, Mr Ward? You may have to mix with the dirty proles, however.
In the other long-established local paper, the “usual suspects” (all well-known lefties) were lined up to attack me — but this backfired too, as the overwhelming weight of public opinion was not with any of them at all. Thus all they have achieved is to marginalise themselves. Not one of them was at all interested in facing up to the issue itself: they just wanted to have a go at me. What precisely does that do for Britain’s society and communities? I’ll tell you: nothing! It was all self-serving, and nothing more. Worst of all, it was glaringly obvious to anyone with a working brain that that was all it was.
Yeah, you tell ‘em John! Stupid lefties standing up for what they believe in! Surely with your track record however, you’d support that. Or not, rather. After all, those lefty Stalinist pinkos didn’t backtrack and pretend their words were a mistake that should never have left the desk of the Kremlin HQ in the first place.
Bye Bye John. We won’t miss you.
