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Dave & the Dinosaur - The New Old Tories
Posted by Tracey Cheetham (@tchee)
Thursday, 18th February 2010
Isn't it amazing how, just when David Cameron thinks he's making progress and actually convincing a few people that his Conservative Party has changed, along comes one of the old boys to mess things up for him. It's as though they sit, sleeping in the corner, while the visitors are tip-toeing by and just when Dave thinks he's home and dry, up pops Grandad and splutters "Bloody ridiculous, working class, they should know their place!"
Today it was Nicholas Winterton, who told Stephen Nolan on Radio 5 Live that it is a "different type of person" who travels by standard class! Apparently, Mr Winterton thinks that he shouldn't have to travel with these people and their "children, noise and activity." He further compounds the offence by saying that people who travel standard class "have a different outlook on life". Yes, I too was open-mouthed by this point. He qualified this by saying "they might be reading a book but I doubt they are undertaking serious work." Obviously, Mr Winterton, having only ever travelled by first class, has never heard of the quiet carriage, where many of these unfortunate souls, are indeed undertaking very serious work indeed. Or maybe they are reading a Jackie Collins, who knows, but nonetheless the blatant snobbery of this Tory dinosaur belies his true feelings about the majority of the people he is elected to serve. In fact, Mr Winterton demonstrated the regard in which he holds his constituents by asserting that whether or not they agree with him is "irrelevant"!
He also said that if he were forced to travel by standard class, that would put him "below local councillors and officers of local government. They all travel first class." Perish the thought! Now I don't know about you but our (Labour Controlled) Local Authority will only purchase standard class tickets for councillors and officers, Lib Dem Councillor Daisy Benson has said she doesn't travel first class either, so maybe it's just the Tory Councillors that do!?
Many left-of-centre bloggers will be rubbing their hands together with glee and chanting the old favourite "Same Old Tories" and to some degree this is true. Nicholas Winterton is one of those "Same Old Tories", he has, after all been a Member of Parliament for forty years, he is truly old-school - and that is not a dig at where he was educated! This latest embarrassing faux pas for the Conservative Party by one of their most long-serving elected members, is so mortifying for David Cameron that he has been forced to issue a statement via his spokesman, saying that this outburst is “the out-of-touch views of a soon-to-retire backbench MP,” whilst taking great pains to assure the public that “they do not in any way represent the views of David Cameron or that of the Conservative Party and should be treated as such.” So, Cameron wants us all to know that he is NOTHING like Nicholas Winterton. Got that? Ok. That's that then...
Isn't it? Well, I was intrigued, if Cameron is so desperate to show that he is completely different in his outlook and opinions to a senior backbench colleague, how close to the truth is it? Taking a very brief look at some of the key issues of recent times, which do Cameron and Winterton agree on?
So, repeat after me, "Winterton is not representative of the views of David Cameron". Oh, except he is... Maybe it isn't 'Same Old Tories', after all - instead it's just 'New Old Tories'.
