Quiet Flows the Don

I would normally be wary of advising people to venture into the bear pit that is Andy Newman's Socialist Unity blog, even if I, personally, do learn some interesting stuff there amidst all the far left arguing. But there's a lot of worry going around about the general disillusionment with representative politics at the moment and a fairly widespread feeling that this significantly contributed to the heavy UKIP, BNP and even English Democrat vote at the recent Euro and local elections.

Doncaster, you might recall, has elected a English Democrat mayor. Go read verbatim his first radio interview and tell me this stuff doesn't need to be be more widely publicised as an example of what happens when you elect oppositional minded, right wing demagogues. Here's an extract -Toby Foster (BBC Radio Sheffield ) is interviewing Peter Davies, the new mayor.

TF: Well, you say you’ve no control over people in the departments, one of the big things on your campaign was that you’re going to cut ‘PC jobs’.

PD: Oh yeah, that’s a different thing altogether, er-

TF: Which jobs are those?

PD: Well, er, I’m going to look into that. Things like Diversity Officers, er, the things that are usually advertised in the Manchester- , well, it’s not the Manchester Guardian now - in the Guardian…

TF: Right, so have-, so, so hang on, so so there are politically…

PD: I mean, I can’t give you a full list at the moment, but I will…

TF: But that’s what you put on your manifesto - you must have had an idea on your manifesto what you were talking about?

PD: Yeah, yeah, all these people who are, sort of, controlling thought processes and this sort of thing, and er, erm… every department is riddled with this sort of nonsense these days.

TF: So currently then, this morning, Doncaster Council is riddled with people who are, who are doing this kind of nonsense, ah… and they’re on notice, are they? People are going to lose their jobs?

PD: Er, very likely.

TF: But we don’t know who they are, yeah? But certainly Diversity Officers…

PD: Obviously I… I’m… well, that sort of thing, yes.