The president arrived last night and is going through the ritual parade down the Mall today. The British Union flag cheek by jowl with the Communist Chinese flag. Interesting. Very colourful. An image of political realism?
Protestors lurk in the Royal parks!
Here she is sailing into a barnyard inhabited by pig-headed animals and sheep
I think the video below is a copy of the Milt Kahl animation but there is still charm to it and it is interesting to see.
The combination of Nicola and the barnyard scene from Mary Poppins is impossible to ignore.
The original scene in the film was sketched by Don Da Gradi and animated mostly by John Lounsbery and Eric Larson. The pigs in the farmyard are really large sausages with legs. They are absurdly simple and deeply charming.
The design may be simple but the animation is probably the best ever done in the Disney studios, I think. It is fluid, even on 12s and the scenes which suggest beauty with the sun coming through the trees and the butterflies and deer are astonishing. Without this scene, frankly, and the technical advances in process photography/ what we now call “greenscreen”, there would be no “star wars”.
Here is a link to drawings from the fox hunt scene (mostly Milt Kahl):
http://livlily.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/mary-poppins-1964.html
here is a much older page spread from my moleskin. Not the farmyard scene, I know but you can see where I drew inspiration for Nicola’s pose above. Incidentally, it was Julie Andrews who insisted on the turned out feet. Apparently, this was the position in the book illustrations.
There are plenty of people today barely making ends meet, and there is a huge mass of refugees suddenly penniless on the border of Europe, while at the same time, there is an ever-expanding waistline of “fat cat” executives often controlling the very charities who say they are helping to ease the misery they themselves seem to defy. I hope there is not a whiff of jealousy or envy here (is there a difference?) but while I was sketching our two cats this morning and at the same time, thinking of a couple of lectures I have to write, I found myself wondering about the recent fiasco involving “Save the Children” and the distasteful posting of a scurrilous manga cartoon. The campaign to replace that image and to help is well-underway with the hashtag “Yeswhynot”. I contributed a picture of a cat towards this effort.
I worry that one of my cats is slightly overweight.
It’s cats all round at the moment…
So, I checked the internet, and I was staggered to find that the chief executive, Justin forsyth (an ex-Oxfam man, but also a former labour planner for Tony Blair in No 10) earns £163,000 a year- that is, to put it in persepective, about £20,000 more than David Cameron. Anabel Hoult apparently exceeded her boss in a mix of take-home pay and pensions. I have just started to follow Charlie Elphicke on twitter and he describes this bonus culture as “inappropriate and objectionable.”
There is no doubt these executives can defend their exorbitant salaries, and Forsyth in particular took over at a time of crisis for the charity and while it was going through a nasty merger with merlin, and having drawn him quickly, I must add, he has an engaging smile- but still- it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
As for “fat cats”- the dictionary tells me they would be people with a political bent and lots of money. I do not encourage you to do the maths but, well, miaow!
There is talk today that Turkey may be offered easier access to European membership should she stem the flow of Syrian refugees coming through the country and thus sort out what is fast becoming the biggest threat to the Union in its history. This is rather an interesting proposition, mostly because it looks at the issue from a Eurocentric angle- assuming two things, (a) that the prize of European membership is indubitably worth having and (b) that Turkey can indeed shut its border with Syria.
Mrs Merkel says that Turkey has requested EU aid to the tune of $2.2 billion, apparently. She is due in Turkey this weekend. I find it astonishing that there is any deliberation about this- the more aid Turkey is given and the more assistance it gets, the easier it is to keep the refugees near their home so they can eventually go back. Instead of making a noble effort to help (isn’t it our moral duty?) or offering a Cameron-cloaked calculated bribe to keep the refugees where they are, the EU has dangled a podgy carrot and expects Turkey to bray like a donkey in gullible, nay, even in priapic excitement. It simply will not happen. It is absurd politics and utterly insulting. The only donkey in this equation is tethered in Brussels.
In fact, the dead-slow progress of entry negotiations has soured Turkey’s interest in joining the Union and it’s already looking elsewhere. This is not to say that Turkey has neither the right nor the continued opportunity to join eventually, but simply that it has responded with a shrug to the “go slow.” It has seen other lesser-nations leap-frog into accession and it feels rightly put out. In addition, it is not likely to get excited about joining a club that has so publicly and shamelessly criticised its religious and cultural identity. (Islam has actually played a major role in the formation of modern Europe- we would not have parachutes, torpedoes or distillation without the impact of islamic research- in short, there would be no drams of whiskey in Scotland, and precious little Plato, without Islam) We have played this game foolishly if we now expect a proud country to bow down to our coquettish advances. In the end, we in Europe will be the loser if Turkey rejects our advances and forges alliances of its own in defiance of European membership. Byzantium, Constantinople or present day Istanbul remains a European City and should take its proper place geographically and historically with the other great cities of Europe. More than that, we desperately need Turkey’s help managing the coasts. The first practical link between Turkey and Europe should not be a pointless carrot, but the addition of Turkey to the Frontex system of EU coast patrols. This would be the first step towards full integration with Europe’s security system which is inevitable anyway if we want to be realistic about policing the mediterranean. At the same time, the EU needs to relax its demands about Cyprus. Now is not the time to deal with the broader resolution of the Cypriot situation and we need to be offering Turkey support in its own struggle to define islam in the face of ISIL/ISIL – a stronger Turkey helps the EU.
As for the relationship with Syria, well that is more complex. It is astonishing that, despite the crisis, the rule remains that Syrians do not need to apply for a visa to enter the country and they have leave to remain there for 90 days without any issue. That makes for a strange situation, because, presumably, a person who has wandered into an hospitable country is not strictly-speaking a refugee. Turkey has taken in over 2 million Syrians (and about 300,000 Iraqis). When it comes to neighbourly good-will, Turkey has done well. As Erdogan has said of European efforts to accommodate Refugees, “They announce they’ll take in 30,000 to 40,000 refugees and then they are nominated for the Nobel for that. We are hosting two and a half million refugees but nobody cares.”
If only it were that simple, though.
Just across the border from Turkey, there is the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of Osman I the founder of the Ottoman empire and this, 16 miles into Syrian territory, remains Turkish land. It used to be guarded by 15 soldiers though today that has been increased to 30. Turkey would certainly fight if that territory were attacked or invaded.It also helps to explain the acceptance of a fairly chaotic border arrangement.
Despite the open border, however, and its interests across the border, Turkey has a fractious relationship with Damascus, has condemned Assad, and, indeed, severed official diplomatic links when the Turkish embassy closed in 2012. Added to this is long suspicion about Syria’s support for ASALA and for PKK, – until 1998 Syria openly hosted the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. In the last few years, there have been air-space violations and bombings in Hatay province. Syrian terrorists were caught with cylinders of Sarin gas.
But despite this, Erdogan has said, “we are not interested in war, but we’re not far from it either.” Reassuring and at the same time, Worrying.
Difficult to sit on the fence when the border is so long and the fence so insecure. But why move from there when a neighbour who has been scathing suddenly offers lollipops. It is not enough: that fence looks more inviting than the lure of joining the European Union. Personally, I think we would be the better off for having Turkey in Europe, but we have to work harder now to convince the Turks that we really want them. We cannot tease them with the scraps that fall from Merkel’s lusty table. They are wise to that – many of them have been working in Berlin for years, after all and we have all seen the way Germany has treated other southern European nations.
This is my image in response to Toshiko Hasumi’s manga outrage. The text reads: “Asylum* needed”
after 366 days in a boat
You don’t have to be cute to need help
Refugees are not the enemy- they are in need
They did not choose to be victims- of war, of prejudice, of abuse.
The original picture of Judi in a Lebanese refugee camp was taken by Jonathan Hyams. I have drawn a quick picture of him here:
Asylum is a greek word!! ἄσυλον
Current UK Fishing Industry Issues
by Deborah Cowley (illustrations by TIM)
After speaking with fishermen, skippers, officials and DEFRA it is clear that the industry is hanging by a thread. The ever changing ‘out of touch’ quotas that favour the highest bidder has led to a genuine apathy and depression among the fishermen. It used to be rage but many have now given up the will to fight a system where they are but small fishes in a big EU regulated pond. One of the industries highest officials told me he goes to Brussels regularly and feels so frustrated with the red tape he encounters each time. So far, he’s the only one I’ve found who still has any energy left for an industry he cares deeply about, being from a 5th generation fishing background. But yet the men are still out there, with their humiliating quotas, trying to keep tradition and their birth rights alive. As the younger generation are being urged by their parents to pursue other careers, eventually there won’t be any UK fishermen left with the knowledge past down from their ancestry. By leaving the EU and gaining back control of our land and our seas the fishermen stand a chance. But we need to begin supporting them now, before it is too late, and this wonderful tradition is lost forever.
Syriza wins again
Corbyn at the conference
Lord Lawson takes the helm for Conservative EU Referendum campaign
It is always a pleasure to be able to put up a picture of Margaret Thatcher. She was a dream to draw so any excuse to do her in black and white or in colour as here is wonderful and today, the current leader of the Labour Party (and a man I remember meeting on occasion as he flitted out of Corpus where a great friend of mine – a committed Thatcherite- was ploughing away at a doctorate), has come out with a plan that categorically demands to be slapped down by the Lady in blue. She would have said of this plan as she famously said of Socialism in general, “the problem …is that you eventually run out of other people’s money”.
Now, Miliband proposes to cut the University tuition fee from £9000 by £3000 or so, and to do this, he plans to tax savers. In other words, all those people who have dutifully followed present Government advice and put money away for a rainy day will have it pinched and given out willy nilly to students who think the world owes them a living. I wonder how many times Ed plans to raid the piggy-bank? Specifically, the costs would be met, he said, by reducing tax-relief on pensions for anyone earning over £150,000 per year. I am sure that was greeted, even in Labour circles, by barely disguised squeals of pain! It’s like handing the teenager the family car to crash.
Miliband is quite right that the current trail of debt that lies in the wake of our further education experiment is wrong, leaving many students with over £44000 to pay off after graduation, but it is not as simple as that. The whole system creaks because it is allowing enormous debt to build up all over the place, and some of it that must inevitably be written off. (I would make the case case, incidentally, against conscription, surely a waste of so much money in so many countries across Europe. If you want an army, you have to set one up with a serious plan, proper training on proper equipment; it is not a serious fighting force if it is simply seen as a rite of passage) At the same time, the caps on tuition fees mean that Universities cannot really charge what they feel they are worth and everyone in this deal is struggling to make ends meet. Often when there is a mess like this and on this scale, we can look around and see at least someone leaping around with a smirk of satisfied delight, but in this case there seems to be no one. Everyone suffers! It becomes even worse when you reflect that it was the Blair government that put pressure on smaller universities to expand their campuses and trade in their carefully hoarded private wealth for reliance on state funding. (Why would they do this?) You only need to look at the mess of the Stockton campus in Durham to see just how badly this sort of thing can go, and Durham was certainly not alone.
We were wrong to try to send 50% of all school leavers to university. That is the bottom line. University should be an exceptional experience and not a routine rite of passage. It is not about drinking ale and recreating scenes from the “Inbetweeners’ movies”. University life is about learning how to process information at speed and under pressure. It might also be about gathering specific skills, but it is a privileged time and we should teach students they need to value that experience. In fact, by demanding that so many students pass through the University gates, we have cheapened the further education brand, jacked up the overall cost and encouraged the development of a range of “mickey mouse courses” that beggar belief.
Miliband’s proposal is more extreme- he is taking from Peter to pay Paul. But essentially, while they maintain this fantasy that 50% of all students deserve a University place, any plans are merely an attempt to rearrange the bunting at “Freshers’ Fayre”.
UKIP does better than the other parties, demanding a reduction in that 50% aim and offering to cut the tuition fees on key subjects. I think these would be things like Physics, Medicine, Computing and engineering. While I might quibble with the subjects on offer “at discount rates”, I think the overall vision is remarkably clear. It is not yet clear how this would be funded- in my own opinion, and in the long run, if our universities were to recover their reputation for overall excellence, the number of foreign students might well provide an opportunity to raise enough money to fund scholarships to cover the tuition costs of education National students in important subjects. But this might take time and Heavens! We need to start treating foreign students better than we do now. Not only do they pay more but if we get it right, and they profit from their education here, they will be the leaders of their own countries in a few years and it will be to them that we turn for alliances and assistance. If we treat them badly, why would we expect them to want to do business with us? This was one of the great principles of the British Raj and one of the great disasters when Edward Heath turned his back on the Commonwealth. We need those committed international alliances that are forged over decades, not weeks and that are of mutual benefit. We need to know there are people across the world who speak our language, both culturally and linguistically. In short, abandoning the Tier 1 visa, like so much of the visa bullying that surrounds the education of foreign students in the UK is stabbing ourselves in the collective foot, and we will suffer greatly in years to come for our short-sightedness and parsimony. More on this later in a dedicated post!
Today, Mr Farage made it clear that cutting the deficit remains an absolute priority so again echoing the Lady: We cannot spend what we do not have. Mr Farage criticised Osborne for failing to grasp the nettle- “George Osborne was right to say he would eliminate the deficit by the start of 2015 but he failed to do it because he had coalition partners who did not appear to be very interested and he did not himself make some of the tough choices.”
Putting our house in order, not promising to spend more than we can afford, while rewarding those who put in the time to study those skills we badly need- all this is simple, as Mr Farage would say simply a matter of “Common Sense”.
The idea that there is a “correct” or an “incorrect” way for MPs to vote in parliament is fatuous. If the party they belong to cannot make a case on paper and in debate for a particular proposition, it makes no sense at all to use threats and rewards to cajole them into voting one way or another, particularly if they have given their word to their constituents to oppose or support a particular motion when it is presented. This is the dilemma faced by people like Andrea Leadsom who promised to oppose plans to build HS2 and then, faced with the lure of promotion to the Cabinet, fled to Brussels when it came to to crucial vote. She was not alone. Another 47 Conservatives, most of whom had vigorously opposed the bill, found themselves unavoidably detained on other business when it came to the vote. Lots of Liberals, too, including Mr Clegg, were detained elsewhere that day. There was little chance the bill would be defeated because it had backing from both the Government and the opposition, so it was simply a matter of the personal risk taken by individual MPs- were they willing to risk their careers simply in order to keep their word to their constituents?
In the end, it comes down to the power of the whip and the mystical appeal of high office.
Yesterday, there was the spectacle of two elderly Foreign Secretaries walking through the corridors of disgrace towards political exile because it looks like they wanted big business kickbacks. Looks can be deceiving, but today both of them have lost the party whip and look set to leave parliament. This is a shame. Again, it reflects badly on the way we do politics in this country that we have not provided proper assistance to two elderly and clearly infirm men.
In Shaw’s case, will this be the thing he is remembered for? Being tricked by the press into promising to table questions for a Hong Kong business that never even existed. Does he not have an assistant to research these things first? – is he so “down on his uppers”? This is a man who rachetted up the bureaucratic thumbscrews in the Foreign Office, more even than any Conservative had done to date. I think, the mix-up over the d’Hondt formula and his rulings on Double Jeopardy are probably just about excusable, but really – his judgement over at least one asylum seeker beggars belief in the face of the events that followed: Here is what Noam Chomsky said in the Irish Times:
“in 2000 there was a request from an Iraqi who had somehow escaped an Iraqi torture chamber and made it to England. He was applying for political asylum.
Straw turned him down with a letter saying “we have faith in the integrity of the Iraqi judicial process and that you should have no concerns if you haven’t done anything wrong “. In 2000!”
Within Months of becoming Foreign Secretary, the 9/11 attacks happened. Opposition from Craig Murray and Walter Wolfgang, I think was perfectly justified and time will tell whether they were right. Recently, the Jerusalem Post accused him of Anti-Semitism. Till now, however, he had come across as an honourable man who, in the heat of the moment, had made perhaps inappropriate decisions. And, to his credit, he was very helpful in the process of getting justice for Necati’s case in the European Court of Human Rights. But the Hong Kong trap suggests he was not quiet as honourable as we might have thought. I, for one, am going to go back and look more closely at the campaign of Craig Murray and see what we have to learn.
NB: 17th September 2015: with some relief today’s news states that the two politicians have been cleared of any wrongdoing by the parliamentary standards. This is a relief because whatever their political colour, these are two men who count as history-makers and it would be inappropriate for them to be remembered for something so wearisome. We need to work harder to ensure that this sort of tittle-tattle does not dominate the news in the future- actually it does not one any good. There are bigger things to look at!
Here is a paragraph from today’s Spectator: It is part of Nigel Farage’s diary: It is entertaining and informative.
our conversation throughout the night was dominated by Amjad Bashir and our growing concerns about him, especially the rumours beginning to permeate about a gerrymandered selection in Keighley. Dan Hannan, the MEP who took Bashir as a defector into the Tory party, had no idea that a number of serious allegations against him had been coming to a head for some time. Bashir knew we’d had enough of him, and decided to jump. And I was relieved that he went, too. He was the basis of numerous furious rows in MEP meetings. His political agenda appeared to be different from ours, and now he can lobby for an expansion of EU foreign policy including Turkey joining the EU, and for Palestine to be recognised as a state, from within the Tory party. Perhaps he’ll also get a more sympathetic hearing for his views on Pakistani blasphemy laws. I joked on Friday to Paul Nuttall that Bashir knew the end of the road had come, and that the other parties were welcome to him. I never for a second thought that the Tories would accept him. Caveat emptor.
I am sure there is alot waiting to spill out about this man. I worry when someone shifts too often and Bashir is clearly a bit shifty. However, some of the issues he has raised are valuable. We must never dismiss what someone says because he is himself unreliable. Bashir has some reasonable concerns about Palestine and maybe he has something to say about Pakistan: I do not know what his views on the blasphemy laws might be. Mine, obviously, tend towards the liberal, though of course I wince at the thought that one might ever cause another offence by taking the name of God in vain or mis-representing the Prophet. I certainly do not think such activity merits the death sentence or is an excuse to bomb people, That is absurd- God gave us intelligence to use it to convince our friends and our enemies to change their minds and change their behaviour. And the told we have at our disposal: come on- they are better than bombs: wit, academic scrutiny, questioning, analysis, humour, memory. Wow! What an arsenal!
There is an issue, however, that lies behind this paragraph and that needs attention. I worry that people still misunderstand the nature of Islam and try to impose a 19th Century western critical apparatus on the Koran- those verses we can and cannot “accept”. This is in fact what marks out the extraordinary letter sent by Eric Pickles in the wake of the Paris attacks to Imams throughout the UK and I wrote rather pointlessly to the Times about this. But let me repeat-
Two points need criticism in Pickles’ letter: What is missing from the letter is a reassurance that, while free speech is protected and promoted in the UK, it also comes at a price. Free speech is only truly possible when it is accompanied by mature responsibility and kindness (انظر أيضاً or חסד /XSD in Hebrew). Without these qualities, free speech can easily be abusive and descend into a form of bullying. Secondly, and maybe more worryingly, it should not be necessary for anyone who lives here by right to define or defend their “Britishness”. I am not even sure what Pickles even means by “promote a positive image of British Islam”. Not since the dark days before the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 did a group of British subjects have to prove they were not “5th Columnists”. And years later, when Pugin designed and decorated the Palace of Westminster, that was never quite enough, was it! Yet today, the Queen reads her speech from the throne he created.
(I thought about this a bit and realised a few things: the first is that, left to its own devices, the Catholic Church in England has embraced many of the features assumed to be distinctive of the Anglican communion, as well as a particularly english form of triumphalism. Check here for a video of Benedict’s entrance to Westminster Cathedral. It is a stunning piece of music by James MacMillan, quintessentially British, though admittedly with a touch of Hammer Horror about it all.
and on the subject, check out this setting of Lux Aurumque: simply stunning and, I would argue, absolutely British! Do remember that Latin was the sacred language of the West and that Queen Elizabeth I was an expert , holding conversations and reading in Latin! In other words, here is a manifestation of a faith that shows “a positive image of British Catholicism”, but it was an organic development, not a packaged promotion. Pugin’s churches, likewise, promote “a positive image”, though the language that he used to promote this in “contrasts” was written when he was still an Anglican. This is about faith, not about a supermarket selection, and Pickles is absolutely wrong in the way he writes and what he expects. It is insulting, demeaning and futile. It serves only to breed resentment. By definition an British imam in a British Mosque is already “promoting a positive image of British islam”. In a way, he has to do nothing more.)
Here is the man who designed the Houses of Parliament. His son fought an uphill battle to get his father recognised as the designer, but until the 20th Century it was barely acknowledged by the establishment. A great shame.
Now, of course, there are 5th Columnists hiding in the Muslim community, but they are hiding in plain sight- and it should not be necessary for all Muslims to “prove” themselves because of the activities of a minority. Instead, the majority should be given support, not forced on to the defensive to say how they are promoting a “positive image”. Should we bother to read what are promoted by liberals as worrying texts of the Koran in context and within the context of helpful hadiths and commentaries, then we would never have a problem with Islam at all.
Today, it seems to me that Islam is going through a transition and there are three distinct forms of “interpretation”- the Wahabi (which we might see as a puritanical sect but which is also influenced by its cultural context – and of course is very wealthy), the Iranian model (which goes well beyond Shia and fuses radical politics with a fairly aggressive and expansionist ideology) and a version of Islam which has already reconciled itself to co-existence with the West and which the West long-ago accepted. We owe our Renaissance and advances in Astronomy and Medicine indeed to the links we already had 1000 years ago with Islam! There are various sub-catagories of course; the least “fundamentalist” of these is the Iranian version which interprets so much, it manages to reconcile the impossible- elevating the idea of “sahid”/martyrdom to such a level that it obliterates the absolute command in the Koran against suicide and against injuring women, children and the sick; that ignores appeals for peace. Islam is the only world religion that has a specific prohibition in the primary scripture against suicide.
What we need to do today is to encourage the third way- and to accommodate any group that fosters what Blair called “moderate” Islam. The Wahabi model and the Iranian model are, however, influencial and so appeal to a community that feels pressured. So, in this context, any links that can be fostered with Turkey are to be encouraged. Turkey is an example of a State that espouses the “third way”, and while some of its discussions seem arcane (the headscarf thing, for instance, which is actually, in part, a political statement- you can tell which party someone belongs to by the way she wears her scarf), it is on the right track and has dealt well with business. Indeed, it only took Turkey 4 years to build an excellent High speed rail link from Istanbul to Konya, further I note than the link proposed between London and Birmingham! Links with Turkey are within the UKIP remit which is to set up our own bilateral agreements rather than to have these agreements and associations imposed by the EU. Would we want Turkey in a wider trade association of European states- certainly, but would we want Turkey to be part of the EU as it currently stands? I think even Turkey has reservations about that one! Should it be treated by Brussels in the way it is currently treated? Absolutely not! But then Brussels treats too many nations with utter contempt – and the Greek debacle is the natural result (more on that later). To push Turkey aside is a silly and short-sighted vision, and in the end, the more it makes Turkey wait, the weaker the European project (in whatever form it finally emerges) will become. Turkey has a natural home within the European community- and we desperately need Turkey’s help if we are to deal with Islamic terrorism.
As for the Keighley thing- it is quite astonishing the way little people run around causing chaos when they are given a bit of power. Even without looking at the specific allegations, the range of Bashir’s affections from Galloway to UKIP is astonishing. Our job in politics is to create harmony and to get things done. Amjad Bashir has misunderstood his job and it augurs ill as Nigel Farage says that the Tories now want him.”Buyer beware” indeed!
We must find a more positive voice to speak about Islam and to promote those forms of Islam, in fact the dominant forms, that have co-existed with us already for so long and that today are threatened especially by the Iranian interpretation of Islam. This means that we must have a better relationship with Palestine and Pakistan as well as with Turkey. Only when we speak in one voice with Islam can we ever hope to confront the dangers of the Iranian experiment and the surge towards terrorism.
Here is a report by Will Kilner on the original allegations made in Yorkshire:
ALLEGATIONS of interference in UKIP candidate selection in Keighley are at the centre of a continuing row between Bradford businessman Amjad Bashir and his former party. An investigation is currently underway into the selection of UKIP’s local election candidates in the three Keighley wards at a hustings event held last week. E-mails outline how there were a dozen new membership applications at the beginning of the month, and there were question marks over a dozen new faces who appeared at the event claiming to be members. This saw complaints about “infiltration” by people not committed to UKIP and led to an internal party investigation over the selection process. Confirmation as to who will represent UKIP in the Keighley Central, Keighley East and Keighley West seats at May’s Bradford Council elections is expected in the next week. It comes as Yorkshire and Humber MEP Mr Bashir was suspended by UKIP over allegations of a “grave nature” shortly before announcing his defection to the Conservatives on Saturday. UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “The final straw on Friday, was the hustings meeting that took place in West Yorkshire where gerrymandering appears to have taken place.” When Mr Bashir’s denials were put to him Mr Farage added: “He can deny that, but I tell you what he can’t deny and that’s his continuing association with political extremists from Pakistan despite us saying please, please, keep away. “Whichever way we look at this, he had reached the end of the road with us, he knew that.” Mr Farage expressed his surprise that the Conservative Party had accepted him, but Chancellor George Osborne insisted he was “not aware” of any reason why the Tories should have turned Mr Bashir away. Mr Bashir has dismissed his former party’s move as a “desperate attempt” to smear him to distract from the news of his decision to join the Conservatives and said there was “not a shred of truth” to the claims. Meanwhile Respect MP George Galloway has also claimed that Mr Bashir once joined his party, but was de-selected as a candidate for Bradford Moor prior to the council elections in May 2012 after concerns were raised about his fitness to stand. The Bradford West MP would not specify what the issues were, “but they were sufficiently grave to make us realise that he was not a fit and proper person to represent Respect. Clearly both UKIP and the Tories have lower standards,” he said. Mr Galloway has also tabled a parliamentary motion calling on the Government and Conservatives “to declare to the voters of Yorkshire and the Humber that Amjad Bashir’s relentless party switching and misrepresentation of his past makes him unfit to represent them, whatever party’s colours he temporarily wears”.
animate-tim.com 