Why I Left the Conservative Party...
Cardiff Blogger
fame. Ben was the Chairman of the Conservatives at the University of Wales in Cardiff and has fallen victim of the PC brigade for the use of the apparently "racist term" pikey. So disillusioned with the reaction from the Party, it seems Ben told them where to go.You can read exactly what happened
here
, but TB caught up with Ben last night and he had this to say: "The Party needs to stop presenting itself as 'squeaky clean'. Nobody believes it and is one reason people still don't trust David Cameron. I have every faith that he'll make a great Prime Minister but making out that he's the second coming of Christ like the press did with Obama is not something voters believe."TB wishes Ben the very best of luck with his now very much independent blog.
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6 comments:
Been through this with a few Labour dudes - Pikey is not a racist term and may even have derivation in the use of a pike, much akin to navvies being navigational engineers. Unbeeeeeelievable. Some people in the Tory party are absolute ejeets as Liz Truss is finding out. Way to win an election dickwads.
Perhaps someone should collect a list of people being removed from the party or deselected as candidates for fairly minor offences.
There does seem to be a double standard between what shadow cabinet members can say, e.g. David Cameron's comments about Twitter, Alan Duncan's comments about Miss California, and what party members can get away with.
From my youth I remember "Pikey" being used to mean thief, usually in an offhand sort of way i.e. you'd use the term if someone took one of your crisps without asking. More recently I have heard the term used for those who are more commonly refered to as "Chavs" (or "Neds" up in Scotland). I do not think I have ever personally witnessed the term used as a slur against Gypsies.
"Jipe" similarly is a term which the PC brigade regard as racist, but again from my days at school it was used in a very different way, most commonly by "Townies" (proto-chavs) to disparage their fellows whose parents hadn't bought them the right track-suit bottoms. The term "two/four-stripe-jipe" being applied to those whose trousers did not have the regulation three stripes!
The PC brigade need to recognise that these are old words that have been in various dialects for a long time and even if they have been used historially as a derogatory term for Gypsies they may well always have had other meanings, and the use of language changes over time.
Where I come from (Surrey) pikey is the term we used to use for chav.
Other people have gotten in to trouble for using the word "pikey" in the past, e.g.
"There is no word more offensive to a traveller, says Cliff Codona, a Roma Gypsy and chairman of the National Travellers Action Group"
I think if people find a word offensive, it is best to avoid using it, out of politeness.
But "we all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man". There has to be freedom for people to say "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that", and move on.
Martin Brundle (to Bernie Ecclestone): "There are some pikeys out there putting down new tarmac at Turn 10. Are they out of the way yet?"
Is bloody funny, whether you suck the vinegared teat of political correctness and constraint or not.
It's all about context, but sadly there's an entire media, educational system and consequently a generation of impressionable youngsters that come out of it determined to go through life with a miserable chip on their shoulders and a one dimensional, leftie ideological, fear of offending, diminished sense of failing to enjoy the amusing theatre of life.