Sounds Good To Me

Shaun Bailey is the Tories’ Mayoral prospect for taking on the vile Sadiq Khan next year. So, of course, Labour has been digging around in his past to find some dirt. And what did they find?

Labour has accused the Conservative London mayoral candidate, Shaun Bailey, of the “worst kind of casual sexism and misogyny” after unearthing a newspaper interview in which he praised the discipline shown by his teachers because they “were men, then”.

Bailey, who will take on the incumbent, Labour’s Sadiq Khan, in next year’s election, also used the interview to argue that handing out contraception at schools encouraged teenage pregnancy and complain that young girls can have abortions without parental consent.

Speaking in favour of school discipline, Bailey gave the impression there were no women who educated him: “When I was a kid, there was none of that PC nonsense. If you were wrong, they told you so. The teachers were men, then.”

Elsewhere in the interview with the Sunday Times in 2007, Bailey repeated the point. “Our teachers were men, and we looked up to them. It was not a democracy. In today’s drive for children’s rights, we’ve forgotten to give them responsibility.”

So, in an interview over ten years ago, he talked some common sense that will resound with a significant proportion of the electorate. That’s it? That’s the best they can do?

The Conservative also complained about teenage pregnancy, saying that the state was not giving parents enough authority over children. “A classic example is, you’re meant to get your 14-year-old daughter to school, and if you don’t, you’re in trouble. And yet your 14-year-old daughter can have an abortion without you knowing. Who is in charge?” Bailey said.

I’m sorry? What is remotely controversial about this?

Seema Malhotra, a Labour MP, seized on the remarks to accuse Bailey of holding “backward views straight out of the 1950s – laced with the worst kind of casual sexism and misogyny”. She accused him of having “a long and hideous track record of misogyny and divisiveness”.

Because he holds conservative views? I’d agree, that’s not the done thing in the Conservative party these days. I notice that misogyny is being thrown about like confetti. I wonder why? Oh, yeah, they can’t accuse him of being a racist because he’s black. Damn! another pet who’s gone off the reservation.

It is not the first time that Bailey’s past comments have caused controversy. Shortly after he was selected in October, it emerged that he had written a thinktank pamphlet that warned that accommodating Muslims and Hindus “robs Britain of its community” and risked turning the country into a “crime-riddled cesspool”.

And? Dunno so much about Hindus, but accommodating Islam has worked out so well, hasn’t it?  So he’s right. And by God, the Labour Party hate people who are right…