So massive is the hypocrisy and political correctness being displayed over the Alun Cairns light-hearted faux pas over “greasy Italians” that only one question remains to be asked.
And that is, when will the South West AM get his jobs back as Tory education spokesman and as chairman of the Assembly finance committee.
Well, perhaps there is a second question. How quickly before the governmentally-incompetent Italians agree to go back on their independence and invite Austria to return to run not just the north but the entire country.
Mr Cairns made his comment on a BBC radio programme, and it was truly sad to hear members of that organisation, having obtained on the show the sort of lively comment on which the entertainment industry is based, then doing their best to emphasise the seriousness of the happening.
During the week’s regular Tory briefing, they piled in with questions seemed designed to ensure the production of material to fill an extra 10 minutes or so of air time – at the expense, of course, of the person who had been good enough to fill a gap left in their original radio line-up.
At one point, party leader Nick Bourne was asked about whether Mr Cairns could be rehabilitated. Well, it’s done for serious criminals, Mr Bourne replied.
In that one short comment, the ridiculousness of the entire issue was laid bare. This was no street-corner knifing; it was a comment to the entertainment industry. And don’t tell me that the BBC isn’t on occasion involved in dumbing-down their news values.
This journalist at one point got so fed up at the over-zealous political correctness being displayed that Mr Bourne was asked when the clearly non-racist Mr Cairns would get his job back. “How long is a piece of string,” was the reply. Quite short, one felt the leader felt.
Particularly as he later felt that the BBC were trying to keep the story going for their own purposes.
Mind you, there’s another reason why Mr Cairns’s period in the doldrums is unlikely to be long. In a sign that the Beeb can also be fine journalists – I’m being nice to them, now – they took up the entire first part of the briefing by dissecting the Tory’s new education spokesman.
It turns out that the two elder children of Andrew Davies, the South Central AM, attend private school, although the others are at the local primary. Were state schools not good enough; had he no confidence in them; did he agree in giving parents vouchers for educating their children (a method of favouring the private sector); would he favour expanding the private sector ?
His replies were extremely competent. Clearly a man of ministerial calibre (very unlike two of the fading Labour characters in the present cabinet). It was a pity Mr Bourne was not there to hear this part of the briefing. But the message was plain. Mr Davies is a political liability in this particular post.
The answer to the problem is simple. Bring back Cairns quickly. And ease up on this horrendous political correctness which seems so ridiculous to everyone – except to those in the Cardiff Bay hamlet.
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Normally, I find so nice BBC Betsan’s blog rather boring and she rarely stimulates any kind of comment. However, her latest offering betrays the teeniest whiff of annoyance and irritation about AMs expenses – although hedged and couched in the constrained terms of the BBC. Maybe she’s admired Lynne’s nice new curtains, sat on Lesley’s throne sofa or watched Derek Brockway flouncing about on Nick’s surround sound hi-def TV? Maybe she has ridden, at tax payers expense, in the same taxi as Mike German in the short ride from his palatial first home to his second palatial home to the Palace in the Bay.
He said he met the Queen at the airport and when the group were then embarked on a journey, he and another took their caps off.Sir Norman said it was pointed out to him that, even when you are in the Queen’s presence, you must keep to the uniform.
