I just thought that I'd post this, see what people thought.

My town, Doncaster, has recently elected a new mayor, the English Democrat Peter Davies. Since becoming mayor, Peter Davies has made a number of changes, the vast majority of which divide opinion greatly. I was just listening to Jeremy Vine interviewing him (which is what has triggered my posting of this) and Vine described him as "The Marmite Mayor", because people either love him or hate him.

The changes made started off with him halving his own salary, and getting rid of his chauffeur-driven car and instead using public transport. This is probably what helped him be elected, seeing as so many people are moaning and whinging about "expenses" and the like.

A number of other changes have also been made, I will list these here:


Gay Pride, funding has been completely cut. Commitments had already been made for this year by the previous mayor, but Davies says that he will not give funding for next year. When asked how much money this cut will save, he replied "I don't know". When asked how much profit having the extra commerce brings to the town, he answered "I don't know", before storming out of the studio.

When asked just now by Jeremy Vine, he answered "I'm not a homophobe. I have lots of gay friends." :rolleyes: I was sitting there waiting for him to say it, in that sort of "I'm not a racist, honest... I have LOTS of black friends" kind of way.



Black History Month, similarly cut. Davies has "started a war on political correctness", and on Jeremy Vine's programme today was saying that minorities get funding but... majorities... don't. He said "you'd be lucky to get White History DAY, never mind a month". He went on to say "there's no such thing as Yorkshire Day [*cough cough* 1st of August] or St. George's Day". "There's no such thing as St. George's Day."

"There's no such thing as St. George's Day."



More on the "war on political correctness"... council services for women and ethnic minorities are facing the axe. Davies had enlisted the help of the founders of the Campaign Against Policitcal Correctness. One of these founders said that his aim is to "eliminate political correctness in Doncaster".

Until there is equality in Doncaster, there should be provisions for the minorities. And trust me, there is nothing even remotely like equality in Doncaster.



All translation services, such as in hospitals... he wants to axe. This is because Davies says that people have been over here without bothering to learn English and it's unacceptable. He also says that it's not right for foreigners to be "coming over here" and "taking our jobs".



We were twinned with five towns. That now stands at zero. Davies doesn't want to be associated with towns such as Dadong in China. Today he said that this was because of human rights issues. Originally, it was because he didn't want dignitaries from "Red China" coming to Doncaster.

I think that I'm about done.

The worst part of the interview today was the responses which were read out from e-mails and texts, and this is what really made me want to post this. Every response which was read out was highly in favour of him, saying that he's "straight-forward", and that he has a lot of "common sense"... even that "all politicians should be like him".

Basically, this town is bad enough without some bigoted idiot who has no idea about the repurcusions of his decisions making it even worse. I sort of feel that anyone who the people of this town vote in to power... isn't worthy of having it. I just wanted to see what other people thought, and how they would feel if it were their town being run by this man.

Lastly, did I mention that for 20 years, Peter Davies was head of Politics at my school? :/

An interview with Davies. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLrMXsS4rwA&feature=player_embedded)

Absolute nonsense!!!

I sat and heard the show on radio 2 and you have twisted what he said, he didn't say there wasn't a St Georges Day, he said they wouldn't be allowed to fund a festival for it.

The guy spoke nothing but sense, every one is sick of the council milking us honest folk for every penny because we, the British are stupid enough to pay it, up here in Calderdale they spend nearly £70,000 twice a year on a temporary ice rink that they charge us £7 a time to use, never seen such a waste of money, I'm glad that there is finally someone like him doing his job, i don't even know of another Mayor who has a active approach in their area.

I say let him go for prime minister and you will see somebody who will not be voted out until the day he dies!

I could have sworn that he misspoke and said that there's not one, but yes of course he meant to say that they wouldn't be allowed to fund a festival for it... perhaps I misheard, perhaps he misspoke. What makes him think that there can't be a festival on that day, anyway? He could hold one if he so desired, and if he thought that it would be of benefit in some way.

Still, you've just pointed out one, insignificant thing and not given a view on his actual ideology. Do you agree, for example, with his plans to stop translation services because, and these ARE his words from the Jeremy Vine interview, he doesn't want Poles coming over here, taking "our" jobs without "bothering" to learn English?

You raise a good point for your Calderdale example with the ice rink. I would have thought that it is of some good to Calderdale, as otherwise the council would stop paying for it, but yes I understand your frustration if you personally don't feel as if you get any benefit from it.

There's nothing stopping him from going from prime minister. If enough people want it, it will happen. ;)

Thanks for posting. :) I will just add that I haven't gone all like wild cherry and made an account to have some crazy dichotomous argument with myself... j0hn is an actual person. :P

Wow...just have to comment because I love a good political debate, even if I am across the world from the point at hand.

I'm not sure how British politics are...but you said that he is an English Democrat. Does that mean he's slightly left-winged, as in the American "Democrat"? I ask this because the examples that you have written here are so right-winged they are about to seriously upset me...and I would be considered part of the majority (racially, and sexually at least) if I even actually lived there!

I know that things are a lot different in the UK, but please! Yes, it's true that there isn't a "Hetero Pride Day" or anything like that, but who cares really? He claims to not even know how much funding was going into it...has he even looked at the city's financial report or is he just evading the question?

About Black History Month...we don't have it here I don't think, or else it's obviously not acknowledged enough. Every school kid goes through 8-10 months of white history...that's all that is in the text books. Perhaps if Mr. Davies bothered to learn about black history, he'd make such a rich discovery that he would see the value in prompting others to learn. The next thing I'm expecting you to say is that he's raided all of the local libraries to burn anything that hints at support of a minority.

It's quite clear to me that he's all about assimilation. Sure, that's a fine idea if you are looking for a superior race (Aryan, yes?) where everyone thinks and does what they are supposed to, according to whoever has made the rules (Big Brother?). Diversity is what makes a city or a country...it sparks culture, which a society cannot live without. That's one reason why I love Canada so much...there have been no huge attempts at assimilation, thus there are tons of ethnic groups everywhere that you can see on a day to day basis. This makes people far more aware that there is a story behind every face, and everyone deserves to have the opportunity to be successful in a new country. Some of those examples you gave reminded me of that movie (documentary?) called A Day Without A Mexican. I haven't seen it myself, but I've heard its basic synopsis. A functioning society needs immigrants, and if you don't cater to them in the least, they will never get their feet on the ground enough that they can actually make a difference.

The fact that he's cutting translation services in hospitals makes me sick...I'm sure that anyone who has moved to the UK within the last 0-10 years or so is making an effort to learn English. But heads up to Mr. Davies - English is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn, so I can imagine it would take time (especially for those with completely different tongues from us, such as African or Asian languages). But anyone who has been there for 20 years + is not going to get any better at the language. Just because they have chosen to keep their language of origin, and can get along quite fine otherwise, they should not be penalized in serious matters such as health care. Argh!!! I have a friend who was working as a student nurse with an older Chinese lady, who spoke no English. We live in a small town where there wouldn't have been a translater on hand, so her husband needed to be there all the time. Otherwise even things like her pillow needing to be adjusted would not have happened. And think about dementia patients, who even though they may have spoken perfect English for their entire adult life, are reverting back to their original language and can't speak any other way. It's very common, and the nurses need a translator.

Hmm...I had better stop, I think I've made my viewpoint clear enough...all of this seems very McCarthyism-like. I didn't even get started on the "Red China" comment....blarghhh!! I love that over fifty years after the fact, Cold War ideas still come up. He is going to need to start censoring his illogical comments about minorities soon or else it's going to come back and bite him.

Must...stop....ranting.....:embarrassed:

Ah, yes I will explain. The keyword in "English Democrat" is "English". :P They're a right-wing, nationalist party, not left-wing like the American "Democrats". But yeah, they're very nationalistic, want England to be an independent state, without Europe and the European Parliament having any control.

He hadn't looked into finances at all, apparently. He spoke about how honest he was, but he didn't actually know whether any of the things which he was promising would be logical... in some cases things in his manifesto were illegal or impossible. It could have been a case of evading the question, I suppose that it's both. In yesterday's interview with Jeremy Vine, he wasn't challenged at all, which was very strange as it was a national, not local, broadcast, and I was expected a more in-depth interview. His ideology wasn't questioned at all, and only positive comments from listeners were read out. It was as if he'd said that he'd only come on the show under some special terms...

Same same, Black History Month exists in some schools, but very little is actually done for it. If I recall, in my school some posters were up for a bit.

I don't think that he wants assimilation... sure, he wants everyone to be of the same race, but he doesn't want it to be a blend of backgrounds... he just wants "English". Unfortunately, Doncaster doesn't have very much culture. That's one of the reasons that I was so outraged at him wanting to stop the Gay Pride... not just because of the prejudice, but it's very rare that anything of any cultural significance ever happens here.

About the immigrants... he doesn't think about any of the repercussions of his decisions, such as economical factors. It's just a case of him not wanting foreigners in his town, from what appears to be noting but a selfishly bigoted viewpoint.

And there's never any need to stop ranting! :) hehe. I wasn't expecting many, if any, replies to this, seeing as it's a geographically specific example. I was just ranting myself. :) Still, like you say, the ideas and principles of it can be discussed no matter where you're from.

You are misrepresenting what Peter Davies actually said

1. He made no reference at all to a "White history day" The reference was to an "English history day". It seems entirely reasonable that people in England should learn English history, wouldn't you agree? We have English people with many different skin colours, the point was about national identity and nothing to do with race at all.

2. "Yorkshire Day [*cough cough* 1st of August] or St. George's Day". "There's no such thing as St. George's Day.""

That was precisely Mr Davies point. These are days for celebrating traditional English values and yet they do not receive public funding and recognition in the same way that festivals marking some other events do.

"All translation services, such as in hospitals... he wants to axe. This is because Davies says that people have been over here without bothering to learn English and it's unacceptable. He also says that it's not right for foreigners to be "coming over here" and "taking our jobs"."

National government would seem to be in agreement with Mr Davies on this point. That is why they introduced the "Life in the UK" test with the requirement to be able to communicate in English for everyone applying to live in this country.


"Lastly, did I mention that for 20 years, Peter Davies was head of Politics at my school? "

Maybe that's why you don't like him. It's your privilege, but at least don't misquote what the man said.
The interview is available online on the BBC site. I suggest everyone listens to it before judging the man on misquotes and speculation.

Ahh, it's good that the interview is up now, I wanted to use it when writing this but had to try to remember what he'd said. I would also encourage people to listen to the interview, it's quite late on in the clip, perhaps in the last 15 minutes. There's also a link in the original post to another interview.

About learning English history. Of course I agree that we should learn it. And we DO learn about it. At length. And he said "English history" as a direct opposite of "black history", which is why I remembered it as "white history day". That perhaps makes it worst that he used "English" as an opposite of "black".

The Life in the UK test is for those seeking indefinite citizenship. Davies was referring to members of the EU, with the "Free Movement of Persons", when he spoke about people "wandering over here". I also very much doubt that national government would back up his reasoning.

And Davies stopped teaching at my school before I started going there. I have never met him. I was just throwing that in as an afterthought, I had already formed an opinion of him before I found out that he used to teach there.

Anywayyy, it appears that someone else who supports Davies and the English Democrats joined the forum to defend him and point out small inaccuracies in the detail of my post, without actually mentioning the ideology of the party. I posted this hoping that people from the forum could discuss it in more general terms, not that supporters of Davies would join specifically to post in defense of him.

Haha, probably anybody who Googles his name plus anything slanderous in this thread will be led directly here.

Thanks, by the way, for clearing up the right-wingedness of the English Democrat party. I was slightly confused by that...but then, the UK sort of has a history of being very right-wing doesn't it? I fear the 60's hippies and the 70's punks made less of an impact on the political spectrum than intended.

But yeah, I have found that it is near pointless to argue with those of extreme right-wing mentality...they will always come up with harsh putdowns to the issue at hand and never see your point of view, no matter how logical it is.

In any case, I believe that all of the services that he is planning to cut out (if he's even able to...seeing as he hasn't done his research) are very important and any steps that he appears to want to take are very much backwards. In the 21st century we must move forward in human rights and social services...especially in a recession. I'm not sure how bad it is there, but I know that for me if women's services and resources for single parents/general minorities were cut out, I'd definitely suffer.

I agree with you though, that English history being used as an opposite of Black history is pretty derogatory! He seems to feel very threatened by the minorities, and I think he should try to learn something from them.

Ohh yes and I tried to listen to the interview you had linked here, and my Canadian ears can't keep up with the fast-pace extreme British accent. Haha there was a related video that was a slow down of the original interview, in an American accent but I couldn't listen to it either, as it was done very monotone-ly. Written transcriptions are lovely. :biggrin:

Thanks for the response. Would you object if I disagreed with you again on a few points?

I would disagree that he used the term "black" as the opposite of the term "English". That would be a complete nonsense. There are many black English people, just as there are many English people of Asian descent. Being English is about being a citizen of England and upholding the traditions, and culture of England. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the colour of of a persons skin.
Mr Davies was simply giving examples of things that money was being spent on, and examples of where he feels the money could be better spent. He did not say that one event was the opposite of the other, but simply that in his opinion one event was a better candidate to receive public money.

The Life in the UK test is actually for those seeking "Indefinite Leave to Remain" in the UK, not citizenship, but let's put that to one side for a moment. I'm not sure I understand your objections to Mr Davies on this point.
I believe he is saying that if there are jobs in the UK it makes sense for them to be filled by the citizens of the country. We have nearly 2.5 million unemployed in the UK. Why should we pay unemployment benefit to these people, and then pay to translate our services into Polish so that Poles can take the vacant jobs in England? No other country in Europe does anything similar to that. I know many people who have worked within the EU and they were expected to learn the languages of the countries they lived in.

It's true that I am a member of the English Democrats although I hold no position within that party, and the views I express here are my own, and should not be taken to be party policy in any way.

I did not join to 'defend' Mr Davies, but simply to point out that you were misquoting him. Thank you for putting that right.
I'm not sure why I would mention "the ideology of the party". I thought this discussion was about the radio interview, not the EDP in general, but if you wish to talk about that I'll gladly discuss it with you if you would like to do that. Is there something there that concerns you?

Haha, probably anybody who Googles his name plus anything slanderous in this thread will be led directly here.

[quote]Thanks, by the way, for clearing up the right-wingedness of the English Democrat party. I was slightly confused by that...but then, the UK sort of has a history of being very right-wing doesn't it? I wouldn't believe everything you are told, the English Democrats are very definitely NOT a right wing party. Would you care to clarify when the UK has history of being very right wing? We have had governments of both the left and the right in the last 50 years. There were good and bad points to all of them.

I agree with you though, that English history being used as an opposite of Black history is pretty derogatory! He did not say that. If you had been able to listen to the interview you would know that. See my comment in my previous post.

Nomdinomnom.

Firstly I haven't listened to the interview, and I probably wont for a while... My brains not working atm, but I wanted to post a bit here and there :)

"
The Life in the UK test is actually for those seeking "Indefinite Leave to Remain" in the UK, not citizenship, but let's put that to one side for a moment. I'm not sure I understand your objections to Mr Davies on this point.
I believe he is saying that if there are jobs in the UK it makes sense for them to be filled by the citizens of the country. We have nearly 2.5 million unemployed in the UK. Why should we pay unemployment benefit to these people, and then pay to translate our services into Polish so that Poles can take the vacant jobs in England? No other country in Europe does anything similar to that. I know many people who have worked within the EU and they were expected to learn the languages of the countries they lived in."

Firstly, the life in the uk test has got many flaws. There are sections of it which I don't even know the answers to living here all of my life. Parts of it are just iffy in general, I understand the need for wanting people to learn the language before they come here as it's obviously a good idea for jobs etc, but parts of the test aren't to do with language at all, parts are historical, and facts etc which yeah. (This is just my experience of it and what my mum has told me as we know of a few people that are going through it.)

Also, these 2.5 million that are unemployed.. You're assuming all of them want to be employed... How would these immigrants be getting the jobs if there wasn't spaces for them. Lots of people just go off the benefits rather than going for the jobs.

I feel that completely cutting translation in hospitals would be silly. It would cause lots of unnecessary stress to hospital staff firstly. (Imagine someone from abroad being given some drugs that they couldn't have and having a very adverse reaction to it because they couldn't tell the staff) And also I thought that's what abroad insurance was about and jazzle. Like when you get ill abroad you can get help. :)

I think that giving money to more english things is probably a good thing, but why not have both, or just not angry minorities in england that are english? I thought pretty much most people in england were apart of one minority or another anyways, as england is supposed to be a diverse and multicultural place... Maybe I'm just talking from my pov because where I live it's verrry diverse. Hmm and the whole black history thing, weren't we like partially responsible for that, going off that we're english kinda thing. Shouldn't we remember these mistakes of the past, like the whole memorials for world wars etc, just because it wasn't such a well um. Big event with bombs and such it was still important.

I don't really remember my exact points anymore so I'll stop. Stupid Jetlag. >.> :) But yeah. I hope that I've been clear enough? :)