Perspective is lost: a race-ing certainty

WCH instinctively doesn't like Tories.

But politics is the loser when anyone saying anything remotely controversial is hounded as a result.

Nigel Hastilow, the Tory PPC for Halesowen and Rowley, has 'resigned' following publication of an article he wrote in a Birmingham newspaper along the lines of 'Enoch was right.'

Pensions Secretary Peter Hain said Hastilow’s comments showed the “racist underbelly of the Tory party”.

It showed nothing of the sort.

WCH gets nervous when politicians reach for the ‘R’ word. Finger-wagging, point-scoring piety invariably follows.

Let’s be clear: Hastilow was trying to tap into the very real resentment in many parts of the country about immigration and the changing nature of British culture. A change, I might add, that has never been signed-off by the electorate.

The entire issue might be sensitive and indeed it might even be inflammatory; but we can’t have entire areas of public policy deemed out-of-bounds. We’re not Iran for God’s sake.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davies called his remarks “very unwise”. Indeed they were. A more elegant appraisal of immigration policy and the effect on our society is, however, certainly needed.

Unfortunately, perspective is always the first casualty of a “race row”.