I only mentioned Nigel Hastilow yesterday and he crops up on the front page of today’s Observer under the headline “‘Enoch was right” claim sparks Tory race row.” I’m afraid that the article in Express and Star where he made the claim is not online and I haven’t got a copy of last week’s editions to hand, but I can point you to another thing that Mr Hastilow has published.
He has enabled comments moderation on his site. This is a perfectly reasonable thing for him to do. Most political bloggers have some form of control over what goes into the comments section of their blogs. I do it to screen out libel, nazis, people off their heads and those who are just getting a bit too loud and aggressive.
So he must have made a conscious decision and pressed the “publish” button to allow the anonymous person who left a comment to THIS POST. The commenter said:
This is a link to a pdf containing the racist remark: nigelhastilowcomment.pdf
I don’t know of a single political blogger who would have allowed such a disgusting remark in the comments section of their site. Not even Guido Fawkes. I’m pretty certain that’s the case. Other Tory bloggers in the Midlands do not allow such hatred.
Iain Dale defended Hastilow’s position on the BBC but he was clearly not impressed and I’m certain he has not read the comments section of his blog. If he had, I know he would have taken a stronger line against him.
I thought long and hard about reproducing the comments over here and to be honest, I’m still in two minds about it. But Hastilow has to answer for his actions. His behaviour cannot be ignored. UPDATE: 5 minutes after publishing, I couldn’t live with the words on the site. You’ll see above that I’ve linked to a pdf of the comments section of Mr Hastilow’s blog. Be warned – they’re deeply offensive.
UPDATE 2: Hastilow resigns but Ben Brogan explains that there may be trouble ahead.
UPDATE 3: Many anonymous commentors have given messages of support on Mr Hastilow’s site. I think I know where all this is going.
5 comments ↓
If I were a conspiracy theorist (which I’m not) I’d suggest that Mr Hastilow has been put up to this. He hasn’t really a hope of winning in Halesowen and Rowley Regis it would seem and, by giving David Cameron a chance to act tough and stamp on him, he’s perhaps sacrificing his own political career for the greater good of his party. But I’d have to admit that it doesn’t sound all that likely.
Fifteen years ago a little further south, down here in Cheltenham, a nasty streak of racism just below the smooth surface of quite a few Tory activists was exposed when John Taylor was selected (or imposed as many of them said at the time) as their candidate in this marginal seat. The LibDems won and have clung onto the seat ever since. 1992 is the closest I’ve ever come to voting tactically for the Tories!
A conspiracy theory around that little bit of nastiness is that the then Tory hierarchy didn’t want a bright black barrister on their benches and so sent him here knowing that it was going to be a tricky seat given that Charles Irving had had such a large personal vote and that the LibDem candidate was a well known county councillor. Perhaps I should become a conspiracy theorist – do you know of any way of making money out of the art?
I am not a political animal. I don’t endorse Mr Hastilow, or any other politician or party. I view politicians generally with a healthy contempt. I don’t know of a single politician whos views represent mine. BUT – I become increasingly disturbed that anyone who has the nerve to even discuss the issue of immigration in anything less than a positive light, is a racist!
Will Mary Docker(Con Balckheath) be following the candidate she fully supported in todays Observer?
A by election in Blackheath as well as Princes End on Dec 6th ?
was there not a”river of blood” on 7/7? why should we ignore it? How many times in the last 300 years have british citizens turned on their own people and slaughtered them ? that’s what immigration brought us!
Thank you for pointing out that racist remark. I will remove it as soon as I can . You should note that only three months ago was moderation kintroduced to the site. Until then I believed it right to allow freedom. Of expression. I fully accept that in this c ase I was wrong and made an unacceptable mistake. It’s only
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