Former Tory minister, Adrian Burley MP was sacked by David Cameron after it emerged that he had attended a Stag night, in which some guests had dressed up as Nazis. He had not dressed as a Nazi himself, and apologised – but was rightly sacked.
Imagine what his fate would have been if he had gone a step further, and expressed the view that the Nazis had been unjustly maligned by a British plot to blacken their name. Imagine that he had done so, in a middle of a war in which British soldiers were being killed by Nazis.
So, here’s the latest from Labour’s Lord Ahmed:
Lord Ahmed said he believed Malala Yousafzai, who is awaiting reconstructive surgery at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, could have been shot as part of a plot to discredit the Taliban.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for trying to kill the schoolgirl, who was shot in the head at point blank range, on the day of the shooting and later said it would try again.
But Lord Ahmed told the meeting in Willesden, North London the following evening that he believed the young girl may have been shot as an excuse to launch a military assault in the Taliban stronghold of Waziristan.
He claimed similar incidents had happened in London and compared the crime to Jimmy Savile’s sex assaults, during a speech at a community meeting in North London.
Stunning. Just stunning. And here’s his row-back:
Lord Ahmed said he had made the comments before the full facts were clear.
“If I said that, that’s what I said, although I never mentioned the government of Pakistan,” he added.
“This is not a British matter, it’s a Pakistani matter, she is a Pakistani girl and I was repeating opinions which had been expressed in the Pakistani parliament.
“On this particular day, I had no idea what happened. Three or four days later when the facts were clear I made a speech at the Pakistan Press Club condemning the Taliban.”
I’m sorry – it just isn’t good enough. Lord Ahmed has a track record of allying himself with the most extreme of Islamist political parties and championing their causes. A simple browse through the archives of Harry’s Place will bring up only a small fraction of these events.
What’s the concern here? That if Lord Ahmed is expelled, finally and permanently, from the Labour Party, that he will become a RESPECT peer? I am certain he would. But in that case, at least he won’t be besmirching Labour’s reputation. Yes, sure, to some extent it will shine a spotlight on the judgement that Ahmed be ennobled in the first place, and indeed the absurdity of the House of Lords system in general, which renders man such as this a legislator for life. But at least he’ll clearly be the fringe character that he is, and will be unable to harm Labour further.
To fail to do so is a sign of weakness.
