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Mayor calls in the anti-PC hit squad
ELECTED mayor Peter Davies has stepped up his war on "political correctness", with council services for women and ethnic minorities facing the axe.
Co-founders of the Campaign Against Political Correctness (CAPC), husband and wife duo John and Laura Midgley, have been brought in as advisors to Mr Davies, whose election manifesto promised an end to "politically correct non-jobs".
Mr Davies said that the pair, who will not be paid for their advice, were "experts on the subject" and would be invited to Doncaster regularly in the coming months.
He added: "Political correctness is a complete drain on public expenditure. It is completely unnecessary, and it is universally unpopular."
But political opponents say the move shows that Mr Davies is an "armchair politician" who had not thought through his policies before getting elected.
The CAPC, set up in 2004, has never before been asked to advise a political leader although it has worked with individual councillors in other local authorities.
Mr Midgley said: "What we have got in Mayor Davies is a mayor who has been elected on a platform to reduce and eliminate political correctness in Doncaster. People are crying out for it."
"What we are here to do is to look at the sorts of institutional PC that Doncaster has, and where possible to assist the mayor in providing advice on where PC can be cut."
When asked for examples of "PC" services that could be cut in the town, Mr Midgley said: "Doncaster has an ethnic minorities welfare rights service.
"At the end of the day people of all backgrounds may have an entitlement to benefits, there is no need to have a unit that serves one section of the community above all others. The reality is there are employees who deal with benefits advice for everybody.
"This is the sort of divide and rule politics that is outdated, not only in Doncaster but in the country as a whole."
But leader of the council's Liberal Democrats, Paul Coddington, said: "There are people who live in our communities who don't have English and they need advice. I agree that we should be helping them to learn English but meanwhile they do need support."
"I am amused by all this, really. Any armchair politician could have come in and said let's do this, let's do that, let's get rid of political correctness. What's gone wrong here is the armchair politician has been elected and now he has to actually deliver.
"I'm very pleased, in a way, that he's actually now doing some research into these matters. If he had researched the issues properly before making his election promises he would have realised that a lot of them can't be done."
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Weather for Doncaster
Friday 25 May 2012
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