Friday 22 April 2016

Agenda? What agenda?


Peter Whittle, UKIP

When the BBC chooses an angle on a story they can stick to it tenaciously. 

Here's another example of something we discussed yesterday, from this morning's Today (just before 7 o'clock):
Sarah Montague: A quick final word please on the tone of the campaign so far. 
Peter Whittle (UKIP London mayoral candidate): Yes? 
Sarah Montague: Here you are, the UKIP candidate...I think you're third in the polls, ahead of the Liberal Democrats.  
Peter Whittle: We are indeed. Yes. 
Sarah Montague: The accusations of racism are between...There have been accusations of racism levelled at...erm...actually at the Prime Minister as a result of comments he made about the Labour candidate. How do...what's your reflections? 
Peter Whittle: Well, I don't think it's a question of racism at all. I think that's a way of shutting down debate. I think the point is that, obviously, Sadiq Khan has got questions to answer about the people he's shared platforms with but, unfortunately, you know, with Zak, there's no point in putting forward accusations and then essentially taking them back. And I think this has been a very important thing to bring up. I'm far more concerned, if you like, when it comes to Sadiq Khan that until very recently he was employing somebody who talked about "the faggots" - and I say that as a gay man - and... 
Sarah Montague (interrupting): Peter Whittle. We must leave it there. 
Peter Whittle: OK. All right. Thank you.  
Sarah Montague: Full list as usual on the website. Thank you very much.
The campaign aide of Sadiq Khan's who Mr. Whittle was referring to was Shueb Salar. 

His tweets (another of which, apparently, said that the right way to “treat a lady” is “buy her a nice iron and extend the kitchen for her”) resulted in his resignation last month.

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