Freedom of speech - not with the Tories

**AtW** · 9 March 2007, 12:56

Freedom of speech does not mean you get to keep the job in Govt if your view contradict job spec - you are free to find another job that suits your views.

**Troll** · 9 March 2007, 13:16

I thought Reid was sounding like the BNP in a recent speech

A clampdown has been launched targeting "foreigners [who] come to this country illegitimately and steal our benefits", home secretary John Reid has said.
The plan is to stop illegal immigrants getting housing, healthcare or work.

He said the UK was now "throwing out" record numbers of asylum seekers and he hoped to make life "constrained and uncomfortable" for illegal immigrants.

Mr Reid told BBC Breakfast: "It is unfair that foreigners come to this country illegitimately and steal our benefits, steal our services like the NHS and undermine the minimum wage by working.

"Year on year, we are going to make it even more difficult for them to do that."

And he told BBC Radio Five Live: "We are now throwing out more asylum seekers - failed asylum seekers - than ever before."

- all noise and no action and 10 years too late

**Gibbon** · 9 March 2007, 13:27

Thing is , he's been sacked by people with no relevant Forces experience. What he said wasn't racist and it was certainly true in my time. I've seen both ethnic minorities and women play the racist/sexist card to get lighter duties and punishments.

One of the funniest and well liked guys I knew was a black bloke nicknamed Benson. He gave and took the mick on par with everyone else.

**snaw** · 9 March 2007, 14:01

Seems to me like you're missing the point. It's not about what this guy said, it's about the image the tories have with the electorate, part of which is an association with a relaxed attitude towards racism. That might well go down well on this board but in the real world of the British public, which the inhabitants of this board very much aren't representitive of, it doesn't wash.

Cameron I htink has been very clever here, quickly and quite authoritively stamping down and helping (hoping) to change that image.

Then again the tories can have another 20 years in the wilderness while the party self implodes ...

Freedom of speech - not with the Tories