A new breed of mayor has arrived – as Peter Davies turns the tide of political correctness in Doncaster. The controversial new mayor of the South Yorkshire town has not only withdrawn council funding for Gay Pride celebrations but has also pledged to stamp out a plethora of other money-wasting politically-correct local government policies.
Life Bite By Andrew Halloway
A new breed of mayor has arrived – as Peter Davies turns the tide of political correctness in Doncaster.
The controversial new mayor of the South Yorkshire town has not only withdrawn council funding for Gay Pride celebrations but has also pledged to stamp out a plethora of other money-wasting politically-correct local government policies.
Davies, a retired headmaster who gained election as an English Democrat, couldn’t prevent this year’s Gay Pride event as the money had already been committed. But he’s cancelled all future payments, saying: “I’m not a homophobe, but I don’t see why council taxpayers should pay to celebrate anyone’s sexuality.”
Quite. If true equality meant anything to the PC lobby, Straight Pride events would also have to be funded by councils.
Davies is only the second mayor of Doncaster to have been elected directly by the public instead of by other councillors, and he won on a populist platform. Now in power, he is consulting the Campaign Against Political Correctness on how to implement reforms. CAPC’s John Midgley says “people are crying out” for someone to stand up against the madness of political correctness in this country, and Davies fits the bill. An ICM survey for CAPC found that “80 per cent of people are fed up to the back teeth with it.”
But it’s already clear that Downing Street could learn a thing or two from Davies if it really wants to cut public spending to pay back the billions we now owe as a country. Unlike the expenses scandal-ridden national politicians, in his first week in office Davies cut his own salary from £73,000 to £30,000, sold the mayoral limousine, and reduced the number of councillors from 63 to 21 – that alone saved the town £800,000 a year. As he says: “If Pittsburgh can manage with nine councillors, why do we need 63?” He’s also ended the ‘twinning’ of Doncaster with five foreign towns, which he saw as just an excuse for councillors to enjoy trips around the world at council expense.
He aims to cut council tax by three per cent, and to do so is wielding his axe at other “politically correct initiatives” and “politically correct non-jobs” such as “community cohesion officers” – encouraging them to get real jobs! He has refused to fund council translation services in order to encourage people to learn English instead. And he has scrapped the word ‘diversity’ from his list of cabinet portfolios – music to the ears of many ordinary people! Such steps are easy for his enemies to criticise as racism, sexism, homophobism or some other ‘ism’, but Davies seems to have clear thinking behind such moves, rather than just a knee-jerk anti-PC instinct.
He says: “Going on about diversity causes racial tension; it doesn’t improve it. The Government has just admitted that gipsies should be given special treatment and that only makes people angry. I want every citizen of Doncaster to be equal.”
And that means treating everyone equally (once the banner of true socialism) rather than treating minorities of every kind as victims or special cases that need money throwing at them.
As you might expect from a teacher of long experience, Davies has also called for more severe punishments for “young thugs” who commit violent crime. As a founding member of the Campaign for Real Education, Davies believes in traditional methods of teaching and discipline in schools – and says reforming schools will begin to turn the tide of teenage crime.
Flying in the face of all the major parties, Davies is both anti-EU and anti-global warming hysteria. He wants Britain to exit the European Union “in order to save billions of pounds each year and return control of the country’s affairs to our own parliament” and criticises climate change policies as “green claptrap”.
As the Daily Mail reports, “He must be the only mayor in Britain who wants more traffic in his town. He says it will boost business and has just announced plans for more parking spaces and an end to bus-only routes.”
While that might not be good news for congestion and town-centre pollution, the very idea of more parking spaces and the freedom to drive in bus lanes would gladden the heart of every driver in the UK!
The Daily Mail has taken this local hero to heart because he has shocked “most of Westminster and the entire Government.” Daily Telegraph blogger Gerald Warner has also sung his praises, calling Davies “the beginning of the end for political correctness” and a sign that “the counter-revolution has begun”. Warner writes that Davies’ campaign goes “against all the tenets of consensual British politics” because it “consists of doing what the public wants”.
Davies has moved from Labourite to Tory to UKIP to English Democrat. Quite a journey. Consequently he has been accused of political opportunism, due to his populist approach. But that would be to misunderstand a very principled man who left the Labour, Conservative and UKIP parties because they changed – not him. His beliefs seem to have remained consistent over the years, like the Yorkshire granite beneath his feet.
No-one will agree with all his policies – you can’t please all of the people all of the time – but what a breath of fresh air! I don’t know if Davies has really started a counter-revolution or if his glorious reign is just the last stand for common sense in Britain. But I do know his values stem from this country’s Judaeo-Christian heritage. He describes himself as a non-practising Anglican, taught RE for 30 years and hails from the generation that understood what words like reverence, respect and duty actually meant.
Is Davies the last of a dying breed, or can his Yorkshire grit begin to wear away at the seemingly immovable object of political correctness in national life? As the Mail says, “If a man well to the right of the Tory leadership can capture a socialist pit town on Arthur Scargill’s doorstep, anything is possible.”
Only time will tell. But I think he deserves our prayers.
Tags: Politics