A letter a day to number 10. No 1,176
Wednesday 12 August 2015.
Dear Mr Cameron,
A friend remarked on Twitter yesterday that she reckoned Priti Patel is going to get a lot of mentions in my letters. I have a feeling she’s right as Patel raises the bar on far right wing bigotry to hitherto unseen heights. I didn’t think anyone could ever outclass Esther McVey but I think Patel is going to make McVey look like Mary Poppins by comparison.
I love a story like this. As Wikipedia tells it, Patel’s parents fled Uganda just prior to Idi Amin’s expulsion of Ugandan Asians and by a sublime twist of fate opened a series of newsagents in my neck of the woods in greater London. In the mid seventies I lived on the outskirts of Uxbridge in Chiltern View Road which was just far enough from the town centre for an Asian run newsagent and general store to run a flourishing business and to be an absolute godsend for the locals. Of course I have no idea if that store was one of the Patel family stores, but it’s well within the realms of possibilities.
Patel grew up enjoying the safety and succour of a nation far from the depredations of Amin and the terrible reality of persecution and death that her parents foresight saved her from. Her life flourished, she was well educated, went to the University of Essex and joined the Conservative Party. After graduating she was snapped up by Andrew Lansley, blah, blah. She later spent time in PR, working closely on a project to limit the damage to British American Tobacco’s reputation that its Burmese investments had caused and lobbied your party on their behalf.
She returned to the party and after a poor start was air lifted into a ‘notionally safe Conservative seat’, the new constituency of Witham in central Essex which she won in 2010. After the 2015 general election she was promoted to cabinet level becoming Minister of State for Employment at the Department for Work and Pensions.
Priti Patel, an A-list right wing Tory, pro the reintroduction of the death sentence, anti same sex marriage, anti prisoner voting, officer of Conservative Friends of Israel, pro bedroom tax, absent for a vote on Human Rights Act 1998 Repeal Bill, pro UK military forces in combat operations overseas and now attack dog for the DWP in the war on the poor who smiles as she delivers her attacks. Not bad for someone who but for luck and good fortune could have ended up in a refugee camp but instead found succour, freedom and fortune in the UK. She says, “Coming from a country where you’re persecuted means that you want to work hard and to contribute to the society where you end up. You become patriotic because you make your new country your home.” She has a hell of a way of showing her gratitude and contributing to society by persecuting the poor.
Stop the war on the poor!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priti_Patel
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/15/priti-patel-tory-rightwinger-promoted-to-treasury
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?id=uk.org.publicwhip/member/41137#divisions
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24778/priti_patel/witham/votes
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/11/david-camerons-new-cabinet-full-lineup
Fear and Loathing in Great Britain 
Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.