I've been following the Godfrey Bloom incident with interest.
A few weeks ago Forest was invited to sponsor/support the inaugural meeting of ‘Women in Politics’, a lunchtime event hosted by the EFD group, Godfrey Bloom MEP, members of the Women’s Rights and Equality Committee and UKIP MEP candidate Janice Atkinson.
Date: Friday, 20th September
Time: 1pm
Venue: The Library Bar, Cinnamon Club,
The Old Westminster Library,
30-32 Great Smith St, London SW1P 3BU
Champagne, wine and canapés
I was told:
We want more women in politics and we aim to encourage more able women to step forward.
Any help would be most helpful, particularly as Godfrey Bloom supports your cause and it is supported by the EFD group in Brussels. It is not a UKIP event.
My reply?
I am personally sympathetic to the theme of the event but it would be difficult to justify the use of Forest funds on something that isn't directly related to tobacco and/or lifestyle issues.
Given what happened yesterday I feel that response was more than vindicated!
However much Godfrey Bloom may support our cause, the combination of the outspoken MEP and women's rights didn't seem a particularly good fit.
What were they thinking?!
According to the invitation:
We do not believe in positive discrimination, gender quotas and tokenism, therefore you are cordially invited to bring a man.
Next time, perhaps, they will choose the men they invite a bit more carefully!
Update: My first response when I heard Godfrey's joke and the laughter that accompanied it was that people who weren't at the event were over-reacting to some ribald humour taken out of context.
Unfortunately that's the nature of politics and the modern media. You have to be so careful at all times.
Godfrey then exacerbated the situation with his crass response to Channel 4's Michael Crick who questioned him about a different issue - the absence of black faces on the UKIP conference brochure.
His subsequent interview with Newsnight's Allegra Stratton didn't help either.
When you're in a hole stop digging. No wonder Nigel Farage was in such despair last night.
They say a week is a long time in politics. Yesterday the positive impact of Nigel's speech in the conference hall was undone in the space of just two hours.
That's some achievement.
Update: Godfrey Bloom: Defending the Indefensible (A Brief Encounter). Worth reading.