On last night’s show, Rachel pointed out (video) that as an audience member watching the wild Mary Poppins-meets-the-Sex-Pistols Olympic opening ceremony, Mitt Romney was forced to endure a singing, dancing celebration of the National Health Service a.k.a Romneycare. Awkward.
Turns out, the NHS tribute also left some English conservatives with knickers atwist. Aidan Burley, Conservative Member of Parliament for Cannock Chase was so incensed by universal health care that he dashed off the dodgy tweets pictured at right. “Leftie multi-cultural crap.” Nice.
Cue: outrage. Prime Minister David Cameron called his remarks “idiotic.” London’s excitable mayor, Boris Johnson, who upbraided Mr. Romney just a few days ago for questioning London’s readiness to host the Games now had a go at Mr. Burley, saying, “People say it was all leftie stuff. That is nonsense. I’m a Conservative and I had hot tears of patriotic pride from the beginning.”
Faced with hot tears of patriotic pride, Mr. Burley is trying to walk it back saying, “We all love the NHS but really for all the people watching overseas, 20 minutes of children and nurses jumping on beds, that seems quite strange. And then we had all these rappers — that is what got me to the point about multi-culturalism.”
For the record, there was only one rapper in the performance, Dizzee Rascal, who grew up in East London, not far from where the Opening Ceremony took place. You know, multi-cultural. Finally, there’s this little anecdote from The Birmingham Post: “Mr. Burley was touted as a Tory rising star when he won Cannock Chase seat in 2010 with a huge swing from Labour. However, he lost his job as a parliamentary private secretary when details emerged of a stag do he attended in the skiing resort of Val Thorens last December. One guest was alleged to have dressed in an SS uniform while others were said to have chanted Nazi slogans. Mr. Burley, who is being investigated by French police over the incident, has repeatedly apologized for being present at the event but denied behaving badly himself or breaking the law.” Conservatives elected in 2010 saying outrageous things and refusing to apologize. Now that is multi-cultural.
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