Also: it is a really BAD idea to suggest that people with mental health difficulties wear special signs.
I get the feeling I shall need to repeat that point several times so this article is not misunderstood.
The Independent, when it is not teaming up with Buzzfeed or patting itself on the back for producing the 'first quality tabloid', has a self-image of being a serious newspaper. When I read the headline about Chamali Fernando saying that people with mental health problems should wear special wristbands, I thought it was going to be a horrible example of a Conservative Candidate revealing one of the party's nasty, stupid policies.
Apparently, there is a petition to get her to stand down from her candidacy, and when the article comes up on my Facebook feed, another 'suggested link' is the Wikipedia page about the various symbols that the Nazis made people wear.
I am currently reading Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell them. Although Franken keeps saying he is a comedian, it is a serious book about how politics in the USA during the early twenty-first century became aggressively bi-partisan, thanks to the Republicans and their buddies in the media. The personal attack replaced the argument about policy, with some disgusting comparisons drawn between Democratic senators and terrorists in TV adverts, and talk show hosts making shit up and saying it's a fact.
Just a reminder: I dislike the Conservative Party because its policies appeal to a model of economics that does not work to the advantage of the weakest in society. And because they have shown, in the last five years, that they would rather sell off parts of the infrastructure for a short term profit than look at how this infrastructure could support public spending.
However, Fernando was not stating Tory policy: she was making an off-the-cuff response to a question about how best to help people with mental health problems. Her answer was stupid - the stigma attached to mental health problems ensures that nobody wants to be walking about with a visible symbol of their own problems. It revealed a naive trust in the police's willingness to respect individuals just because they have health issues, and was ignorant of the prejudice faced by those who experience them.
Inevitably, there is a petition on data-gathering site Change.org, with a series of comments comparing her to the Nazis. Goodwin's Law is clearly not well known enough in some parts of the internet.
As usual, I'll give my chat about freedom of speech, and how it's not consistent to ban people if they say things that are unseemly and then expect your own opinions to be accepted at face value.
But I believe that there is something less obvious here: Fernando's gaffe is being used as a way to attack her by anti-conservatives, blowing the incident out of proportion.
It's not like the Tories don't have plenty of obnoxious policies that could be challenged: how about this one, as mentioned on www.disabilityrightsuk.org.
Scrap the Human Rights Act, and introduce a British Bill of Rights.
That is an actual policy. Not a silly remark at a hustings by a candidate who does not have a realistic hope of winning the election. A remark which, in a rare coincidence of concern, has been condemned by both The Daily Star and Cambridge University Conservative Association. The Daily Star having been noted for its sympathy for people with mental health difficulties.
Just a reminder: I dislike the Conservative Party because its policies appeal to a model of economics that does not work to the advantage of the weakest in society.
I have said a great deal here that could be construed as a defense of Fernando. It isn't. It is a rejection of the way that the remark has been treated, and the campaign to have her stand down. I think it distracts from more serious issues, reveals a defensive attitude that can't abide difference of opinion - and I think her idea is stupid - and betrays a lack of confidence in democracy, turning to media sensationalism and that bloody change.org instead of active campaigning.
This reads like one of the dirty tricks that the Republicans get up in Franken's book. They are not good role models.
Also: it is a really BAD idea to suggest that people with mental health difficulties wear special signs.
I'll just leave with two final thoughts. This discussion has inspired me to find the particular direction my future political blog posts will go: I am going to look at how the parties are treating mental health issues. I get very angry at theatre's consistent failure to represent mental illness on stage, except as a plot device. I might try getting angry about politicians using it as a political football.
Secondly, George Galloway has been up to some unsavoury antics again. There is, of course, a petition against him on change.org, with twice as many signatures as the one against Fernando. Of course, it is not for suggesting that his rival candidate in the election was lying about forced marriage...
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