Tsar Eric Pickles: tough on multiculturalism, tough on the causes of multiculturalism

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/06/tsar-eric-pickles-tsar-multiculturalism-tories-tower-hamlets

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By far the best argument for Eric Pickles when he had a career in front-line politics was that he lifted the curtain. Other Tories clothed ideologies in light suppressing material. Eric loved daylight and the megaphone.

Now out of the government, he has been exiled from the department for communities and local government with a knighthood to the eerie realm of tsardom. Pickles is the government’s new anti-corruption tsar and he is exercised about the sanctity of our voting system, notably the terrible excesses that occurred in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. Its previous mayor, Lutfur Rahman, was ousted by a judge amid claims of election fraud. A terrible stain on our democracy, it was. Why did it happen? Pickles reveals all to the Spectator.

“What appears to have happened in Tower Hamlets is similar to what happened in Rotherham in the sense that, as with sexual exploitation, people just turned a blind eye because they were worried about community cohesion,” he says. Was multiculturalism to blame, the Speccie asks him? “Yes, of course,” says Eric.

Not sharp practice. Not over-zealousness or chicanery. Not straightforward malfeasance. The problem was multiculturalism. Those pesky Muslims with their mafiosi-style culturally exclusive practices and their fellow travellers. Even the ones who couldn’t bear Rahman and opposed him from the start.

Tough on multiculturalism, tough on the causes of multiculturalism, that’s Tsar Eric and he’s going to clean up this town. First in his sights: the Electoral Commission, which, he says, should have seen what multiculturalism was doing to democracy in Tower Hamlets and stopped it. Then the police, who failed to arrest any multicultural criminals.

But you do wonder whether Tsar Eric is sending the posse in the right direction. Tower Hamlets was a disgrace, but it is just one borough. In the meantime, a ministerial wheeze to purge “ghost voters” and “clean up” the electoral register across the country seems likely to remove 2 million voters, impacting most of all young people, minorities and those from more socially deprived communities – all less likely to vote Conservative.

Here’s a pressing cause for Tsar Eric. I’m sure he’ll get right onto it. Then there’s that other largely homogenous group, of similar background and culture, who often live and vote together to sectional advantage – he must do something about middle England.