Thread by @docrussjackson

A short #THREAD on some of the controversies surrounding Tory MP, Ben Bradley.

Bradley attracted criticism for a 2012 blog post in which he wrote of a "vast sea of unemployed wasters", who he suggested should have vasectomies in order to stop them having multiple children.

In 2016 Bradley was forced to apologise for having written "For once, I think police brutality should be encouraged!" in 2011, three days after Mark Duggan was killed by the Metropolitan Police, an event which led to the 2011 riots in London and other English cities.

In 2018 Bradley was further criticised for a 2011 blog post titled "Public sector workers: they don't know they're born!", in which he suggested that public sector workers should find alternative employment if they are unhappy with low pay or deteriorating working conditions.

In 2016, Bradley claimed Ashfield District Council had spent £17,000 paying an Indian company to call local residents from a call centre in Mumbai.

Contacted by a local journalists, he said: "I admit the post about using an Indian call centre was untrue & I took it down."

Whilst working for the Conservative MP Mark Spencer, both Bradley & Spencer were criticised in 2017 by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for misusing taxpayers' resources, such as the MP's newsletter, to link to "overtly party-political content".

In 2018, Bradley falsely accused Jeremy Corbyn of having "sold British secrets to communist spies" in the 80s. Corbyn responded & Bradley deleted the tweet, issued a full apology, agreed to make a substantial donation to a charity of Corbyn's choice & paid Corbyn's legal costs.

A spokesman for Corbyn stated that the donation would be split between a homeless charity & a food bank, in Bradley's constituency of Mansfield.

Two Conservative Party donors - David Brownlow & Sir Mick Davis - paid the £15,000 donation to the charities on behalf of Bradley.

Emails sent by Ben Bradley in 2016 revealed Bradley had berated a local journalist, & threatened to cut off media access to the local Tory party, after revealing Bradley vociferously defended a Tory councillor sharing Facebook memes mocking Muslims & disabled benefits claimants.

This was in response to the journalist approaching Bradley for a comment on the series of Islamophobic & disablist posts made on a Tory councillor's Facebook page.

Bradley's response accused the journalist of 'childish backstabbing', described the Islamophobia story as 'crap'.

On 23 October 2020, Bradley said that free school meal vouchers for deprived children in his constituency effectively handed cash directly to crack dens & brothels. His comments were criticised by many schools, food banks & anti-child poverty charities in Bradley's constituency.

Tulip Siddiq write to the co-chairwoman of the Conservative Party: "I am sure that you will want to make clear that this kind of crass stigmatisation of children from poorer families is deeply damaging, and distance yourself from Mr Bradley's misleading and troubling comments".

Bradley signed the hard-right 'Common Sense Group''s letter accusing the @nationaltrust of being "coloured by cultural Marxist dogma".

"Cultural Marxism" is the debunked, hateful, & divisive antisemitic conspiracy theory that inspired far-right terrorist Anders Breivik.

On 2nd February 2022, it was revealed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority that Ben Bradley's total Business costs for the 2020/21 financial year were £212,299 - more than the £209,859 the previous year - & more than £10,000 above the average for all MPs.

Draw your own conclusions about the kind of people the Tory Party values. Imho, there should be no place for the dangerously irresponsible rhetoric used by Ben Bradley, who is Chair of the troubling right-wing populist group, 'Blue Collar @Conservatives'.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1464272593314148352?s=20&t=HY6e2WkCKgH3O8Ced6DjRQ