This makes pretty disappointing viewing:
https://twitter.com/mrpaulstott/status/1006820525514076160?s=21
Here’s a bit more about @DavidKurtenAM, whose speech was cut short by the protesters (before the police shut the whole event down due to the mob outside)
More here: https://www.davidkurten.net/collection
I am not a UKIP voter but I cannot bear to see this gentleman get treated so appallingly by the hypocritical thugs of the hard left.
“Thugs”
Nothing to do with Corbyn or, in fact, labour at all.
I for one am in agreement. David Kurten should have been given his time on stage and the opportunity to respond to questions from the audience, themselves who had the right to ask them. The loud booing from the audience was the right response.
Alongside Kurten’s exemplary work with school kids on science, the audience missed out the opportunity to hear and question Kurten’s views on homosexuality as well as his belief that UKIP remains the only political party to stand up for Judaeo-Christian values and “traditional” marriage and “traditional” families.
Looks like more far left scum to me - The Far left and far right are all as bad as each other.
Does it? Based on what? And I don’t think scum is really appropriate to use here, do you?
Heavy “Stand Up To Racism” presence - an organisation which commenters on both the Left and Right have identified as a front for the Socialist Workers Party
Socialist workers party I can believe yes but that has nothing to do with Labour…
Was referring to the chap outside screaming abuse in the guys face - point taken on momentum bit tho so ive edited.
Without even looking at the content, this is yet another example of what appears to be political propaganda in disguise in this forum - following the reoccurring pattern of aiming to say “left=bad, right=good”, fuelled by tabloid-esk headlines. On this occasion, it doesn’t even fall short of standing up for an individual who suggests homosexuality is linked to child abuse.
If this was an opinion blog I wouldn’t mind it so much but I’m not sure it should (repeatedly) take such a prominent place in what aspires to be a forum for the local community.
Perhaps take a look at the context - and you’ll see that it’s entirely fair and factual to report that this event was disrupted by hard-left activists.
And likewise it was factual to report that a Conservative councillor candidate was suspended for anti-Islam statements earlier on this forum (our posts in #local-politics have reported on many angles of local politics, not just anti-Left angles).
I make no secret of the fact I dislike Labour/Left politics. Conversely, most other prominent members of the forum are pro-Labour. So there is a balance.
Forums are places where viewpoints across the political spectrum can be expressed - and here, they are.
Coudn’t agree more. I appreciate this forum as a great community asset, but leave political bias out of it. It crops up far too often 
I’m interested in this notion of “bias”
So how would you have reported what happened to this hustings?
Or perhaps it should be brushed under the carpet?
Agreed. I rarely look at this forum anymore as it’s just a political mouthpiece for an agenda it seems. A pity as I enjoyed the local info.
No at all. It’s a perfectly valid sory to share. For the record I’m not one bit in support of the portestors actions.
Bias could be interpreted in the headline, the sources from which David Kurten’s biog has been selected and the tweets selected in support of him. (As a UKIP member many would consider him a ‘hard-rightist’ but there’s no mention of this). Also, this is not an isolated type of post as others have mentioned, which compounds the bias in my opinion.
As mentioned I’m a great fan of this forum and it largely works well (a smashing job) but to be so aware of its founder’s strong political standing could alienate some members. I hope you appreciate I’m trying to be constructive.
Fair comments - but we are all free to post whatever take we like on these events.
We could focus on painting Kurten as a “far-right” person (which IMO, having met the man, would be a gross mischaracterisation) - but that would hardly be fair in the context of these events where he was shouted down by a white women who claimed he was racist.
There may be other opportunities you could take for attacking Kurten’s character - but in the context of last night, the real story here is the behaviour of the protesters, surely?
While definitely an event of local interest, I might not have chosen to quote this story directly from the far right website ‘Westmonster’, where the headline and video for this thread appears to have originated. The story in Westmonster, understandably for an extreme right viewpoint, placed the blame on ‘left wing thugs’ because it would play to their usual narrative and appeal to their readers.
from a different perspective, the story published by local media was that the disruption was by anti racism protesters, whose aimed to deny a platform (yes , I know…) to a well known extremist and alleged racist who planned to speak at the hustings, and who both Conservative and Labour candidates found themselves unwilling or unavailable to share a platform with.
The anti racist organisation in question presented the story thus:-
http://www.standuptoracism.org.uk/far-right-anne-marie-waters-for-britain-stopped-by-anti-racists-in-lewisham/
So just to be clear, you’re criticising what you imagine to be my sources (incidentally, I did not quote this story from Westmonster - the video was on Twitter), but you’ll post an article whose rhetoric includes:
Due to the threat of violence from these alleged “anti fascist” protesters, Anne Marie Waters had already withdrawn from the event. So there is little justification for them to disrupt it as they did, causing it to be shut down. It was a peaceful event. Kurten was not preaching hate. I notice the woman who stormed the event actually singled out the Lib Dem candidate for abuse too. Completely unacceptable IMO.
I advise everyone to watch the video of proceedings rather than judging based on the rhetoric from either side.
apologies - I spent a minute looking for the source and Westmonster popped up immediately- guess it found its way onto Twitter too.