DUP new recruit Kamble says sorry for tweeting that royals should ‘go andfindarealjob’
ONE of the DUP’s newest councillors says she “regrets” a tweet in which she described the royal family as a “very expensive burden” on taxpayers and called for them to “go and find a real job in a real jobmarket”.
After initially denying that she had written the comment, former Alliance Party member Vasundhara Kamble — whose defection to the DUP was unveiled at last Saturday’s party conference — told the Belfast Telegraph that she wanted to withdraw the remark.
The tweets were still publicly available to view on her Twitter feed after Ms Kamble joined the DUP.
The tweet stated: “Best article. The Royal family is a very expensive burden upon us taxpayers. Let them go and find a real job in a real jobmarket like us.”
Pictures of Ms Kamble from Saturday’s DUP conference at La Mon Hotel show her standing between party leader Arlene Foster and her deputy Nigel Dodds MP.
The Lisburn and Castlereagh representative told this newspaper that she had been on a “personal journey” after 2011, when the royal family tweet was posted, which had caused her to change her views.
“I understand that the DUP is very staunchly royalist, and after 2011 my personal journey was very different and I don’t have any regrets regarding joining the DUP,” she said.
“It’s nothing to do with ideological conflict.”
However, Ms Kamble said she was standing by a tweet promoting a petition seeking the repeal of last week’s government decision to exclude animal sentience from the EU Withdrawal Bill.
Her new DUP colleagues had voted in favour of this, alongside the Conservatives.
The tweet was posted last Friday, the day before her membership of the DUP was made public.
Defending her stance, she stated: “The legacy Castlereagh council had an anti-animal cruelty motion that the whole council supported over the appalling way breeders were treating animals.
“It was up to individual people to support.
“The DUP on the mainland UK are supporting the Tory government, but my personal experience is of the issue in the Castlereagh legacy council.”
Ms Kamble also said she was standing by a pair of 2013 tweets calling for former Tory leader and former Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to “live on fifty three quids a week”.
At the time, Mr Duncan Smith had claimed that he could live on £53 a week in benefits.
Ms Kamble tweeted a link to a petition to the Department of Work and Pensions challenging Iain Duncan Smith to live on the sum along with the caption: “Hey there @dwppressoffice how much has IDS spent today?”
Another tweet the following month states: “Victory! IDS’s use of stats: he should face a good grilling and he should be made to live on fifty three quids a week for several years.”
Yesterday, Ms Kamble told this newspaper that her opinion remained the same. She stated: “That was my opinion at that time and I stand by that — I haven’t changed my opinion.
“The DUP are working for the under-privileged in Northern Ireland.”
Ms Kamble added that she was “not a great politician to answer these questions”.
Since news of her appointment was released at the weekend, Ms Kamble has been the subject of racist remarks which have since been reported to the PSNI.
Yesterday, she said that she was “happy” to have joined the party and had received a “very warm welcome.”
No response had been received from the DUP at the time of going to press.
Ms Kamble, who came to Northern Ireland from India in 1995, quit Alliance in January amid allegations of ageism and racism — claims the party strongly denies.
Despite serving as an elected representative for six years, she said at the time that she had “never felt welcome in the party”.
In a post on the Alliance Party Activists and Volunteers’ group, party leader Naomi Long subsequently referred to Ms Kamble and former Alliance councillor Geraldine Rice, who resigned at the same time, as “complete balloons”.