FRAMED BY THE THOUGHT POLICE
Now give sacked adviser his job back, say MPs
MINISTERS are coming under growing pressure from a powerful alliance of Tory MPs to reinstate a Government adviser they say was ‘stitched up’ during a magazine interview in which he was accused of making racist slurs.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith is leading calls for Sir Roger Scruton to be given back his job as a housing adviser after the release of a tape of his interview with the New Statesman that casts strong doubt on claims he made Islamophobic and anti-Semitic remarks and offensive comments about the Chinese.
Mr Duncan Smith, who is backed by MPs on both Left and Right wings of the party, including Sir Nicholas Soames, Zac Goldsmith and James Gray, said last night: ‘Roger Scruton is a decent man and a sincere philosopher who believes in discussing issues. What was done to him was appalling.
‘The Government should apologise and then commit to two things – one, offer him his job back, but he probably doesn’t want it, and two, say we are never going to react like this to biased Twitter storms. And in future we will operate only on evidence.’
Their demand comes as The Mail on Sunday has learned that the author of the article, George Eaton, has been accused by senior figures in the magazine of attempting to mount a ‘ Corbynista coup’ to take over the editorship from Jason Cowley and steer its political direction harder to the Left.
Sir Roger complains that he was abandoned by the Government and Tory MPs based on misrepresentations of his remarks about China, which Mr Eaton published on Twitter, although he has conceded his description of ‘huge tribes of Muslims from the Middle East’ was ‘not a very good phrase’ when taken out of context.
The 75-year-old complained that he had faced the ‘complete destruction of my career and identity and personality’ and described it as ‘a witch-hunt of people on the Right’.
After a tape of his interview was leaked to The Spectator magazine, Sir Roger said he has been vindicated in his claim that his remarks were misrepresented. In an article for today’s Mail on Sunday, see opposite, Sir Roger says he ‘fell into a trap’ in the interview: ‘I was forced to flounder in a morass of accusations, without proof of my innocence… the Conservative Party has not regarded me as an asset worth defending.’
Mr Eaton has admitted that he truncated some of Sir Roger’s remarks on Twitter posts but stands by his article as a whole. He has also deleted a crass Instagram post showing him celebrating Sir Roger’s dismissal by drinking from a bottle of champagne, accompanied by the caption: ‘The feeling when you get Right-wing racist and homophobe Roger Scruton sacked as a Tory government adviser.’
The MPs say Sir Roger should be immediately reinstated to his job at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as the chair of a Government commission devoted to ‘beauty in building’.
Mr Goldsmith said: ‘Roger Scruton was stitched up by the New Statesman in a way that covers the journalist and magazine in shame. No thinking person will ever take that magazine seriously again. The fact that the Government also caved in within hours is a sign of its own weakness and uncertainty. Sc rut on deserves a full apology at the very least, and in a fair world he would get his job back.’
The row has exposed deep divisions at the New Statesman, which is traditionally a magazine for moderate, centre- Left Labour supporters.
Sources claim Mr Eaton has been trying to steer it in a more pro-Corbyn direction – and had hoped to line himself up for the editorship by using the interview to gain a reputation as a ‘hitman of the Left’.
It is understood the magazine’ s editorial board has been taking evidence on the row – and whether it is a sign of an attempted Corbynista coup.
Last night, an industry source said: ‘George was shunted up to deputy editor in name only because they wanted to bring in a new political editor, but the title went to his head. He was key to hiring a load of Left-wing children who just want to go on TV and spout Labour attack lines about austerity.’
Mr Eaton declined to comment.
The feeling when you get Right-wing racist and homophobe Roger Scruton sacked as Tory Government adviser George Eaton