Talk:Kenneth Clarke
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Can I query some of the claims in this para:
- He first gained notoriety in this post when he invited the fascist leader Oswald Mosley to speak, twice. This forced some Jewish students, including his future succesor at the Home Office, Michael Howard to resign in protest at the seeming anti-semitism of Mosley's two invitations. This almost certainly led to Clarke's surprise defeat for the presidency of the Cambridge Union Society by Michael Howard, although Clarke was eventually elected President of the Union one year later. It is not, however, Mosley's anti-semitism that made a mark on Ken Clarke, but his ground breaking advocacy of a European Union. Mosley was the first politician of any standing to call for British participation in building up a federal state, and his call for Europe a Nation has found echoes in much of Clarke's rhetoric.
This seems a bit like Eurosceptic POV. Mosley did indeed call for "Europe a Nation" but as students of both fascism and European Union know, Mosley's idea was more like a development of pre-war Strasserite theories on European civilisation than a precursor to Jean Monnet and the European Coal and Steel Community. I haven't heard Clarke calling for a single nation across Europe; he is far more comfortably placed among those moderate politicians of both left and right who believe that European integration with all its attendant problems is good at preventing war and promoting trade.
Furthermore I note that this section was added by an anon user who has made some interesting edits to other articles, q.v.. Dbiv 20:51, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Agree that this doesn't look like NPOV. Invitation of someone to speak at a meeting doesn't automatically imply agreement with their views. Just because Mosley spoke at a meeting chaired by Ken Clarke doesn't mean that Ken Clarke agreed with him. Mpntod 18:53, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Someone removed the bit about membership of the Bilderberg Group. I'll present a little evidence:
- He definitely flew to Milan, Italy on June 3, 2004. [1]
- According to our own article, The Bilderberg Group met in nearby Stressa from June 3 to June 6.
I doubt this is a coincidence. In conjunction with the fact that Clarke is named by the BBC as a member [2], I rest my case. Evercat 12:50, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I removed the bit about the Bilderberg Group because it's barely relevant to Kenneth Clarke's career and not particularly interesting. So what if he goes to talk to other European politicians to talk in private about the future of politics? Hardly a big surprise. However putting it there is a bit POV as it only encourages the loopy conspiracy theorists who think Bilderberg is an attempt to take over the world etc. I see no reason to indulge this paranoia. Dbiv 18:51, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You're reading rather more into it than you need to - it's just 8 words noting his membership. What goes on in the meetings I have no idea, though you can hardly claim that secret meetings between the most influential people in the world are not important or notable. I'm restoring it to the top, since I don't see that it belongs in the "Opposition" section. Evercat 21:09, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OK, I can live with the current wording. Evercat 21:37, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
