It's A Peach!

Local bloggers have unified in their condemnation of newly selected prospective Labour candidate for Reading West Naz Sarkar after he was ambushed by Andrew Peach during an interview on local radio.

Mr Sarkar betrayed his lack of local knowledge by failing to understand the reference to the 'IDR' and refused to be sidetracked as he continued to make partisan arguments.



The political scoop was immediately passed to Conservative blogger Cllr Richard Willis where Mr Peach obviously knew it would gain maximum exposure and the guffaws have since continued to reverberate among the local chattering class.

Cllr Dave Luckett was sharp in picking up the potential damage to Labour's election chances in the seat and has undertaken his best efforts to circulate the gaffe as widely as possible. He notes that it has been picked up by national journalists Oliver Kamm, Paul Waugh and Iain Dale as well as several other outlets, all of whom infer that the Waltham Borough Councillor's self-embarrassment is indicative of the wider 'malaise' in Labour ranks and think this bodes well for the tory challenger.

Cllrs Willis and Luckett somewhat exaggerate the impact of this wholly predictable error by comparing the spiralling viewership of the video (currently over 3,000 views) to the popularity of a 'sensational' attack by eurosceptic Conservative MEP Dan Hannan (over 2m views) from the floor of the chamber in Brussels.

He also reports that both ConservativeHome and LabourHome (among others) are scathing about the candidate.

Adrian Windisch, as the Green Party candidate, can't help himself from wallowing empathetically in the pain of his competitor and compares it to other gaffes - including one of his own, where he failed to remember what Reading's renowned '3B's' are.

Meanwhile Jane Griffiths and The Flashing Blade take a more personalised slant on the motivations involved, suggesting that more sinister political machinations are afoot. They both think that Martin Salter MP ensured "the most hapless possible candidate" was selected because he wanted to look good as the political tide turned, which would set up a potential fight-back in future years and enable him to get a tighter grip on the party direction.

Howard Thomas of the Common Sense Party wryly suggests that Mr Sarkar should have been able to avoid the pitfall since he obviously was able to use a sat-nav to get to Reading in the first place.

Finally, in perhaps the sharpest comment of all, LibDem Cllr Warren Swaine calls Mr Sarkar a 'muppet' for falling for the ruse and points out the attempt to bulldoze through the embarrassment by talking about future cuts to be made by Conservatives was apposite since he may only end up with 10% of the vote!

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Update: Nowtas sums up: "a terrible candidate giving a risible performance, but let’s not forget the terrible radio presenter on a typical crappy local station too."

Oranjepan says:
Naz Sarkar will find it hard to shake his earlier reputation as 'gaffe-prone' with any more repeats of this ilk.