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| 26 February 2004 |
Whip removed from Tory MP for 'unacceptable' joke |
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The Tory MP Ann Winterton has been expelled from the party's parliamentary party after refusing to apologise for a making a joke of the deaths of 20 Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecambe.
The Tory leader Michael Howard expelled Mrs Winterton, MP for Congleton in Cheshire since 1983, for her "completely unacceptable" joke which she made at a dinner held for visiting Danish officials last night. Mr Howard said that he deplored her remarks and apologised on behalf of his party.
The joke referred to the deaths of 20 Chinese migrants who drowned while picking cockles in Morecambe Bay earlier this month.
Mrs Winterton has said that the removal of the whip will not interfere with her determination to represent her constituents.
This is not the first time that the Congleton MP's humour has led to serious reprimand. She was dismissed as Shadow Minister of Agriculture in May 2002 after she told a "joke", again at a dinner, which had an Englishman throw a Pakistani from a train for "being 10 a penny in our country" as its punchline.
Ann Winterton was elected in 1983 as the Conservative and is married to Nicholas Winterton, the MP for Macclesfield. She was appointed Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on Drugs Misuse Strategy in April 1998, and took on the Shadow Agriculture role in 2001.
She received the first ever Cheshire Life Woman of the Year in 1997.
(gmcg) |
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