Council leader backs Auschwitz jibe councillor (From Surrey Comet)

Elmbridge Council leader backs Auschwitz jibe councillor Lara Conaway

7:30am Wednesday 18th March 2009 in News

A Conservative councillor’s Nazi gaffe has been condoned by the leader of Elmbridge Council.

Last week Hersham South Councillor Lara Conaway was criticised after saying a the tunnel running underneath Walton station was “like Auschwitz”.

Tory leader Coun Roy Taylor conceded that her comments, made at a meeting with South West Trains (SWT), were over the top. However, he praised the councillor for bringing the issue up in a way that had highlighted the problems at the station.

He said: “She’s done well. She has made it clear that our stations are in an appalling state. She raised the bar.”

Despite the fact her comments were called “offensive and inappropriate” by Dr Stephen Smith, the director of the Holocaust Centre, Coun Taylor said he would not be taking any action over the incident.

He also criticised Dr Smith for expressing his views to the press in the first place, having not been at the meeting himself. This was despite Coun Taylor’s own assertion that Coun Conaway was expressing her own “right to freedom of speech”.

He said: “It is highly inappropriate for gentlemen to make a statement condemning somebody when they have only heard it from a third party. If [people] were offended, that is a problem they have.”

Coun Taylor claimed Dr Smith could not know whether Coun Conaway’s statements were inappropriate or offensive because he had “probably never been to Walton Station”.

He also dismissed claims by Rabbi Jackie Tabick, from the North West Surrey Synagogue, that Coun Conaway’s comment were uneducated. He said the only people who could be offended by Coun Conaway’s analogy was SWT.

However, Coun Chris Sadler, who represents Walton Central and was chairman at the meeting, said he could understand why people who had relatives in Auschwitz could find Coun Conaway’s remarks offensive.

He said: “It seemed a bizarre comment - I wouldn’t have made it myself. I found it a very strange thing to say.”

Contrary to Coun Taylor’s claims that the Auschwitz analogy had “raised the bar”, Coun Sadler said he hoped the comment had not distracted attention away from what had been a productive meeting with SWT.

A spokesman for Dr Smith said he had nothing further to comment about the matter and it was up to the public to decide whether Coun Conaway’s analogy was inappropriate and offensive.

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