Richard Drax hits out over name change claims (From Dorset Echo)
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Richard Drax hits out over name change claims
9:58am Tuesday 8th December 2009 in News By Miriam Phillips
Conservative party candidate Richard Drax
TORY candidate Richard Drax has hit out at claims that he was told to lose his quadruple-barrelled name in the latest class war debate.
The South Dorset Parliamentary Candidate has been dragged into a political argument between the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Tory leader David Cameron concerning the public school background of senior Tory figures.
Now Mr Drax, whose full name is Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, claims that his background and the length of his name has nothing to do with his ability to run for parliament and resents the criticism.
He said: “I think it’s rather sad that when the country is on its knees this Government has decided to preoccupy itself with this.
“It’s where we are going not where we have been that matters now. It’s what’s in your soul and heart and what you represent.”
He states that he only uses the shortened version of his name because of the ‘logistic mouthful’ of his full name but said he has never tried to hide it.
He also strongly denied any accusation that his party leader had asked him to shorten it.
Mr Drax, 51, has recently married Elsebet and lives on his Charborough Park family estate near Bere Regis where he runs the family business.
His family can trace it’s aristocratic lineage back to 1439 – when Sir Christopher Plunkett became the first Baron of Dunsany. Six of Mr Drax’s ancestors have been MPs.
Mr Drax fought off 30 other applicants for the South Dorset seat including two women on the Tory A-list of preferred candidates after impressing selectors with his Army and journalism career.
In the past few days Mr Cameron accused Gordon Brown of being ‘petty’ and ‘spiteful’ in his criticism of the Eton background of senior Tory figures. The Conservative leader, himself an Old Etonian, warned the Prime Minister and First Secretary Lord Mandelson that their class war tactics would put off voters.
His comments came after Mr Brown’s comment this week that Tory tax policy seemed to have been ‘dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton’.
Mr Drax added that the rumour that Mr Cameron asked his politicians to drop their double-barrelled names was just a ‘throw away joke made nine months ago’.
Comments(22)
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11:28am Tue 8 Dec 09
bungy wrote:What makes you think he would even know what a housing waiting list is, and his suggestion to somebody who has just lost his job would be to get another one. Even with the best will in the world he could not even begin to imagine how ordinary folk live or understand their problems.
To be fair to the man he has used Drax for some time but i do wonder what sort of empathy he would have to somebody who has just lost his job and cant pay his bills or a young family on a housing waiting list
Wessex Lass
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11:31am Tue 8 Dec 09
heinrich
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11:32am Tue 8 Dec 09
actually empathise with the poor
and downtrodden,who have more
money than most of us will ever see,
and if Richard Drax is elected,lets hope that he will not become another
MP on the make,not that he needs to
Stoneman
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12:19pm Tue 8 Dec 09
... pmsl
Genghis
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12:26pm Tue 8 Dec 09
Dispirited
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2:10pm Tue 8 Dec 09
smokey5756
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7:23pm Tue 8 Dec 09
coaster
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8:27pm Tue 8 Dec 09
X Old Bill
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8:57pm Tue 8 Dec 09
Cast your minds back to a former South Dorset MP - Victor Montague, aka Viscount Hinchinbrooke, heir to the Earldom of Sandwich. Did that title make him the wrong man for the job?
Or another MP, a sitting member of the lower house, that springs to mind is The Right Honourable Anthony Wedgewood-Benn,The Lord Stansgate. That 'name' really didn't hold him back from doing his job did it?
I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY DON'T LIKE THE NEW ECHO WEBSITE
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9:03pm Tue 8 Dec 09
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If the Tory candidate was living in a council house, had 4 kids, was unemployed with no education (having dropped out of school) there is no way I would vote for them. People want strong and powerful leaders- it is human nature.
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I would much rather our next MP was educated and articulate. The fact that Mr Drax is wealthy and comes from an aristocratic background is surely a good thing- with wealth and success comes power and influence.
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Mr Drax will have a team of people around him to help- the fact that he personally has never been on a Housing waiting list is not a negative thing- I have never been on a Housing list (I would rather provide for my family through hard work- I owned my house at 19) but I still have a rounded view on life.
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Richard Drax will benefit Dorset as he will help to raise the profile and help to ensure that we are no longer one of the worst funded counties in the UK.
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Jim Knight has not been all bad, but he will pay the price of being a Blair and Brown lap dog.
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The sooner we can have a change in Government, the better. We need new ideas and new direction.
billyboi
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9:10pm Tue 8 Dec 09
Tike
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9:15pm Tue 8 Dec 09
Mads
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11:06pm Tue 8 Dec 09
And who will he best represent, his landed aristocracy chums or the common man?
I don't agree that he can properly represent ordinary people when he has no understanding of the kind of issues that us ordinary folk have to deal with.
Chris S B
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9:37am Wed 9 Dec 09
valhalla
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11:12am Wed 9 Dec 09
Drax would come across as a man of the people. Who do you think we are in Littlemoor, peasants?
pd7
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11:38am Wed 9 Dec 09
Torys have so much to repair and this is not the way to go about it.
I have no interest in a 300 year old historic fact . I need someone who is in tune with 2010 and beyond.
"aristocratic lineage" I thought class structure died years ago .
Sometimes I feel the French did get something right . But again thats history.
CHEVAL
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2:28pm Wed 9 Dec 09
macsimus
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11:13pm Wed 9 Dec 09
Chris S B wrote:The torys, when in power, and also out of power, have done their best to destroy the democratic process.
Looking at how the unions tend to conduct themselves, I'd be more wary of a thru-and-thru working class candidate than Mr Drax. If anyone has doubts, follow the democratic process and don't vote for him. Simples!
Some people have very short memories.
macsimus
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11:56pm Wed 9 Dec 09
pd7 wrote:Let them eat cake!
A real bad choice .
Torys have so much to repair and this is not the way to go about it.
I have no interest in a 300 year old historic fact . I need someone who is in tune with 2010 and beyond.
"aristocratic lineage" I thought class structure died years ago .
Sometimes I feel the French did get something right . But again thats history.
Chris S B
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12:16pm Thu 10 Dec 09
Dispirited
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9:22am Fri 11 Dec 09
bungy says...
10:33am Tue 8 Dec 09