Earlier this morning while speaking at the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester, the UK’s Culture Minister John Whattingdale took to the podium to issue his speech. Espousing the values of British culture, the Minister spoke of the Tories’ commitment to Britain and the British way of life, and caught the attention of Twitter with the following quote:
“There are no French Rolling Stones, no German Beatles; there is no Italian Bond, no Spanish Rowling, no Dutch David Bowie.”
— CCHQ Press Office (@CCHQPress) October 5, 2015
Originally written by the journalist and academic Dominic Sandbrook in an article in The Sunday Times, the press office of the Conservatives came in for an near universal onslaught of tweets reminding the party what else there is no non-British version of:
No Belgian Piers Morgan, no Namibian Genesis, no Latino Crufts, no Russian that woman who put a cat in a bin https://t.co/81KcUTBtgw
— Conor Pope (@Conorpope) October 5, 2015
There’s also no French Take That, no German E L James, No Italian Jim Davidson, no Spanish Katie Hopkins... https://t.co/GxVANvjk6N
— Kit Caless (@KitCaless) October 5, 2015
.@CCHQPress equally there is no British Victor Hugo, no British Kraftwerk; no British Enzo Ferrari, no British Gaudí, no British Van Gogh
— Martin Belam (@MartinBelam) October 5, 2015
Yes @CCHQPress, but where is my British Beyoncé?
— Mint Royale (@MintRoyale) October 5, 2015
@CCHQPress You self-defeating morons! - most Brit Musicians and single mum writers thrived due to benefits system you are destroying
— FlashBanding © (@smile_of_decade) October 5, 2015
and there is no British Mercedes, no British Samsung, no British Apple, no British Facebook @CCHQPress
— Thieboudienne (@Thieboudienne) October 5, 2015
.@CCHQPress "there are no English rugby World Cup quarter finalists" #RWC2015 #iamwales
— Martin Coles (@martincoles) October 5, 2015
. @CCHQPress well when Germany treated the Beatles with death threats like this you can see why. pic.twitter.com/dpPSva3Vdv
— Tiernan Douieb (@TiernanDouieb) October 5, 2015
