Maria Hutchings: online reputation in tatters?
Maria Hutchings recently made it onto the Conservative Party’s A-list of approved election candidates. She’s described as a ‘Disabled Rights Champion’ and the BBC asks if she’s a new type of Tory candidate. So good for her.
But online she’s faring none too well. I know because when people search for her on Google my other blog is top of the list, with a few excerpts from an ill-advised newspaper interview where she comes across as a rather nasty Tory (as they’ve called themselves). And lots of people have been searching for information on Maria Hutchings. And lots of them are bloggers (some quite prominent) who have recycled the material I recycled to ensure her words will forever haunt her. And so the recycling continues. With so many new pages to compete with, I probably won’t be Google’s number one for much longer. But chances are the results will still be dominated by damning comment.
So what should she do? Well blogging isn’t for everyone, but it should be for Maria Hutchings. Only by sitting down and producing page after page of insightful and engaging comment can she hope to claim her own name and introduce some balance.
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Comments (3 comments)
Taken with your comments as above, your claim that “Public relations by Stephen Newton turbo charges marketing, builds reputations and manages crises” makes me wonder whose reputation other than your own you could possibly be interested in.
Your arrogant and arid comments about Maria Hutchings make it clear that you know nothing whatsoever of what parents of autistic children have to undergo, nor of the way in which LEA SEN officials typically Lord it over parents as if they know nothing. That is bound to cause a defiant reaction in a loving mother. Maria is right that there is a huge drain on public funds on issues which involve reduced funding for the endemic population – you may not like her bluntness, but millions not seeking your badge of political correctness would agree with her.
My local County Council wastes hundreds of £thousands on putting pretty flowerboxes beside village streets while relentlessly allowing autistic children no chance of a future by seeking to condemn them to inappropriate education. I write as a Friend and supporter of an autism school engaged in seeking and promoting miracles for children – the miracle of a non-institutionalised adult life through teaching them life skills like getting dressed, simple cooking etc. You ought to engage in some humility sufficient to learn about such heroines as are working in that wholly exhausting field with the most challenged of children.
LEAs in outer London are a great deal better – a postcode lottery which works against rural areas. Baroness Warnock has very publicly repented of her misguiding of education policy towards inclusion, and (recently) the NUT have lambasted a policy of “inclusion fits all”. I can tell you that every autist genuinely needs help. You become an irrelevance when you lambast somebody who is standing up for what is right; even though her own child is one of those threatened by what is wrong, there are too many like him. And yes, it would be nice if we could then take upon our backs the problems of the whole world. But I’ll bet you were a non-interventionist when it came to Iraq – and time will judge that subject better than you or I.
Stay away from areas of which you have inadequate knowledge. If that means staying away from most areas, then do something useful for young people who don’t begin to have your opportunity of playing with words – as a PR ex-spurt.
Tony
Tony / May 30th, 2006, 12:42 pm / #
Hi Tony
Now that Maria Hutchings is on the Conservative Party’s a-list of elite candidates, it is more than reasonable to question the full range of her political views.
Her argument – ‘With an increasing number of immigrants… the pot is reduced for the rest of us’ – only makes sense if economic growth remains unaffected. In fact, all the evidence is that migrant labour is driving economic growth in the UK. That growth helps pay for the schooling of Maria Hutching’s son. And quite right too.
Yet we both know that, while the Tories may count her as one of their finest minds, Maria Hutchings opinions are based not on economic reality, but traditional prejudice.
Thanks for your comments.
Stephen.
(By the way, you guessed wrong regarding my views on Iraq.)
Stephen Newton / May 30th, 2006, 7:41 pm / #
My son is blind, aged 10 he is not learning what he needs to learn in a mainstream setting and I am grateful to anyone who brings this issue to light. I feel ill at the thought of my son’s education, I have spent 5 years trying to work with a school to help them to learn what his needs are, they are just starting to understand. It is one of the top primary schools in the country. Am I expected to go through the same at secondary, talk about “reinventing the wheel!” Surely I have the right to enjoy life like others without this huge worry on my shoulders? Help me because I think I will have a nervous breakdown if this continues, then who will care for my blind son? I want a specialist school placement for him, there is one left in Worcester, I live in East Sussex. Would I really want to send my son away that far unless I truly believed that it was in his best interest. Have a heart. Do I sound like a nasty Tory?
mimi Brunt / September 4th, 2007, 11:12 pm / #
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