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Tory councillor suspended after saying abortion clinics in Liverpool are ‘crime prevention’

Party to investigate politician following remarks about abortion and buying slaves in the city

Thursday 27 September 2018 16:48 BST
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Councillor Bob Frost claims to use humour to expose ‘stupidity’
Councillor Bob Frost claims to use humour to expose ‘stupidity’ (SWNS)

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A Tory councillor has been suspended by his party after tweeting about buying slaves and saying abortion clinics in Liverpool were party of the city’s “crime prevention” programme.

Bob Frost, a Conservative party councillor for North Deal in Kent, made the remarks in response to tweets posted by a Labour activist attending her party’s conference in Liverpool.

“The only city I know where the local Marie Stopes clinic is funded by the council as part of their crime prevention program [sic],” the Tory politician wrote.

Mr Frost also made a crude remark about buying slaves.

Referring to a previous visit to the Tate Liverpool and Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum, the councillor stated: “So good I bought two of the staff.”

A spokesman for the Conservative Party told The Independent: “Councillor Bob Frost has been suspended and is being investigated centrally.”

Charlotte Cornell, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Dover and Deal, who challenged Mr Frost on Twitter, said his posts were “quite shocking”.

She explained: “You cannot pass remarks about buying staff at a slavery museum off as a joke. This is racist and wholly unacceptable.”

Mr Frost has twice previously been suspended by his local party.

In 2011 he was hit with a temporary suspension from the council’s Conservative group after he used a racist phrase in a crude online joke about the London riots.

He talked about “bunnies of the woodland variety rather than the jungle” in reference to people involved in the riots of 2011.

In 2014 he was condemned for using the terms “sons of camel drivers” and “ragheads” on social media. And in 2015 Mr Frost was suspended once again for an “offensive” tweet about a Romanian Big Issue vendor.

The politician wrote that he had told his local vendor to “f**k off back to Romania”.

The suspended councillor declined to answer questions about the latest tweets.

The 66-year-old alerts people to his “humour” in his Twitter biography.

“WARNING – may use humour to expose or criticise other people’s stupidity or vices, especially in the world of contemporary politics.”

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