Terry Dicks
[1] Dicks was selected as the Conservative Party's candidate for the seat of Bristol South in the 1979 general election, but he lost out to Labour's Michael Cocks.His strong opposition to state funding for the arts inspired Labour MP Tony Banks to claim, in a February 1990 debate, that Dicks' presence in the House of Commons was "living proof that a pig's bladder on a stick can get elected to Parliament."[8][non-primary source needed] Regarding Derrick Gregory, a man with learning disabilities who had been sentenced to death in Malaysia for drug smuggling, Dicks said he would be writing to the Malaysian government congratulating it on its approach.[12] Frequent controversial jokes furthering these opinions and others – such as suggesting "tell 'em that if you shove your willy [British slang term for a penis] up someone's bum you're going to catch more than a cold" as a central message of the government's HIV/AIDS campaign (instead of encouraging gay men to use condoms),[13] descriptions of immigrants to Britain as "the flotsam and jetsam from all over the world,"[14] and ridiculing a Somali refugee family buying water in a London supermarket, saying "where they come from they're happy to drink out of puddles" – fuelled protests, according to the Socialist Worker.[16][17] Dicks called for the BBC soap opera EastEnders to be cancelled or screened after 11pm, following a storyline involving a gay kiss between two men.