BS: BNP on question time

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 02:50 PM

I am reminded of some American musicians who were at C#House a few years ago for the launch of Songs Links. (Oops, that narrows them down considerably but I don't suppose for a moment that they'll be reading this). They really, really got on my tits by addressing me as "ma'am". You could all but hear their heels clicking simultaneously. And they'd been introduced to me by name so it wasn't as if they didn't know what else to call me.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 02:51 PM

Interesting, Diane. Who is referring to me as "Mr Hoff Esquire"? I can think of some likely candidates, but the way the expression tripped off your tongue is fascinating. I am glad to see your statement that your framing /Name person/ is non-contentious, giving no indication of rank (etc). Many would find it and your use of it to carry an implication of contempt. Why do you use it in stead of

/Name/?

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 02:52 PM

'The booing of the King and Queen is a matter of record. Live with it. They did.'

Who did, G? You made it sound at first as if a whole crowd did. Then you sort of suggested one or two disaffected might just have. What record is it a matter of? How reliable?    You live in return with the fact that I don't believe your story, which you have told confusedly & inconsistently right from the start: - First off it was just the Queen. Then, when I pointed out that it wouldn't ever have been just her, you vaguely got the King in on the action too. Then you took me for a real idiot who'd refer to Nicholson as a leftie — oh for fuck's sake, learn to read what's written. Do you really think I don't know who Nicholson was? I lived in London thru the Blitz & you didn't, but somehow that means you know more about it than I do becoz you can read — when I have just demonstrated that you can't always. Sorry — Diane may think you're leading 1-0, but if she still thinks so we need a new scorer.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:00 PM

Who is referring to me as "Mr Hoff Esquire"?

No-one (yet), Bridge person, except me as far as I know. I just made it up. The Borchester Echo, august fictional organ of the fine county of Borsetshire, can do this if it wants to.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:03 PM

I find it interesting that The Borchester Lady reintroduced the topic of my name being confused with that of Baronness Warzi when the discussion had moved on to other topics.

But for the record let me say this, I did not and do not take offense to my name being mistaken for that of Baroness Warzi.

If it had been done purposely (for instance to imply that I was homophobic as The Borchester Echo has implied Baroness Warsi is, or to imply that I advocated something else that I consider to be in opposition to my values) then I would have either made a statement about that use or I would have ignored that use and/or ignored that poster as being beneath my consideration.

Apparently The Borchester Echo likes to refer to me and to other people beside me as "The ___ person". That's her choice.

Be that as it may, I've said all I intend to say about her use of that referent for me, and about her concerns about the accidental confusion of my name with Baron Warsi's name.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:03 PM

Not that I did . . .

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:08 PM

Actually, I do have one more thing to say after re-reading my last post before this one.

I truly didn't mean to refer to The Borchester Echo as "The Borchester Lady".

My sincerest apologies.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:11 PM

Indeed, it would be a truly bonkers way to refer to a newspaper.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Penny S.
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:45 PM

Actually, I think Azizi's point about the use of "lady" was interesting. Even if some people consider it inappropriate, as it can be used as a put down, it obviously wasn't in this case, and that it would not have happened in the past in the States is informative. There's a huge difference between someone using "lady" when wanting to refer politely to a person whose name they don't know, and some smarmy blighter leering about "the ladies, god bless em", and most people would recognise that.
I'd much prefer it to being yelled at as "Miss" by ex-pupils who have forgotten my name. There are actually schools who teach that as a polite form of address (men being Sir) for their mostly married staff. That isn't as bad as mammying black women, but the intent was originally the same.
As for when Africans and Asians were here, I don't believe that they were visible after the Roman occupation, as there's no evidence for enclaves, and if they intermarried, the visibility would have diminished as has that of the descendants of the freed slaves of the 18th century. Definitely by Tudor times, as there is literary evidence for their presence, but they wouldn't have been obvious to most of the country.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 04:27 PM

No wonder BNP membership's on the rise!
Has the world gone mad? Don't you know the future could consist of about fifty years for all the women, ladies, men, guys, niggers, honkys,homosexuals, gays etc and none of them will give a flying fuck what anybody calls them.

The future will be about survival, not the niceties of language or manners.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 04:45 PM

Just about any word can be used as an insult, if the intent is to insult. And the reverse is probably true as well.

"I see we have a German gentleman among us..." And a fight breaks out in the bar.

Or

"Hullo, you old bastard, talk of the devil!" and it's warm greetings all round.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:13 PM

I was very tickled by the referent "The Borchester Lady". "The Lady" (a ladies' magazine) used to be funded mostly by its advertisements for nannies.   

I note that no-one has mentioned "laydees" yet.

Ake, you are wholly wrong. In primitive societies, such as would prevail in a "dying earth" scenario, modes of address and demands for respect become primal, even more so than under the code of the pnctilio and in intervening armigerous societies.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:19 PM

Eh?

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:20 PM

He's a laywer Akeneaton.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Gervase
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:34 PM

You live in return with the fact that I don't believe your story

You know, I can live with it! In fact, Mike, I don't give a flying fart what you believe and I shouldn't think many other people do either.
However, I'm inclined to believe Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters 1939-1946 for 17th September 1940 (edited by his son and published in 1967), which is as near to a primary source as I'm going to get, and certainly more reliable than the reminiscences of a North London schoolboy who wasn't actually in the East End.
Anyway, back to the BNP...

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 06:14 PM

Curious, no?

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Paco O'Barmy
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 06:16 PM

Oh dear oh dear, the chattering classes are falling out amongst themselves, even here in cosy folky Aga land! I've said it before, and I'll say it again,Nick Griffin isn't the problem. It's the Tony Blair clone that comes AFTER him that is the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:48 PM

"a dedicated Border Police Force - probably made up of BNP supporters.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Smokey.
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:55 PM

I just had a disturbing vision of morris dancers with truncheons..

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:07 AM

"Also, in the 19th century and earlier, did Wnite people refer to Black women and other Women of Color as ladies (except for "ladies of the night" meaning "prostitutes"?"

Bloody hell, Azizi, I'm not that old - I don't know, I wasn't there! :-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:24 AM

I suspect (but do not know) that they would have been referred to as "persons" - at least by the genteel.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 05:07 AM

McGrath of Harlow "If that (politically correct modes of address) were the sum total of BNP mores, I think few people would find it too hard to live with it."

I agree. I mentioned it to purely show the kind of fruitcakes we're dealing with.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:39 AM

Sometimes I am grateful for my surname...

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 08:34 AM

I wonder if Richard's talk of whingers was inspired by this piece which so describes anyone worried about immigration.

It (mass immigration) didn't just happen: the deliberate policy of ministers from late 2000 until at least February last year, when the Government introduced a points-based system, was to open up the UK to mass migration.

Even now, most graduates with good English and a salary of £40,000 or the local equivalent abroad are more or less guaranteed enough points to settle here.

The results in London, and especially for middle-class Londoners, have been highly positive. It's not simply a question of foreign nannies, cleaners and gardeners - although frankly it's hard to see how the capital could function without them.

Their place certainly wouldn't be taken by unemployed BNP voters from Barking or Burnley - fascist au pair, anyone? Immigrants are everywhere and in all sorts of jobs, many of them skilled.

My family's east European former nannies, for example.....
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23760073-dont-listen-to-the-whingers---london-needs-immigrants.do


This was written by Andrew Neather who worked for Tony Blair and Jack Straw in government.

It shows the contempt for the working class and explains why we now have a rising support for BNP among them.
The policy also conveniently guaranteed an increasingly Labour-voting electorate since, as a recent survey by the Electoral Commission has revealed, some 90 per cent of black people and three-quarters of Asians vote Labour.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Azizi
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 05:59 PM

Bloody hell, Azizi, I'm not that old - I don't know, I wasn't there! :-) :-)
-Backwoodsman

Neither am I and neither was I. But I was talking about comparing documented historical customs with present day practices. And (to use the slogan of a favored children's reading program in the USA) "reading is FUNdamental".

Putting that question aside, I thought using the word "bloody" among respectable ladi...-excuse me...respectable females- was a no no.

But I'll forgive you this time. :o)

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:30 PM

"-excuse me...respectable females-"

Hey, who are you calling 'Respectable'?!!

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:41 PM

Keith: -
1. Tell us news, not history.
2. Oh, you have a problem with Blacks and Asians do you? Well, I am surprised (not).

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Smokey.
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 08:04 PM

Hey, who are you calling 'Respectable'?!! (CS)

It's all relative ;-)

I'm happy to regard any 'lady' who objects to the term, as 'not a lady'. Can't say fairer than that..

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 02:47 AM

Richard,
1. This story IS news. Telegraph piece from yesterday.
www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

The word "whingers" has no been used on Mudcat for over a year.
Just coincidence that you used it after Neather?

2. If I make a factual comment about a group's voting pattern, that does not mean I have any problems with that group.
You just made a groundless accusation of racism against me.

Instead of making new attacks on me here, why not return to the immigration thread and explain why you called me "liar" in your last two posts, when I was the one telling the truth?

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 04:03 AM

Sorry about Telegraph link.
I think the story is relevant here.
Use this and click on the Labour immigration story.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/search/?queryText=neather

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 04:53 AM

The reason it's history is that it tells us (if it tells us) about the past not the present.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 05:09 AM

"Putting that question aside, I thought using the word "bloody" among respectable ladi...-excuse me...respectable females- was a no no.

But I'll forgive you this time. :o) "

Thank 'ee, kindly Ma'am! (Oh no! I used the 'M' word! Here we go again........!!).   :-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 05:54 AM

It is very new information about the past Richard.
I can understand why you want it to go away.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: theleveller
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:35 AM

An opinion poll out today shows that the BNP are still on only 2% - no increase since Fuhrer Griffin's appearance.

Subject: RE: BS: BNP on question time
From: folk1e
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 12:01 PM

So, to sumise the posts up to now......

1 We do not like the BNP in general and Nick Griffin in particular.

2 Whilst we all believe in free speach we realy do not want it exercised by the BNP.

3 We think that Griffin may have, if not increased the BNP vote at least not caused it to dip.

4 Griffin did not do a good job for the BNP on this occasion, as any gaffes were more than compensated by everyone else "ganging up on him"

So if it were a boxing match it would be marked as a draw?
If this is so we were all getting upset for nothing? OK, the worst did not happen and BNP policies have not been shown in a good light.
My own point on this is that whatever you think of the BNP they do have some points that need adressing and that untill this happens the BNP will retain a small but significant section of the UK vote!