BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears

Subject: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Gervase
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 04:44 PM

Am I imagining things, or was there a BS thread about the furore surrounding Gordon Brown's off-stage remarks following an election walkabout?
What happened? Did the BNP toddlers turn up and crayon all over the thread again?

---

Yeah, there was a thread titled Labour Loses the Election. It was started in the music section, and it was started by a Guest, so it was deleted. We don't allow Guests to start non-music threads.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 04:49 PM

I was wondering the very same - it was there before dinner and then....... poof! gone!

I was going to post this link from Yahoo news

""All these eastern Europeans that are coming in - where are they flocking from?"

Beyond the fact that she has answered her own question, this statement is profoundly problematic. This sort of talk about immigrants has become more and more acceptable, but we would do well to remind ourselves that it is not acceptable to use animal or geographic metaphors about immigrants.

Talk of 'flocks' and 'swamps' serve to cement a sense of immigrants being 'the other'. They are not so different to us. They marry us, drink beer with us, work with us and live side by side with us.

If we despise the robotic version of politicians which have invaded our TV screens, the pre-programmed Cabinet-level automatons who emit soundbites and vacuity, then we must accept that politicians will behave like humans.

They are not moral paradigms and we must accept that behaviour we would tolerate in a friend or colleague should be tolerated from them as well.
This disproportionate reaction to their all-too-human failings will just provide us with another generation of political robots."

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: GUEST,The Smiler
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 05:01 PM

He he Poor old Gordon won't be sleeping tonight :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 05:01 PM

Er, yes, there was a thread, started above the line but subsequently lowered, which I posted to twice (politely)before it disappeared.

One of the points I made was that the issue of universal, non-means tested, benefits going to the less vulnerable as well as the vulnerable is not going to go away after the election... it wasn't particularly an immigration issue.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 05:03 PM

I saw the thread too...we are NOT losing our minds!

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: artbrooks
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 06:03 PM

Some clone merged it into the UK immigration too high? thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Lox
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 06:10 PM

The comment "Bigot" was definitely in response to the mention of eastern europeans 'coming over here and scrounging off us' or whatever it was she was trying to say.

He's right to retract his comment, but remarks like hers feed bigotry and he wouldn't have wanted that discussion to be the centre of attention in any news report.

Sadly, his mishap has been like a drop a lighter fluid on glowing embers.

Just a drop mind, and it won't do more than singe his eyebrows.

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 01:48 AM

Why is it wrong to call a bigot a bigot?

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 02:06 AM

And she accepted his apology for the misunderstanding!!!! What misunderstanding???

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Silas
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 05:48 AM

Rather than apologise for his 'off record' comments, he would have been better off repeating them and defending them. He made himself look weak when in reality, he was being nothing more than truthful.

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 06:01 AM

Population of Poland = 39million. Are there really 13 million of them here? :-)

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 06:08 AM

Best if he said he understood her concerns but had also confronted the woman with a comment about considering the validity of her sources of information before making public comments.

Then perhaps he would not have felt the need to "unload" his frustration once he got in the car.

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Arnie
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 06:18 AM

Even Boris Johnson, who was also on a walkabout yesterday, proved himself more sure-footed than Brown when facing public questions. Mrs Duffy wasn't asking particularly difficult questions and Brown should have had no problem dealing with her. This incident shows him to be the hypocrite that he really is. We've all heard the anecdotal evidence about how badly he treats his staff, and now he's provided us with the evidence. He obviously found meeting a genuine member of the public difficult and once back in the limo Brown started trying to find a staff member to blame rather than blame himself for handling the questioning so poorly. I wouldn't trust him with running the office tea club, let alone the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: bubblyrat
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 06:22 AM

A Prime Minister cannot reasonably be expected to consider himself in any way justified in asking ordinary members of the public to provide known facts,figures,and statistics when voicing their fears and concerns about issues that genuinely trouble,worry,and concern them.
    He (or She) should LISTEN to the public, and then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, not keep waffling on about political trivia (and insulting them to boot ).

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 06:55 AM

As I've suggested here, if Brown knew better, he'd be doing his bit in Scotland as a member of the SNP.

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Vic Smith
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 07:57 AM

GUEST Tina Smith is not the Tina Smith of Lewes, a very active person on the Sussex folk scene. Neither are the opinions expressed here in any way supported by her.

This is just another example of BNP supporters using identity theft to support their vile cause.

This has been dictated to me by Tina, my wife. She is not a member of Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 08:10 AM

Cant speak for most of the 39 million Poles but the team of four who replastered my study, painted out, and relaid the carpets did a cracking good job. What's more when I spotted them a few beers at the end of the job they washed all the bottles out and put them in the recycling. Doubt if you would catch the likes of Guest Tina doing that.

Why do these people also forget that this also allows our workies to go off to work in France and Germany for better money than they would get here?

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Ralphie
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 08:30 AM

Have posted this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating.
Gordon Browns Radio Mic was provided by the sound guys from Sky News. (with split feeds to the BBC and ITV).
Point 1. Why didn't the sound crew remove the mic from Mr Brown after the meeting? (they're not cheap bits of kit, radio mics)
Point 2. Why were they still recording the feed from the radio mic, after Gordon had left the locality?
Point 3. Who owns Sky News.



Answer....Rupert Murdoch. Owner of most of the right wing press in the UK, and chummy with David Cameron.....

Draw your own conclusions.

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Ralphie
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 08:31 AM

Oh, And GUEST Tina Smith is a fake
Ralphie

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Ralphie
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 08:37 AM

Also.
Poland is part of the European Union, and it's perfectly legal for them to travel and work in the UK, pay their taxes and National Insurance etc. As can French, Dutch, Italians, etc.
And we Brits can do the opposite if we choose so to do.
So, what is the problem?

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Emma B
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 09:29 AM

It really should come as no suprise that a Rochdale woman (described univerally and emotively as a 'granny') expressed somewhat bigoted views on immigration from the EU, or that Gordon Brown is sick and fed up of hearing this sort of rubbish from 'Labour supporters'


To quote one critic of the Mail and Express

'It's become an anti-immigration pissing competition in the middle-market papers to see who can muster the most outrage and fear'

just a couple of weeks ago the Mail once again printed an old anti immigrant urban myth in a new location probably based on the original myth going back to 2003 **

"Last month, it was revealed migrant workers in Peterborough are killing swans to eat and are also preying illegally on fish.
Local anglers claimed ' legally-protected swans' were being 'butchered' by immigrants who are 'raping' the city's waterways by snaring the birds, battering them to death with iron bars and roasting them on open fires on the bank of the River Nene."


Anton Vowl, a Bristol based writer, in his on line 'The enemies of reason' blog has examined the 'reports' quoted in the linked story above pointing out that there has never been a shred of proof or prosecutions and querying the apparently conflicting 'reports'
"immigrants' living in tents 'as they try to find somewhere else to live'.
I'd been led to believe that they were all scroungers at the front of the council house queue, taking our money!
And guess who's paying?!?!? Oh, maybe not."

oh yes, the recent Daily Mail article also describes
'Each day at 1pm, when the Inland Revenue Office at Hereward House opens, a queue of girls speaking foreign tongues snakes down the road.
Their buggies and prams crowd the pavement as they wait to sign on for tax credits and child benefits as they are entitled to under EU law.'

while simultaneously pointing out that

'According to EU rules, foreigners can live in other member countries for up to three months, but can only remain if they are financially independent, working or registered as students.'


**
19 December 2003
"Independent media watchdog the Presswise Trust has accused The Sun of urban myth-making by printing a story that alleged asylum-seekers were stealing and eating swans."

Subject: RE: BS: Bigotry, gaffes & stuff that disappears
From: Ringer
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 10:21 AM

"...we would do well to remind ourselves that it is not acceptable to use animal or geographic metaphors about immigrants."

What great nonsense you do talk, Emma B! We happily talk about crowds flocking to Goose Fair, about protesters being herded into side-streets: but we are forbidden to use "animal or geographic metaphors" about immigrants?

English uses metaphors, you clot: to deny their use in relation to immigrants would merely emphasise the differentness of immigrants, something you apparently can't countenance.