They're Racist and We Know It - A UK Politics Thread

[Spockydog]

The fact she was told to leave the Chamber for pointing out what everyone already knows just shows the absolute state of our democracy.

We need laws, with penalties similar to perjury, for MPs who deliberately lie to Parliament.

 

[DaveSumm]

39,000 cases today, which is the first week-on-week drop for a long time. I thought yesterday might be an aberration but that looks more promising.

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Tommy Robinson gets a 100 grand bill for libel, excellent news. What a prize prick he is. 

 

45 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Surely you mean registered asylum seeker, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

Also, we can now legally describe him as a liar

[A Horse Named Stranger]

28 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

So Clapton’s views don’t prevent people from going to his shows but Rowling needs to be burnt at the stake?

Do you think sexism plays a role there?

People are still buying her books and heading to the movies to watch the movie adaptions of her work. So it's not like either one of them is getting boycotted on a big scale.

Doesn't change the fact that both are prized pricks.

[DaveSumm]

40 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

So Clapton’s views don’t prevent people from going to his shows but Rowling needs to be burnt at the stake?

Do you think sexism plays a role there?

I think with both, the negative stuff circulates on social media but doesn’t really breakthrough to mainstream media. It should really, if making a Holocaust joke 20 years ago is headline news then the bullshit Clapton has spouted should be I guess. 

Always been baffled by Clapton’s fame, he’s easily the most overrated guitar player.

[john]

There’s a few anti vacc performers coming out of the woodwork now. Richard Ashcroft, a guy who only recently regained the right to be paid royalties for his most famous song so you’d think he’d need the money, refused to even play “test case” shows where it would be full attendance but required to show proof of negative test.

[Heartofice]

56 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

39,000 cases today, which is the first week-on-week drop for a long time. I thought yesterday might be an aberration but that looks more promising.

We’ll have to see what happens in the next few days and weeks , but case rises had been slowing for a while, then there was a jump and now it’s dropped.

Will be interesting to see what the reaction will be if we’ve ‘opened’ and cases keep falling.

[HoodedCrow]

If people were REAL fans, they would be willing to die to go to a concert, so what’s the big deal? Anti vax dancing in the mosh pit…

[Soylent Brown]

30 minutes ago, john said:

There’s a few anti vacc performers coming out of the woodwork now. Richard Ashcroft, a guy who only recently regained the right to be paid royalties for his most famous song so you’d think he’d need the money, refused to even play “test case” shows where it would be full attendance but required to show proof of negative test.

Ian Brown's another one. Considering the amount of unregulated crap they put in themselves in the 80s and 90s, it's amazing they're so worried about the vaccine.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

I think with both, the negative stuff circulates on social media but doesn’t really breakthrough to mainstream media. It should really, if making a Holocaust joke 20 years ago is headline news then the bullshit Clapton has spouted should be I guess. 

Always been baffled by Clapton’s fame, he’s easily the most overrated guitar player

I think the difference between J.K. and Clapton is mainly their audience. Rowling pulls a younger more social media affine (and more woke to coin a phrase) audience than Clapton. And she is happily making an ass out of herself now, rather than 40-50 years ago. I suspect the stuff Rowling gets stick for from her fans, would hardly raise an eyebrow by Clapton's.

As for Clapton's ability with the guitar. He is a pretty good guitar player. I'll give him that and I think it's a bit silly to pretend he isn't. What I find more amusing about him and his bigotry is this: for somebody who looks down on black people as much as he does, he sure as fuck is happily copying black music harder than Elvis or Eminem ever did.

[Hereward]

3 hours ago, Spockydog said:

The fact she was told to leave the Chamber for pointing out what everyone already knows just shows the absolute state of our democracy.

We need laws, with penalties similar to perjury, for MPs who deliberately lie to Parliament.

 

This a tricky one. The rules on lying to Parliament rely heavily on tradition and an expectation of honourable behaviour on those caught doing so. This obviously doesn’t work when such long-standing and, previously, respected precedents no longer apply, though this a relatively recent phenomenon.

That said, in order for MPs to have the extensive rights to say things they couldn’t say elsewhere, some rules must apply to maintain some semblance of order and decency. Butler did have an option, which is to organise an order paper accusing Johnson of lying, which would be subject to debate.

the last problem is one of proof. “Everyone knows” Johnson is liar is not a standard of proof for laws with penalties. Who decides guilt, who hands out penalties, and how could this be done without contravening the constitutional principle of the sovereignty of Parliament? I’d suggest the end result would be Parliament deciding, which effectively means the majority deciding who is a liar and punishing accordingly. Not somewhere I want to go with the current amoral tossers in charge.

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

3 hours ago, Leap said:

Yeah, me and my Dad have tickets to see Clapton some time next year I believe. Him being anti-vax is super disappointing. I expect like most people like that, he won't stick to the principle if it means not being able to make a few million touring. Him being a virulent racist and complaining of discrimination is frankly absurd, wondering how he squares that one.

I do believe he got the AZ vaccine but complained bitterly of the side effects he felt from it. Dont think he's quite 'anti-vaxx' but falls under the 'hasnt been enough testing' camp (who are also full of crap, of course)

Anyhoo, compare with The Boss stateside who insisted everyone at his concerts be vaccinated (with non-AZ ones too, I think). You can imagine how it went down with conservatives, some of whom nonetheless are great fans of his music.

 

[williamjm]

3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

39,000 cases today, which is the first week-on-week drop for a long time. I thought yesterday might be an aberration but that looks more promising.

If there is a downwards trend developing the big question would be whether the impact of "Freedom Day" reverses that, which I guess we might start to find out in the next week or so.

There's also a clearer drop in cases in Scotland that's been happening over the last couple of weeks, which did happen without any tightening in restrictions although factors such as school holidays and Scotland's elimination from Euro 2020 may have contributed.

[Which Tyler]

4 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Yeah, he famously went off on one on stage in the seventies. I seem to remember the Telegraph writing some bollocks in an attempt to excuse it.

This from a guy who would not have had a career if it wasn't for black music.

Fuck me - didn't know that (not that I should, I've abhorred celebrity news).

He didn't inspire Geldof's 1982 performance, by any chance, did he?

[Hereward]

You probably know this, but in the theme of celebrities who get a pass versus those who get excoriated, plus the whole 70s thing, Bowie’s statements in support of fascism don’t ever seem to have hurt him amongst his, IMO, largely progressive audience.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, Hereward said:

You probably know this, but in the theme of celebrities who get a pass versus those who get excoriated, plus the whole 70s thing, Bowie’s statements in support of fascism don’t ever seem to have hurt him amongst his, IMO, largely progressive audience.

Separating the artist from the art is always tricky and goes on a case by case basis. Well all likely people with problematic pasts, whether we know about them or not.

[Zorral]

19 minutes ago, Hereward said:

You probably know this, but in the theme of celebrities who get a pass versus those who get excoriated, plus the whole 70s thing, Bowie’s statements in support of fascism don’t ever seem to have hurt him amongst his, IMO, largely progressive audience.

Nor the accounts of Bowie's sexual encounters with underage girls and boys.

 

[williamjm]

37 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Fuck me - didn't know that (not that I should, I've abhorred celebrity news).

He didn't inspire Geldof's 1982 performance, by any chance, did he?

Clapton's speech did help inspire the Rock Against Racism movement of the late 70s and early 80s.

[Werthead]

The BBC has a superb three-part documentary series called Uprising which is airing right now (the whole thing is on iPlayer). It delves into the extreme racism of the late 1970s, when the National Front seemed to be doing pretty well (enough that Thatcher even started picking up their rhetoric, apparently worried they might take votes off the Tories) and how it seemed to go unchallenged (openly campaigning for "all immigrants and their descendants" to be deported to Africa). A focal point is the 1977 Battle of Lewisham, when a supposed major National Front rally in London saw less than 500 people show up versus 4,000 anti-fascist protestors of the day.

The centrepiece of the series is the New Cross Fire, when thirteen young black people aged 14 to 22 were killed in 1981 by a suspected arson attack on the house whilst a party was in progress (a fourteenth was so traumatised they killed themselves two years later). Officially, no culprit was ever identified but, shockingly, no cause of the fire was determined, aside that it began in the front living room. One of the startling things is that the police found evidence of an incendiary device in the front garden, but did not consider it relevant because it wasn't inside the house (!) and tried to pin the fire on "a fight" between two party-goers, a fight all surviving witnesses agree never happened. As to be expected, these shenanigans, at a point when the Metropolitan Police was widely considered to be inherently racist (a black officer notes one of his colleagues wore a National Front badge inside his coat and smirked at him whenever he saw it), did not go down well and sparked further protests. Thatcher bungled her response, not offering any comment or commiseration on the fire until over a month later (in the meantime making a public speech of regret about a fire in the Republic of Ireland that claimed several young lives).

One of the biggest direct consequences was the "Black People's Day of Action", when 20,000 people (mostly black but from all over the country, supported by friends and allies of all ethnic origins) marched through London and, furious with the press coverage, went down Fleet Street and directly protested outside the offices of the major newspapers, many of whom opened their windows and hurled racist slurs down at the protestors (some of whom had just lost young children, or friends, in the fire) in response.

It's a really startling documentary for its mixture of footage from the time (impressively remastered to look contemporary) and contemporary interviews with people involved. The most telling bit are the police officers who note that they didn't investigate the crime properly, seized on the idea of the fire being an accident a bit too eagerly and were too willing to look the other way or ignore the virulently racist officers among their ranks.

Meanwhile, Priti Patel has lost a vote of confidence by the Police Federation.

[The Anti-Targ]

6 hours ago, kiko said:

They tell you that in New Zealand?

You are saying that like distance or being an "outsider" robs one of perspective.

Reading the tea leaves of the direction humanity is travelling. Most people seem to be pretty illiterate though and think humanity is going in the opposite direction. But that direction is just a pathway to ruin, and ultimately just the long and painful way to get to the same end.

And of course all the good sci-fi predicts it, they are the futurist thinkers and it's clear many think a successful humanity has to end up in that place.