UK Politics: rooting for the vegetables

[Heartofice]

Matt Hancock has made it through to the final of I’m a Celebrity. I promise I have never seen this show.. but how has this happened??

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Matt Hancock has made it through to the final of I’m a Celebrity. I promise I have never seen this show.. but how has this happened??

Hope that we can keep him there forever? That something poisonous might bite him? His constituents trying to maximise the amount of kangaroo penises he has to eat?

[Heartofice]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63782082

Good news in that Nutty Nadine's Online Safety bill is being pulled apart and being rewritten. It has removed a section about banning content that was 'legal but harmful', which would have been completely impossible to police and would have led to even more incidents of police turning up at your door and taking you down to a cell for something you tweeted. 

[BigFatCoward]

To paraphrase Buckingham Palace 'you are black, you are not british, whereabouts in Africa are you from'? 

Edit, apparently it was Williams godmother. Cracking family aren't they?

[Derfel Cadarn]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

To paraphrase Buckingham Palace 'you are black, you are not british, whereabouts in Africa are you from'? 

Edit, apparently it was Williams godmother. Cracking family aren't they?

The exchange is at bottom of article. 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63810468

[Zorral]

A shyte head will shyte head no matter what opportunities are provided not to shyte head.  Proving perhaps that fools are also shyte heads?:

[BigFatCoward]

Boris is standing at next election apparently. Plan must be Rishi loses, he takes over, Labour can't undo the mess they have created is 4 years, so he is swept back in by people with memories of a goldfish. 

[A wilding]

Or perhaps it is just about him staying an MP to maximise opportunities to stroke his ego and for grifting.

But his majority is not that large, so with luck he will get the rude shock of being voted out.

[Spockydog]

45 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Boris is standing at next election apparently. Plan must be Rishi loses, he takes over, Labour can't undo the mess they have created is 4 years, so he is swept back in by people with memories of a goldfish. 

No. He's gonna get rightly busted by the Privileges Committee for repeatedly lying to the House, suspended for more than 10 days, and then subsequently recalled by his constituents for a by-election. Which he loses to Count Binface. 

In my fucking dreams. 

[Which Tyler]

32 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

No. He's gonna get rightly busted by the Privileges Committee for repeatedly lying to the House, suspended for more than 10 days, and then subsequently recalled by his constituents for a by-election. Which he loses to Count Binface. 

In my fucking dreams. 

Your dreams are weirdly specific

[Wall Flower]

On 12/1/2022 at 12:41 AM, BigFatCoward said:

To paraphrase Buckingham Palace 'you are black, you are not british, whereabouts in Africa are you from'? 

Edit, apparently it was Williams godmother. Cracking family aren't they?

Coincidentally, I happened to be reading a book about the proposed referendum here in Australia to create an indigenous Voice to Parliament. The author interviews a number of indigenous leaders including one from the Northern Territory whose parents were involved in a famous walk-off from Wave Hill Station in 1966 to protest the appalling working and living conditions of Aboriginal workers. The station was owned by the Vestry group, headed by Lord Vestry who adamantly refused to pay Aboriginal workers in wages (even the limited amount required by law) or provide decent living conditions.

Imagine my surprise on finding out that Lord Vestry later served as Master of the Queen's Horse from 1999 to 2021.

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 11/30/2022 at 5:41 AM, BigFatCoward said:

To paraphrase Buckingham Palace 'you are black, you are not british, whereabouts in Africa are you from'? 

Edit, apparently it was Williams godmother. Cracking family aren't they?

I mean if she wasn’t a bit more racist right?

[The Anti-Targ]

Is there any possible reading of that conversation that isn't totally condemnatory of lady Hussey?

Knowing one's pedigree is kind of all part of the upper-class first contact conversation "Oh you're the great-grand-nephew of the Duke of BFE! Well my great aunt on my mother's father's side was the duke's twelfth cousin 5-times removed. We're basically family."

Perhaps ignorantly and insensitively she was trying to get that sort of pedigree information so she can pigeon hole who she is talking to  with respect to where one is placed in the pecking order.

So I guess the least egregious interpretation is casual racism, rooted in classism born of ignorance, rather than any sort of malicious detest for the colour of one's skin or the foreignness of one's name?

[Spockydog]

The Royal Family is institutionally racist. It's really that simple.

[Raja]

43 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Knowing one's pedigree is kind of all part of the upper-class first contact conversation

Love the mental gymnastics we're doing here - I've got no time for stuff like this.

Also, Rizwan said it best

 

[BigFatCoward]

Labour easily hold the by election. It was bad for the tories, but not the absolute annihilation I hoped for. 

[Heartofice]

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Is there any possible reading of that conversation that isn't totally condemnatory of lady Hussey?

Knowing one's pedigree is kind of all part of the upper-class first contact conversation "Oh you're the great-grand-nephew of the Duke of BFE! Well my great aunt on my mother's father's side was the duke's twelfth cousin 5-times removed. We're basically family."

Perhaps ignorantly and insensitively she was trying to get that sort of pedigree information so she can pigeon hole who she is talking to  with respect to where one is placed in the pecking order.

So I guess the least egregious interpretation is casual racism, rooted in classism born of ignorance, rather than any sort of malicious detest for the colour of one's skin or the foreignness of one's name?

Yes I suspect that’s part of it. I think there are a number of reasons not immediately jump on the ‘she’s a terrible old racist and should be fired’ horse.

- Firstly ‘Where are you from?’ has really only become this sort of cultural no no in the last 10-15 years. Sure it’s a bit of a meme now due to hundreds of non funny comedians bringing it up whenever they can, but basically everyone of a certain age knows not to do it.

I know it’s easy to say that it’s not relevant here, but she’s 83, it is really not likely she keeps up with current trends in what is acceptable to say and how to say it, and yes maybe she should but the royals rarely do. If she had used a different phrase which was considered less problematic in 2022 maybe she would have been fine?

- I grew up in culturally diverse area of London and ‘where are you from’ was basically the conversation starter for everyone, because we all took pride in our heritage and it was different for everyone. I got asked it almost daily at school. I don’t know if that’s still the case but I bet it happens all the time.

- It’s also worth noting the transcript. She first looks at the name badge. Nkozi Fulani is clearly a name with some sort of heritage, it’s not John Smith. I suspect Hussey clocked onto that and was scrabbling around trying to start conversation with someone from the ‘peasant class’ in her eyes and that’s all she had to work with.

On top of that, Fulani wears outfits and styles that invites these kinds of questions, she’s hardly trying to hide her heritage with her appearance, she’s almost demanding you pay attention to it.

Like everything these days there is a serious lack of sense of proportion and understanding when they happen. 

[dog-days]

I don't think it's the initial question that's the problem, it's the refusal to accept the answer. "No, where are you really from?" 

I was working in a library eight years ago, and the evening security man started doing this with a student (a British Asian girl from Manchester). She looked so pissed off. It's difficult to imagine how people can ever think it's good etiquette to contradict someone like that, and basically tell them they're lying. Weirdly enough the security man's father was Italian, so I guess he was really from Italy.

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Yes I suspect that’s part of it. I think there are a number of reasons not immediately jump on the ‘she’s a terrible old racist and should be fired’ horse.

- Firstly ‘Where are you from?’ has really only become this sort of cultural no no in the last 10-15 years. Sure it’s a bit of a meme now due to hundreds of non funny comedians bringing it up whenever they can, but basically everyone of a certain age knows not to do it.

I know it’s easy to say that it’s not relevant here, but she’s 83, it is really not likely she keeps up with current trends in what is acceptable to say and how to say it, and yes maybe she should but the royals rarely do. If she had used a different phrase which was considered less problematic in 2022 maybe she would have been fine?

- I grew up in culturally diverse area of London and ‘where are you from’ was basically the conversation starter for everyone, because we all took pride in our heritage and it was different for everyone. I got asked it almost daily at school. I don’t know if that’s still the case but I bet it happens all the time.

- It’s also worth noting the transcript. She first looks at the name badge. Nkozi Fulani is clearly a name with some sort of heritage, it’s not John Smith. I suspect Hussey clocked onto that and was scrabbling around trying to start conversation with someone from the ‘peasant class’ in her eyes and that’s all she had to work with.

On top of that, Fulani wears outfits and styles that invites these kinds of questions, she’s hardly trying to hide her heritage with her appearance, she’s almost demanding you pay attention to it.

Like everything these days there is a serious lack of sense of proportion and understanding when they happen. 

The big problem is that she wouldn’t let it go. Fulani said where she was from, and Hussey kept pushing, not letting go until she could pin down an area.

It’s racism. By insisting on pressing people for their family background until you get out of the UK (no matter how many generations past), it’s a passive way of implying they’re not actually British.

As for her dress, if she’d been wearing Levi jeans, would Hussey have asked where in America she was from?

 

[Heartofice]

Just now, Derfel Cadarn said:

The big problem is that she wouldn’t let it go. Fulani said where she was from, and Hussey kept pushing, not letting go until she could pin down an area.

It’s racism. By insisting on pressing people for their family background until you get out of the UK (no matter how many generations past), it’s a passive way of implying they’re not actually British.

As for her dress, if she’d been wearing Levi jeans, would Hussey have asked where in America she was from?

 

Yes she should have backed down, but at the same time Fulani was being deliberately obstructive to the question and it’s possible Hussey just didn’t see that offense was being caused, she thought she wasn’t being clear enough. I think a bit of understanding from both sides is in order here.

Also no, I don’t think you get to deliberately make cultural statements with your dress and then get offended if people take note of it. Nobody wearing Levi’s is trying to mark themselves out as being American and I’m sure you understand the difference