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Archive for the ‘political_correctness’ Category

Carol Thatcher vs Anton Du Beke vs the BBC

Monday, October 5th, 2009

January 2009
In a private, un-broadcast comment, BBC co-presenter Carol Thatcher refers to a tennis player as having “hair like a Golliwog”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7871746.stm

She is immediately sacked.

October 2009
Anton Du Beke allegedly called his Moroccan dance partner Laila Rouass a “Paki”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8290733.stm

BBC statement says:

“The BBC does not condone offensive language in the workplace. Anton Du Beke has apologised unreservedly to Laila Rouass who has accepted his apology.”

Personally, I don’t care for either term, but being a grown-up I also really don’t what anyone calls anyone else in private.

HOWEVER, I do think the beeb is in a position of gross hypocrisy over this. Either have a “thought crime” rule, or don’t.

David Davies and Abu Omar on BBC discussing Muslim anti-soldier protests

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

The UK has a new hero and his name be David Davies!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7943486.stm 

Have a listen to this interview

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I don’t think we need yet another law to cover it, but David Davies is spot on, whereas Abu Omar just makes a fool of himself.

If the audio stops working, it can also be found here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7943000/7943462.stm#

Here’s some more sense from him:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3559407/David-Davis-has-set-a-powerful-example.html

And Outrage at BBC torture claims

Someone make Davies PM!

Immigration amnesty and Binyam Mohamed

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Friday roundup of general twattage from the last week.

Immigration Amnesty

Update: I’d barely finished writing this, when Manchester No Borders (a neo-fascist*/anarchist group) attacked elected representative MP Phil Woolas. Their page says:

“They include migrant rights advocates and members of left-wing and anarchist groups such as Manchester No Borders, Manchester Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers, No One Is Illegal, and the Anarchist Federation.”

and the  no borders network web-page is actively encouraging the kind of abusive sham marriages which lead women into a life of misery and abuse, while the man often takes several other wives. (I’ll be posting more about that soon).

These people have no ideas of the consequences of their actions. People trafficking has a terrible human toll, often funding drugs cartels which bring misery to children, women and men. Will a bunch of anarchist thugs be willing to pay the enourmous increase in tax needed to support literally millions more people? So, No Borders, please feel free to comment below on why you thing importing vast swathes of the world’s misery to the UK would be better than trying to deal with the problems at source?

And don’t attack Phil Woolas. He’s about the only person in the Labour party who has the slightest clue on immigration!

Anyway, back to the original post…

So, let me get this right. Correct me if I’m wrong. I just want to be clear; Illegal immigrants (oh, wait, apparently there’s no such thing) who have travelled right across Europe (in violation of the first safe country rule) are happy to pay up to £1,200 to criminals in Calais to get them to the UK. Then, in cases like Slough, the burden is so great, the council needs extra government aid. (covered in more detail in this post) which will push up local tax bills. The government are either clueless or criminal with their hiding of the figures of both migrant workers and asylum seekers. And let’s face it, you don’t rely on a voluntary registration scheme at the two airports where migrant workers are least likely to come. (Except they did, of course). And yes, I’m conflating the two because no-one has a clue who’s who.

We were told that massive uncontrolled immigration would bring great benefits. Turns out, even by the most optimistic official figures, it was worth one mars bar per month – about 4p a week. And now it doesn’t quite suit our tax-dodging chums, they’re heading off back. The biggest lie, of course, was that we needed this immigration because we had an ageing population. As if migrants don’t age! I’ve also heard several times, often from liberal commentators, that if it wasn’t for cheap illegal migrant workers, the hotel and service sector in London would collapse overnight. And it’s often said with a sense of pride! I think it’s shameful.

UPDATE: 19/03/2009 According to the BBC:

People from outside the EU moving to the UK to work or study will have to pay £50 extra for visas to help areas struggling to cope with immigration.

The £70m raised by the two-year scheme, announced by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, will help fund more police support and translators.

Many councils have warned of the strain that new arrivals have put on services.

I thought migrants took brought huge amounts of benefits?

What that also ignores is the cost, not just financial, but to society. We all know the statistics – the ones which get swept under the carpet. Anyone with their eyes open can see the patterns. But you can’t point them out, however qualified for fear of being labelled racist. Even obvious medical things like black people are less prone to skin cancer but might need slightly different drugs is, apparently, racist. Even researching race is racist, apparently. So, we all lose out.

So we know that, by definition and without being immotive, everyone working or living here illegally is a criminal. And in many cases do nothing but hate and protest against the very people who fought for the freedoms they so enjoy in this country. And so, last week, BBC Panorama asked “Immigration: Time for an amnesty?” Do watch it if you can. Preferably in conjunction with “How they squander our billions“.

Binyam Mohamed.

A good summary is written here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/mar/13/michael-white-binyam-mohamed

I think my feelings on this are most neatly summed up by one of the commentators on that article, who says:

“I would like to know who was providing him with the wherewithal for all this air travel and international gadding about. And as he’d been extorting accommodation, income and education from unwilling British tax payers – who weren’t given prior notification of his absence abroad on a false passport – he was presumably also guilty of benefit fraud, education grant fraud and housing fraud.

He is persona non grata and should be deported immediately.”

My point? I am sick and tired of the double standards. One rule for them, one rule for us. Things like “that’s their word”, as if certain words belonged to certain groups. Either use them, or don’t use them. I’m sick of the way our dhimmi government, both past and present, pander to Nazi book burners and bow to extremists which in turn ferments more hatred. While the freedoms of the country’s citizens are taken away day by day.

Fuck that. It’s time for change.

(*I’m using the word fascist as per the following definition: “Fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist ideology that aims to create a single-party state with a government led by a dictator who seeks national unity and development by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or race“). Sounds pretty much like their aims – bully the masses by fear into accepting an un-natural unity and  requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest .

Hazel Blears and The Fabian Society on Political Correctness

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

I never thought I’d say this about any Labour government minister, ever, but … three cheers for Hazel Blears!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7909258.stm

People must be more willing to challenge ideas that conflict with core British values, the communities secretary has said.

Hazel Blears said there was too much “squeamishness” about condemning unacceptable practices, like forced marriages, for fear of causing offence.

Debate about the role of religion was “being sapped by a creeping over-sensitivity”, she argued in a speech.

I mean, OK, it’s what most of the rest of society has been saying for years, but for a government minister to recognise it is impressive.  (Do I feel an election coming on?) It’s also covered by The Telegraph and The Guardian(who manage to give it a negative spin for some bizarre reason)

Here’s the odd thing – I heard this being discussed on 5 Live between 9am and 10am on 25/02/09 (clear to hear the show) and they had some pillock from The Fabian Society basically saying that it was a silly thing for her to say, and he went on to say “Who is saying what can and can’t be said”?

Er….what short memories The Left have! It was them who said that one shouldn’t say “chav” because it’s politically incorrect!


Activities Abroad offers chav-free holidays.

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Good on Alistair McLean from  Activities Abroad for offering Chav Free holidays! Here’s a section of the email which was sent to users:

 

Hello [ ----- ]

Chav Free Activity Holidays

According to the Daily Mail, children with middle-class names such as Duncan and Catherine are eight times more likely to pass their GCSE’s than children with names such as Wayne and Dwayne.

This got us to thinking. Are there names you are likely to encounter or not encounter on an Activities Abroad holiday? After a bit of research we came up with two lists of names.

Unlikely

Likely

Britney

John

Kylie-Lianne

Sarah

Bianca 

James

Tiffany

Charles

Dazza

Rachel

Chardonnay

Michael

Chantelle

Alice

Candice

Lucy

Courtney

Joseph

Shannon

Charlotte

Nuff said, innit?

Brilliant! Very witty and refreshingly honest change from the usual grey corporate email.

Then the Daily Mail reported that the firm was under fire. You read more from the BBC and hear an interview with Alistair Mclean on Five Live.

Turns out this woman has had a total sense-of-humour and humanity failure. Here’s the reply from Alistair McLean in the blog

 

Firstly, I am delighted that you enjoyed your “perfect holiday” with Activities Abroad.

I’d also like to say that I am genuinely sorry if our newsletter caused offence for it was I who authorised the mailing. However, I simply feel it is time the middle classes stood up for themselves.

We work hard to make a decent home and life for our families and we pay our taxes to contribute to our society and economy. Unfortunately, everybody else in our society seems to take from us whether it is incompetent bankers or the shell suited urchins who haunt our street corners.

Last year Activities Abroad paid: corporation tax, income tax, PAYE, national insurance contributions, VAT and contributed to Aids projects in South Africa and other charitable organisations. We make a positive contribution to our economy and watch it all be frittered away by people who simply can’t be bothered (”bovvered”).

So regardless of whether it is class warfare or not I make no apology for proclaiming myself to be middle class and a genuine contributor to our society.

We sent the newsletter to 24,000 people and only 11 (0.0458%) have expressed themselves to be unhappy with the content. The rest presumably took it in the toungue and cheek manner in which it was intended.

Did you write to the BBC when they featured Vicky Pollard on Little Britain or Catherine Tait’s Lauren Cooper? Do you encourage your children to go off and play with with the shell suited, Lambert and Butler sucking teenagers who hang around our shopping centres at night?

Again, my apologies if we offended and I am genuinely sorry that you won’t be traveling with us or recommending us in the future.

Regards

Alistair McLean

Yes, the word chav is now politically incorrect. But the fightback has begun – the Daily Mail and Daily Express both carry opinion pieces, but let’s not pretend this is a tabloid-only issue.

The fightback of the working majority starts today. Enough is enough – if we don’t stand up for people like Alistair, then we might as well give up and join the abhorrent views of The Fabian Society – talking of which, here’s Jon Holmes giving his opinion of them!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Optional reading matter:

 

Shame on the Netherlands

Monday, January 26th, 2009

It’s not just the UK government which have no morals left.

The Dutch courts want to prosecute Geert Wilders for his film, Fitna.

Here’s Pat Condell discussing it 

YouTube Preview Image

Any Answers Irish Setter stupid racism caller

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

There’s a great show on BBC Radio 4 called Any Answers. (You can listen again on that page).

It makes often hilarious or frustrating listening as the Great British Public expose their general ignorance and prejudices, but can also be educational and cathartic in a “glad it’s not just me thinking that” kind of way.

Every now and then, you get what is clearly a wind-up. And so, at first, I thought this next caller was.

On Any Questions the night before, in a special episode from America regarding the Obama inauguration, a questioner asked “What dog do you hope the Obamas have in the Whitehouse?”
It was one of those light-hearted end-of-show questions, to which Christopher Hitchens answered “Irish Setter – stupid, highly strung, but dead loyal”. Here’s a clip of the question:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And of course, no-one thought about it much more. Until Any Answers. At first, I thought “Rosheen from Islington, London” was a wind-up. She said it was “racist of the BBC to broadcast the word ‘Irish’ in the same sentence as the word ’stupid’” Apparently, she’d phoned up the night before to ask the BBC to edit the comment, and how highly offensive she found it – blah-de-blah, whatever, love. But then, she said it was “re-inforcing the stereotype that Irish people are stupid”. Now THAT is irony! I thought that any minute now, she’ll crack, or laugh and hang up. And slowly, scarily, it dawned – this woman (in her own slightly damaged mind) was genuine! You couldn’t make this stuff up, have a listen:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Maximum respect to Jonathan Dimbleby, he just managed to keep his cool. Of course, now we’re in the territory where you don’t know whether someone is being serious, winding people up, or just a bit nuts. Check out this BBC Message board if you don’t believe me, for a classic example of hand-wringing twattage from user “nibhrionn”


I listened to both programmes and agree totally with Madeline’s point. Hitchen’s knew that he had said something that was potentially offensive but Dimbleby caused real offense by his rude dismissal of the caller. Casual racism is still endemic in this country as evidenced by the recent revelations about the royal family but I guess objecting to this is “political correctness gone mad” as well.

Update: Looks like I wasn’t the only one to blog about this. Alan Brookland has a bit more of a transcript and some thoughts on this, and there’s chatter about it on the Glasgow West End forum. However, in the kind of comment that makes me dispair for humanity, HitchensWatch has embarrased itself with a post which leaves one feeling that if it’s not a joke, it was written by a humanities graduate with a sense-of-everything failure.

Here’s an extract from HitchensWatch- and remember, we’re talking about a breed of dog here:

He decided instead to tell an Irish joke, and not just any old Irish joke, but the kind that relies for its effect on the listeners’ understanding that the Irish, as a race, are intellectually challenged and over-sensitive.

This incidence of schoolboy racist humor was picked up by Jack Grantham, who put together the YouTube clip above with some very familiar images and brought the offense to our attention. I must say it amazes me that the BBC can allow this sort of thing to pass with giggles of approval and no apologies by anyone involved, while at the same time they can’t even bring themselves to carry an appeal for humanitarian aid for the Palestinian refugees in Gaza. More than this, the entire episode seems to have been scripted rather than spontaneous, as is often the case with radio broadcasts. If this is the case, it means that the scriptwriter, director, presenter, questioner and associated staff, as well as the Drink-Soaked One himself, were all perfectly happy to make a lame racist joke for the express purpose of rounding off a light-hearted radio show. What next for Hitch and the Beeb, one wonders? Jokes about cotton fields? Concentration camps? Dwellers of the jungles or deserts? Aids sufferers? The malnourished and starving? The visually, physically, mentally and chromosomally handicapped? People with slitty eyes? Or are the Irish now to be singled out for special treatment?

Nuts. I have no doubt this moron would confuse race and religion when it comes to Islam, too. And not the only example of political correctness gone mad, recently…

Just to recap:

Irish Setter

Irish Setter

Irish Nutter

Irish Nutter

Update! I don’t believe it – there’s a youtube video now! This is nuts, not least because the maker can’t even spell “racist”!

YouTube Preview Image

Harry, Paki, Prince Edward, the RSPCA and a Labrador

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Update: At last, a bit of sense on the subject:

It is all so very typical of modern Britain, or at least a section of the modern British media and its absence of any sense of perspective. There’s a dislike of anything which smacks of complexity and a refusal to understand that people make mistakes.

And heavens, one can never imagine a News of the World reader using such a term as that employed by the Prince. Pass the sick-bag, please.

See also the BBC PM blog although other parts of the BBC can’t seem to avoid the hysteria – have a listen to the clip on this page

So, here’s the big front page news story in the UK. What could it be? Peace in the middle east? The economy? A breakthrough in the fight against cancer? No, it’s this:

Prince Harry has apologised for using offensive language to describe a Pakistani member of his army platoon.

The News of the World has published a video diary in which the prince calls one of his then Sandhurst colleagues a “Paki” in his commentary.

St James’s Palace said he had used the term three years ago as a nickname about a friend and without any malice.

It gets worse – there’s a video on that page; it warns “Guidance – this video contains strong language”.
Oooh, what could it be? The F word? Or perhaps the C word? No, it’s the word “paki”. 

But tellingly, the bloke involved didn’t even mind, and his friends say

“He wasn’t offended – he may even have invented this nickname for himself” 

The BBC Have Your Say page sums the actual mood of the nation up nicely:

Now I’m no huge Royalist, but FFS, this non-story today and more whipped-up hysteria about a man not hitting a dog a few weeks back really makes me wonder if Big Brother isn’t enough of an opiate for the masses this time round:

The RSPCA has been investigating claims the The Earl of Wessex, Prince Edward, may have struck a Labrador with a walking stick on the Queen’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

But it now says there is not enough evidence to support the allegation.

The investigation followed public complaints when pictures showing the prince holding a stick over a black Labrador were published in December.

Buckingham Palace said the prince had waved his stick to break up a fight between his two dogs over a dead pheasant.

In a statement, the animal charity said: “The RSPCA has closed its investigation as there was insufficient evidence to support the allegation that Prince Edward beat his dog.”

But it’s not just the press – a group called Republic are masturbating themselves into a frenzy

“Harry’s comments are a disgrace and may seriously harm our armed forces. 

“Harry Wales has not only demonstrated how he is unfit to be a possible future Head of State, he has shown he isn’t even fit to be a leader of men and women in the armed forces.”

Now, has anyone got any REAL news?

Links: http://princeharryapology.blogspot.com/

More twattage: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7826701.stm

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