Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
In their heads, Jews are WAY more prosperous and powerful than everyone else, and, by extension, than they actually are.
Therefore they must be the oppressors. The fact that Jewish people are, as an average, on relatively higher incomes, obviously hides a significant discrepancy in their lived experiences. However for Corbyn and Abbott, it just does not compute.
They would never accept that because there can be wealthy or powerful black Britons, racism against them does not exist, but they fail to extend that argument.
They must be confused as anything when they see a photo of the current Cabinet. How did the Conservatives manage to get such a diverse-looking group of people at the top table, without imposing targets or quotas for each minority?
This point is valid but as Rupa Huq found to her cost it needs a skilful elaboration if attacked.
Obviously in other ways Sunak's cabinet is admirably diverse. What more elaboration does it need?
Ok so -
"He's much more culturally, ideologically and intellectually a product of the elite education system he's been through in the UK than his Ghanaian heritage."
This is from a Times profile of Kwasi at the time he was made CoE.
Question: In essence how different is this from the sentiment that got Rupa Huq into hot water?
Because so charged has any conversation about race become that saying a black man 'isn't really black' because they fail to conform to some perceived stereotype of blackness is almost as taboo as using the n-word.
I don't like the fact that discussion of race, or even of non-white people, is so full of taboos as to be rendered impossible, and it's not my fault that it's the case. But you know it's true.
Also, it was bloody stupid. Look at him. Of course he's black.
Also, look at the subtext. ('It's possible to assume that all people of one race have the same interests and behave the same way.') Don't you think that deserves condemnation? And also the sub-subtext ('It's fine for me to say this because I'm one of the good guys and KK is one of the bad guys.') Don't you think that also deserves condemnation?
What about my question though? Is the sentiment in the Times profile materially different to the one that got Huq suspended?
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
Class is a minefield as well. I went to both private and state schools at various times. Yet I spent lots of time as a kid around labourers, workmen and working-class people. I don't have a posh accent (in fact I have a speech defect), but someone I had recently met guessed I'd gone to public school, not because of accent, but because of the *way* I spoke.
What class am I? I'm certainly not upper class; our salary and situation probably puts us firmly in the upper-middle class. Yet I *feel* classless, and I seem to get on well with people from all classes.
IMO class is becoming increasingly indistinct in the UK.
Is it ? I'd say there's an increasing rather than decreasing gulf between those with significant wealth and those without it.
But IMV wealth does not equate to class. Witness the short, fat man being I saw being taken as a VIP onto a yacht at the London Boat a few years back. He had two leggy ladies in tow, and was dressed like he'd been in a whirlwind through Next. I mean, I'm a scruffy soul, but this guy looked wrong.
(And yes, it was the boat show. Scruffy is allowed, as long as it is nautical scruffy. Particularly at the Southampton one...)
Whereas a fair few 'upper class' people of old families are actually rather poor in comparison. In the competition between 'old' and 'new' money, new is increasingly winning.
You cannot buy class, you either hve it or you don't
I went to the station and got asked if I wanted a first or second class ticket. I asked for 'turnip class', and ended up in a wagon on the way to Glasgow...
His age (he's only 44) means, in theory, he can easily sit 2024 out and be a perfectly viable candidate in a future Presidential election up to the 2040s at least.
In practice, though, he's so clearly indicated he'd go for it, and that Trump would be a poor choice, that he badly damages his credibility to wimp out. He's also an ex-Governor in 2026 (due to term limits) with no vacancies pending for him in the Senate, and there's a real risk it all fizzles out. Very hard to re-establish momentum when it's gone.
VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/ Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.
Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.
For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.
The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.
According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...
Production planned from 2027. 90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production. So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.
I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.
The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time
Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future
Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs. More internal space. Better performance.
When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
It'll more come down to the access to charging.
EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.
Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
One of my neighbours has exactly this issue. He has a Tesla from work, but lives in a flat. He now drives to a charging location and watched netflix for an hour before work. Hates it, and wants to go back to a petrol/diesel.
The employer provides company Tesla but provides no charging infrastructure? Ok, it may be city centre and not have their own car park, but he parks somewhere. You'd think the employer would find and pay for a local charger and urge parking there.
Not so easy in Warminster (bit of a backwater). He charges somewhere close to work (around 50 miles away).
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
Reading the original article (which was very nuanced) does not make Diane Abbot's letter in response look any better. There's nothing inflammatory about the original article.
She's not going to get the whip back.
Totally agree. that’s my point. The whip so quickly taken away yesterday certainly can’t come back, or else Starmer leadership credibility is toast.
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
His age (he's only 44) means, in theory, he can easily sit 2024 out and be a perfectly viable candidate in a future Presidential election up to the 2040s at least.
In practice, though, he's so clearly indicated he'd go for it, and that Trump would be a poor choice, that he badly damages his credibility to wimp out. He's also an ex-Governor in 2026 (due to term limits) with no vacancies pending for him in the Senate, and there's a real risk it all fizzles out. Very hard to re-establish momentum when it's gone.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
Reading the original article (which was very nuanced) does not make Diane Abbot's letter in response look any better. There's nothing inflammatory about the original article.
She's not going to get the whip back.
Totally agree. that’s my point. The whip so quickly taken away yesterday certainly can’t come back, or else Starmer leadership credibility is toast.
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
Hence the mess Starmer is in.
Starmer's possibly made a big political mistake. Diane Abbott is not Chris Williamson.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
We all have thoughts we have without thinking; emotional reactions to things. Most people analyse their thoughts and correct them before speaking - but I've met people who have no filter between what they think and what they say. I've even come across people who have no filter between what they think and what they post anonymously on an internet site devoted to politics. But I've never met anyone who has no filter between what they think and what they write to the editor of a newspaper for publication and ridicule. DA really is quite special.
But the reason we don’t sack people on the day, and have a hearing about it a month later, is presuming what someone is saying, or getting an opinion second hand and knowing it from that, and getting it wrong.
A lot of people back peddling today on just how atrocious what she said yesterday was.
Yourself for example, if you take the letter, first draft poorly put or whatever, purely in the context of article she is replying to, definition of racism being pushed she disagrees with, and not in any other context, are you still saying she is completely wrong in trying to speak up?
She's allowed to disagree with the article if she wants.
But, if she expresses herself in a manner that is stupid and offensive, (which she did) her leader is entitled to decide he'd rather not have her as one of his candidates.
How does reading the original article make her letter read any better?
In any case, the bar for being expelled from a political party is necessarily, much higher than the bar for being prevented from standing for it.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
Class is a minefield as well. I went to both private and state schools at various times. Yet I spent lots of time as a kid around labourers, workmen and working-class people. I don't have a posh accent (in fact I have a speech defect), but someone I had recently met guessed I'd gone to public school, not because of accent, but because of the *way* I spoke.
What class am I? I'm certainly not upper class; our salary and situation probably puts us firmly in the upper-middle class. Yet I *feel* classless, and I seem to get on well with people from all classes.
IMO class is becoming increasingly indistinct in the UK.
Is it ? I'd say there's an increasing rather than decreasing gulf between those with significant wealth and those without it.
But IMV wealth does not equate to class. Witness the short, fat man being I saw being taken as a VIP onto a yacht at the London Boat a few years back. He had two leggy ladies in tow, and was dressed like he'd been in a whirlwind through Next. I mean, I'm a scruffy soul, but this guy looked wrong.
(And yes, it was the boat show. Scruffy is allowed, as long as it is nautical scruffy. Particularly at the Southampton one...)
Whereas a fair few 'upper class' people of old families are actually rather poor in comparison. In the competition between 'old' and 'new' money, new is increasingly winning.
Are you sure you were at the boat show and not in a Randy Newman video?
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
In their heads, Jews are WAY more prosperous and powerful than everyone else, and, by extension, than they actually are.
Therefore they must be the oppressors. The fact that Jewish people are, as an average, on relatively higher incomes, obviously hides a significant discrepancy in their lived experiences. However for Corbyn and Abbott, it just does not compute.
They would never accept that because there can be wealthy or powerful black Britons, racism against them does not exist, but they fail to extend that argument.
They must be confused as anything when they see a photo of the current Cabinet. How did the Conservatives manage to get such a diverse-looking group of people at the top table, without imposing targets or quotas for each minority?
What Diane Abbott was, dimly, trying to say, was that rich, successful people are Essentially White.
So the current U.K. cabinet is 100% Ze Pure Aryan.
Like when Kwasi Kwarteng was described as “superficially” black by Rupa Huq, because he was rich and successful....now less of the success, perhaps he is just black?
Did she say he was superficially black because he was rich and successful, or because he holds 'incorrect' political views?
Still wrong, but you do wonder at the logic sometimes.
Amazon women on the moon told me, black Americans who vote Republican have lost their soul.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
We all have thoughts we have without thinking; emotional reactions to things. Most people analyse their thoughts and correct them before speaking - but I've met people who have no filter between what they think and what they say. I've even come across people who have no filter between what they think and what they post anonymously on an internet site devoted to politics. But I've never met anyone who has no filter between what they think and what they write to the editor of a newspaper for publication and ridicule. DA really is quite special.
But the reason we don’t sack people on the day, and have a hearing about it a month later, is presuming what someone is saying, or getting an opinion second hand and knowing it from that, and getting it wrong.
A lot of people back peddling today on just how atrocious what she said yesterday was.
Yourself for example, if you take the letter, first draft poorly put or whatever, purely in the context of article she is replying to, definition of racism being pushed she disagrees with, and not in any other context, are you still saying she is completely wrong in trying to speak up?
She's allowed to disagree with the article if she wants.
But, if she expresses herself in a manner that is stupid and offensive, (which she did) her leader is entitled to decide he'd rather not have her as one of his candidates.
How does reading the original article make her letter read any better?
In any case, the bar for being expelled from a political party is necessarily, much higher than the bar for being prevented from standing for it.
I 'liked' it as well. I just liked Series 2 more. I'd say series 2 was best, then 3, and 1 the worst.
(Awaits the anti-woke Trekkies to wake up...)
There's actually an interesting point here. I am not a Trek fan. I don't go to sleep in Star Trek pyjamas, and have not memorised the deck layout of every Constellation-class starship. But I do like sci-fi; and unencumbered with a great deal of Star Trek love, that's my view of the series. I wonder how the view varies between the hardcore Trek fans and those who just want entertainment, and how the viewing figures between the groups?
Hungary 44.8% Slovakia 28.2% Lithuania 27.6% Latvia 24.1% Poland 24.0% Czech Republic 23.5% Romania 21.6% Germany 21.2% Bulgaria 21.0% Sweden 19.7% Portugal 19.6% EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️ UK 19.1%⬅️ Netherlands 17.8% Spain 16.5% France 15.9% Italy 13.2%
Source: TradingEconomics 6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023
It is obvious that our high food prices are being caused by Brexit. You only have to look at the EU average and our figure to see what an incredible price we are pay... as you were.
It appears that Europe splits between (a) people who get their grain from Ukraine and (b) people who don’t
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
Reading the original article (which was very nuanced) does not make Diane Abbot's letter in response look any better. There's nothing inflammatory about the original article.
She's not going to get the whip back.
Totally agree. that’s my point. The whip so quickly taken away yesterday certainly can’t come back, or else Starmer leadership credibility is toast.
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
Hence the mess Starmer is in.
Abbott is the one in the mess, rather than Starmer. She’s a long history of making the same sort of comments, which in the context of recent Labour Party history are out of order. She responded to a carefully-written and nuanced piece, with a bull-in-a-china-shop letter devoid of context.
The obvious way forward, is for everyone to say nothing for a few weeks, and then for DA to announce that she’ll retire from the Commons at the next election, aged 70 or 71, allowing the disciplinary case to be dropped and the whip withheld. Bonus points for doing it during the Coronation recess, when everyone has got other things on their mind.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
We all have thoughts we have without thinking; emotional reactions to things. Most people analyse their thoughts and correct them before speaking - but I've met people who have no filter between what they think and what they say. I've even come across people who have no filter between what they think and what they post anonymously on an internet site devoted to politics. But I've never met anyone who has no filter between what they think and what they write to the editor of a newspaper for publication and ridicule. DA really is quite special.
But the reason we don’t sack people on the day, and have a hearing about it a month later, is presuming what someone is saying, or getting an opinion second hand and knowing it from that, and getting it wrong.
A lot of people back peddling today on just how atrocious what she said yesterday was.
Yourself for example, if you take the letter, first draft poorly put or whatever, purely in the context of article she is replying to, definition of racism being pushed she disagrees with, and not in any other context, are you still saying she is completely wrong in trying to speak up?
She's allowed to disagree with the article if she wants.
But, if she expresses herself in a manner that is stupid and offensive, (which she did) her leader is entitled to decide he'd rather not have her as one of his candidates.
How does reading the original article make her letter read any better?
In any case, the bar for being expelled from a political party is necessarily, much higher than the bar for being prevented from standing for it.
Yeah, someone standing for one of the main parties can't say clearly offensive stuff and expect the party to stand by them. Otherwise they won't win elections!
Occassionally politicos do unfortunately get away with offensive stuff but either they are very low profile or it is being co-ordinated by the leadership for cynical tactical reasons. Neither applies here.
I couldn't really care if she is allowed to stay a Labour member or not but would think significantly less of them and make me less likely to vote for them if she is allowed to stand again.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
Reading the original article (which was very nuanced) does not make Diane Abbot's letter in response look any better. There's nothing inflammatory about the original article.
She's not going to get the whip back.
Totally agree. that’s my point. The whip so quickly taken away yesterday certainly can’t come back, or else Starmer leadership credibility is toast.
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
Hence the mess Starmer is in.
It's not that uncommon for MPs to regain the whip having lost it pending an investigation. Rupa Huq is a recent Labour example, Conor Burns for the Conservatives... and Anne-Marie Morris has had it withdrawn and restored twice.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
Reading the original article (which was very nuanced) does not make Diane Abbot's letter in response look any better. There's nothing inflammatory about the original article.
She's not going to get the whip back.
Totally agree. that’s my point. The whip so quickly taken away yesterday certainly can’t come back, or else Starmer leadership credibility is toast.
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
Hence the mess Starmer is in.
Starmer's possibly made a big political mistake. Diane Abbott is not Chris Williamson.
Agreed.
But then Charles the first wanting his own head chopped off by his enemies, not a big political mistake either.
There could be a touch of The Life of David Gale going on here, considering how quickly she recanted her letter, once knowing the whip withdraw was imminent.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
Class is a minefield as well. I went to both private and state schools at various times. Yet I spent lots of time as a kid around labourers, workmen and working-class people. I don't have a posh accent (in fact I have a speech defect), but someone I had recently met guessed I'd gone to public school, not because of accent, but because of the *way* I spoke.
What class am I? I'm certainly not upper class; our salary and situation probably puts us firmly in the upper-middle class. Yet I *feel* classless, and I seem to get on well with people from all classes.
IMO class is becoming increasingly indistinct in the UK.
Is it ? I'd say there's an increasing rather than decreasing gulf between those with significant wealth and those without it.
But IMV wealth does not equate to class. Witness the short, fat man being I saw being taken as a VIP onto a yacht at the London Boat a few years back. He had two leggy ladies in tow, and was dressed like he'd been in a whirlwind through Next. I mean, I'm a scruffy soul, but this guy looked wrong.
(And yes, it was the boat show. Scruffy is allowed, as long as it is nautical scruffy. Particularly at the Southampton one...)
Whereas a fair few 'upper class' people of old families are actually rather poor in comparison. In the competition between 'old' and 'new' money, new is increasingly winning.
Are you sure you were at the boat show and not in a Randy Newman video?
That sort of image, but from what I recall, worse-dressed.
I was looking around a very expensive yacht when a saleswoman came up and politely, yet hurriedly, ushered all the visitors off. I hung around on the pontoon and watched as, a few minutes later, the guest arrived with his ladies, and a couple of better-dressed security men. everyone else had to put plastic shoe covers over out shoes; they just waltzed on board.
(I've no problem with the yacht manufacturers doing that; there was zero chance any of the grockles would be buying the yacht, and I daresay he might.)
Incidentally, I used to sometimes see massive yachts being transported down the road between St Neots and Cambridge. They were made somewhere near Oundle, and this was the no height restriction route to the sea.
I 'liked' it as well. I just liked Series 2 more. I'd say series 2 was best, then 3, and 1 the worst.
(Awaits the anti-woke Trekkies to wake up...)
There's actually an interesting point here. I am not a Trek fan. I don't go to sleep in Star Trek pyjamas, and have not memorised the deck layout of every Constellation-class starship. But I do like sci-fi; and unencumbered with a great deal of Star Trek love, that's my view of the series. I wonder how the view varies between the hardcore Trek fans and those who just want entertainment, and how the viewing figures between the groups?
I'm not either. I saw almost none of the original Patrick Stewart series, but still enjoyed this third series much more than the two preceding. (I gave up on the second.)
And like Star Wars, it's not really modern SF at all. More nostalgic science fantasy.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
Reading the original article (which was very nuanced) does not make Diane Abbot's letter in response look any better. There's nothing inflammatory about the original article.
She's not going to get the whip back.
Totally agree. that’s my point. The whip so quickly taken away yesterday certainly can’t come back, or else Starmer leadership credibility is toast.
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
Hence the mess Starmer is in.
It's not that uncommon for MPs to regain the whip having lost it pending an investigation. Rupa Huq is a recent Labour example, Conor Burns for the Conservatives... and Anne-Marie Morris has had it withdrawn and restored twice.
True. But imagine the field day Starmer’s Tory opponents and all the media will have in this particular case of whip returned, after Starmer’s statement today.
The power line/command wire suggests the troops aren’t that far away, and they are going to get through those rounds pretty sharpish so someone will need to reload. Not convinced the back and forth from a nearby location is safer than just being dug in with the machine gun and ammo.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
In their heads, Jews are WAY more prosperous and powerful than everyone else, and, by extension, than they actually are.
Therefore they must be the oppressors. The fact that Jewish people are, as an average, on relatively higher incomes, obviously hides a significant discrepancy in their lived experiences. However for Corbyn and Abbott, it just does not compute.
They would never accept that because there can be wealthy or powerful black Britons, racism against them does not exist, but they fail to extend that argument.
They must be confused as anything when they see a photo of the current Cabinet. How did the Conservatives manage to get such a diverse-looking group of people at the top table, without imposing targets or quotas for each minority?
This point is valid but as Rupa Huq found to her cost it needs a skilful elaboration if attacked.
Obviously in other ways Sunak's cabinet is admirably diverse. What more elaboration does it need?
Ok so -
"He's much more culturally, ideologically and intellectually a product of the elite education system he's been through in the UK than his Ghanaian heritage."
This is from a Times profile of Kwasi at the time he was made CoE.
Question: In essence how different is this from the sentiment that got Rupa Huq into hot water?
Because so charged has any conversation about race become that saying a black man 'isn't really black' because they fail to conform to some perceived stereotype of blackness is almost as taboo as using the n-word.
I don't like the fact that discussion of race, or even of non-white people, is so full of taboos as to be rendered impossible, and it's not my fault that it's the case. But you know it's true.
Also, it was bloody stupid. Look at him. Of course he's black.
Also, look at the subtext. ('It's possible to assume that all people of one race have the same interests and behave the same way.') Don't you think that deserves condemnation? And also the sub-subtext ('It's fine for me to say this because I'm one of the good guys and KK is one of the bad guys.') Don't you think that also deserves condemnation?
What about my question though? Is the sentiment in the Times profile materially different to the one that got Huq suspended?
I suspect that she thinks that what the Times profile says is pretty much the sentiment she was expressing. But it wasn't what she said. What the Times profile says was that KK acts in a way which owes more to his upbringing than to his Ghanaian heritage. That may be what RH meant to say. But what she said was that KK isn't properly black. Which is clearly not true and given the charged nature of comments about race, on pretty dodgy ground.
Just catching up on the Ulez-x protests – which were pretty thin and meagre. It's not clear to me why some councils and indeed politicians are setting their face against this. Seems a hostage to fortune:
a) opposing anti-pollution schemes is pretty much the definition of a policy that can be used against you in future b) it's perfectly legal – even Mark Harper has said so
The thing is that those who dislike this sort of thing really dislike it. So even if the median voter might think "it will be a pain, but I can see the point and it's worthwhile overall", the average opinion is strongly anti, because they're so loud.
And there's definitely still a "we resent and fear London" vote in the outermost boroughs, which this taps into.
I had an interesting argument about it with some mates recently – they were instinctively stridently against it because it means they will have to change their car. Once we'd got into the discussion about it, they softened their view. People are mostly reasonable. One or two of them also clicked that it would give them the perfect excuse to get a nicer motor, which they wives would otherwise have blocked...
Funny story
Our son was in a hurry yesterday to take the family to a rugby tournament and accidently (very unlike him) put petrol into their diesel which very quickly conked out
As ever to the rescue I went to collect his wife as she went to collect her mothers car and in getting into my car she commented
'It is a good job I didn't put petrol in our diesel car'
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
Reading the original article (which was very nuanced) does not make Diane Abbot's letter in response look any better. There's nothing inflammatory about the original article.
She's not going to get the whip back.
Totally agree. that’s my point. The whip so quickly taken away yesterday certainly can’t come back, or else Starmer leadership credibility is toast.
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
Hence the mess Starmer is in.
Abbott is the one in the mess, rather than Starmer. She’s a long history of making the same sort of comments, which in the context of recent Labour Party history are out of order. She responded to a carefully-written and nuanced piece, with a bull-in-a-china-shop letter devoid of context.
The obvious way forward, is for everyone to say nothing for a few weeks, and then for DA to announce that she’ll retire from the Commons at the next election, aged 70 or 71, allowing the disciplinary case to be dropped and the whip withheld. Bonus points for doing it during the Coronation recess, when everyone has got other things on their mind.
A lot of presumption there Abbot wants to leave parliament, and wanting to help Starmer quietly hide her demise.
If you think of the very opposite of the big presumptions you are making, that might be a lot closer to the truth.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
I think you can focus on class without making absurd comments that someone isn't really black because they've been successful. I don't see that one follows from the other.
Yes what a clumsy intervention that was. Course he's black ffs. But what about the extrapolated sentiment? That diversity is about things like class too. That you can't just look at (eg) the colour of people's faces as a measure of it. That's what people are driving at (isn't it) when they slag off the one dimensional identity politics of the modern left?
His age (he's only 44) means, in theory, he can easily sit 2024 out and be a perfectly viable candidate in a future Presidential election up to the 2040s at least.
In practice, though, he's so clearly indicated he'd go for it, and that Trump would be a poor choice, that he badly damages his credibility to wimp out. He's also an ex-Governor in 2026 (due to term limits) with no vacancies pending for him in the Senate, and there's a real risk it all fizzles out. Very hard to re-establish momentum when it's gone.
I didn't know they had term limits in Florida, that does put a different complexion on his choice. Pulling a Biden and having another go decades later may not appeal.
Those numbers for TalkTV are ridiculously small...how long is Rupert going to bother with this failing tv channel. There is no money in UK equivalent to the US entertainews (which is also going down the pan, CNN has lost loads of viewership).
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
Yes, I know. But from the letter you could get to thinking its author doesn't - hence the problem.
My impression is she was thinking only about Britain today, and about skin colour, saying black people face what others don't.
“My impression is she was thinking only about Britain today, and about skin colour, saying black people face what others don't.”
You mean she knew what she was saying, and is correct in what she was saying in your opinion, as being your quote above, everyone else don’t understand what she was saying, but think they do, so are wrong in that?
But that is quite a stupid hole for a politician to dig themself in. For example, imagine she is in charge of an advertising campaign, and that point she was making about racism was her product.
Her basic central point is imo valid (if it's the one I think it is). However the wrapping around the point is so bad as to merit the uproar.
“Her basic central point is imo valid (if it's the one I think it is).”
You are against long time MPs losing the whip, merely for making a valid point clumsily?
I 'liked' it as well. I just liked Series 2 more. I'd say series 2 was best, then 3, and 1 the worst.
(Awaits the anti-woke Trekkies to wake up...)
There's actually an interesting point here. I am not a Trek fan. I don't go to sleep in Star Trek pyjamas, and have not memorised the deck layout of every Constellation-class starship. But I do like sci-fi; and unencumbered with a great deal of Star Trek love, that's my view of the series. I wonder how the view varies between the hardcore Trek fans and those who just want entertainment, and how the viewing figures between the groups?
Hardcore fans often hate things more than non fans, weirdly. More investment, higher expectations. Like party members angry at pitches to the centre.
You know what, the phantom menace wasnt that bad ok? It was deeply flawed, but not one of the worst movies ever.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
Class is a minefield as well. I went to both private and state schools at various times. Yet I spent lots of time as a kid around labourers, workmen and working-class people. I don't have a posh accent (in fact I have a speech defect), but someone I had recently met guessed I'd gone to public school, not because of accent, but because of the *way* I spoke.
What class am I? I'm certainly not upper class; our salary and situation probably puts us firmly in the upper-middle class. Yet I *feel* classless, and I seem to get on well with people from all classes.
IMO class is becoming increasingly indistinct in the UK.
Is it ? I'd say there's an increasing rather than decreasing gulf between those with significant wealth and those without it.
But IMV wealth does not equate to class. Witness the short, fat man being I saw being taken as a VIP onto a yacht at the London Boat a few years back. He had two leggy ladies in tow, and was dressed like he'd been in a whirlwind through Next. I mean, I'm a scruffy soul, but this guy looked wrong.
(And yes, it was the boat show. Scruffy is allowed, as long as it is nautical scruffy. Particularly at the Southampton one...)
Whereas a fair few 'upper class' people of old families are actually rather poor in comparison. In the competition between 'old' and 'new' money, new is increasingly winning.
You cannot buy class, you either have it or you don't
You cannot buy class for yourself , but you can buy it for your children.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
In their heads, Jews are WAY more prosperous and powerful than everyone else, and, by extension, than they actually are.
Therefore they must be the oppressors. The fact that Jewish people are, as an average, on relatively higher incomes, obviously hides a significant discrepancy in their lived experiences. However for Corbyn and Abbott, it just does not compute.
They would never accept that because there can be wealthy or powerful black Britons, racism against them does not exist, but they fail to extend that argument.
They must be confused as anything when they see a photo of the current Cabinet. How did the Conservatives manage to get such a diverse-looking group of people at the top table, without imposing targets or quotas for each minority?
This point is valid but as Rupa Huq found to her cost it needs a skilful elaboration if attacked.
Obviously in other ways Sunak's cabinet is admirably diverse. What more elaboration does it need?
Ok so -
"He's much more culturally, ideologically and intellectually a product of the elite education system he's been through in the UK than his Ghanaian heritage."
This is from a Times profile of Kwasi at the time he was made CoE.
Question: In essence how different is this from the sentiment that got Rupa Huq into hot water?
Massively different. IIRC Huq pretty much suggested he wasn't really black ffs! About as racist a statement as it is possible to make. In other words if someone is black they cannot continue to be recognised as such if their parents were successful enough to want a top quality education for them, or that they learn to speak in a particular way. What about Obama's children? They have had a very privileged background. Does that make them any less black?
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
Class is a minefield as well. I went to both private and state schools at various times. Yet I spent lots of time as a kid around labourers, workmen and working-class people. I don't have a posh accent (in fact I have a speech defect), but someone I had recently met guessed I'd gone to public school, not because of accent, but because of the *way* I spoke.
What class am I? I'm certainly not upper class; our salary and situation probably puts us firmly in the upper-middle class. Yet I *feel* classless, and I seem to get on well with people from all classes.
IMO class is becoming increasingly indistinct in the UK.
Is it ? I'd say there's an increasing rather than decreasing gulf between those with significant wealth and those without it.
But IMV wealth does not equate to class. Witness the short, fat man being I saw being taken as a VIP onto a yacht at the London Boat a few years back. He had two leggy ladies in tow, and was dressed like he'd been in a whirlwind through Next. I mean, I'm a scruffy soul, but this guy looked wrong.
(And yes, it was the boat show. Scruffy is allowed, as long as it is nautical scruffy. Particularly at the Southampton one...)
Whereas a fair few 'upper class' people of old families are actually rather poor in comparison. In the competition between 'old' and 'new' money, new is increasingly winning.
You cannot buy class, you either have it or you don't
You cannot buy class for yourself , but you can buy it for your children.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
I think you can focus on class without making absurd comments that someone isn't really black because they've been successful. I don't see that one follows from the other.
Yes what a clumsy intervention that was. Course he's black ffs. But what about the extrapolated sentiment? That diversity is about things like class too. That you can't just look at (eg) the colour of people's faces as a measure of it. That's what people are driving at (isn't it) when they slag off the one dimensional identity politics of the modern left?
Well quite. I know many people from ethnic minorities, and being middle class, almost all of them are also middle class. Any disadvantage they may have from their race pales into insignificance against the disadvantages faced by, for example, the kids growing up in overcrowded accommodation in the council estate in the western edge of town. What colour your skin is not much of a factor in your future success or otherwise compared to how much money your parents had/have. If that was what RH was getting at, then well done her. But it felt much more like an exercise in goalpost-shifting.
I often wonder how things would have panned out had John McDonnell been the standard bearer of the Labour Left in 2015.
Both Corbyn and Abbott suffer from ultimately having pretty poor political brains. They end up veering onto stuff that doesn't swing votes (never more than a sentence away from a rant about Assange or Bolivian peanut farmers) or saying something that goes down around the kitchen table with fellow travellers, but comes across as, y'know, pretty f***ing dodgy when written down.
McDonnell is equally left wing but does actually "get" politics. He pretty obviously thinks Corbyn is the author of his own misfortune, sees pretty clearly the risks around Stop The War and Russian associations etc. He's more authentically "working man's club" than "socialist discussion group".
I think the answer is probably that his lack of apparent personal warmth would have been his problem, and he'd still have been portrayed in the press (not totally unfairly) as unreconstructed hard left. But he'd not have made things as easy politically, I suspect.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
I think you can focus on class without making absurd comments that someone isn't really black because they've been successful. I don't see that one follows from the other.
Yes what a clumsy intervention that was. Course he's black ffs. But what about the extrapolated sentiment? That diversity is about things like class too. That you can't just look at (eg) the colour of people's faces as a measure of it. That's what people are driving at (isn't it) when they slag off the one dimensional identity politics of the modern left?
It's a simple enough point that it was absurd to make it the way she did. But the swift reaction and lack of repeated history makes it easier to recover from.
Rumours are circulating about a 52 Yr old presenting themselves to Scotland police on Thursday to circumvent the media coverage of a public arrest. This person's lawyers carved out the deal therefore one must ask who was this individual with such powerful persuasion??
Certainly something... fishy about that. Serving yourself up to the polis on a plate (or a blini).
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
Class is a minefield as well. I went to both private and state schools at various times. Yet I spent lots of time as a kid around labourers, workmen and working-class people. I don't have a posh accent (in fact I have a speech defect), but someone I had recently met guessed I'd gone to public school, not because of accent, but because of the *way* I spoke.
What class am I? I'm certainly not upper class; our salary and situation probably puts us firmly in the upper-middle class. Yet I *feel* classless, and I seem to get on well with people from all classes.
IMO class is becoming increasingly indistinct in the UK.
Is it ? I'd say there's an increasing rather than decreasing gulf between those with significant wealth and those without it.
But IMV wealth does not equate to class. Witness the short, fat man being I saw being taken as a VIP onto a yacht at the London Boat a few years back. He had two leggy ladies in tow, and was dressed like he'd been in a whirlwind through Next. I mean, I'm a scruffy soul, but this guy looked wrong.
(And yes, it was the boat show. Scruffy is allowed, as long as it is nautical scruffy. Particularly at the Southampton one...)
Whereas a fair few 'upper class' people of old families are actually rather poor in comparison. In the competition between 'old' and 'new' money, new is increasingly winning.
You cannot buy class, you either hve it or you don't
I went to the station and got asked if I wanted a first or second class ticket. I asked for 'turnip class', and ended up in a wagon on the way to Glasgow...
If only you had said Ayrshire you would have had your own carriage and waiting staff.
The biggest "tell" in Fox's press release about Tucker Carlson's exit is that he is not getting a final show. No chance to say goodbye on his own terms or point people to his next home. Fox says "Carlson's last program was Friday April 21st." https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1650523878534332419
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
Well yes. But Rupa Huq went about it in a crass and brain-dead manner - that you can't be black if you're rich. Whereas the correct criticism would be 'what you look like is beside the point: we want to see a world where people from all backgrounds can prosper, and KK hardly exemplifies that.' But they can't say that, because then they'd have to stop banging on about race. And they like banging on about race almost as much as banging on about sexuality.
In this case it wasn't a desire to bang on about race it was triggered by the Tories banging about race. And yes I actually think you've framed the point much better than she did. She could easily have said that. It wasn't she didn't want to, it was that she lacked your fluence. That's my take anyway.
The biggest "tell" in Fox's press release about Tucker Carlson's exit is that he is not getting a final show. No chance to say goodbye on his own terms or point people to his next home. Fox says "Carlson's last program was Friday April 21st." https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1650523878534332419
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
Or, in simple terms:
Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
Its not about who votes Labour, it is the narrow world view of the oppressor vs the oppressed. The big Jewish communities in the UK traditionally were Labour leaning for many years until Corbyn attracted hardcore anti-Semites to be part of his project, while he doesn't see any issues with bits of art containing all the anti-Jewish tropes.
The thing is that the Left used to have a big-tent view of oppression - everyone who wasn't part of the ruling class was oppressed, and so people had more in common, through the class oppression they experienced, than divided them, through racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
That approach could have its problems. Sometimes it came across as white guys telling people who weren't white guys that their problems as not white guys weren't as important as white guy problems. But ideally it served as a basis for people to empathize with each other and to bring people together (well, in opposition to the ruling class, obvs).
The Left is still reacting to the defeats of the 80s by going down a series of dead-ends.
Interesting point, this. Focus on class not race, to simplify but keep the essence of it. It's a common criticism of the 'modern' left that they don't do this. That they obsess about race to the detriment of class.
But remember the Rupa Huq thing a while back? Her saying Kwasi K is black but 'not really' because what he mainly is is a product of upper class privilege? She was kind of going the way the critics want, wasn't she, in a sense. Looking at a person and seeing class not race.
Bit of a minefield.
I think you can focus on class without making absurd comments that someone isn't really black because they've been successful. I don't see that one follows from the other.
Yes what a clumsy intervention that was. Course he's black ffs. But what about the extrapolated sentiment? That diversity is about things like class too. That you can't just look at (eg) the colour of people's faces as a measure of it. That's what people are driving at (isn't it) when they slag off the one dimensional identity politics of the modern left?
Well quite. I know many people from ethnic minorities, and being middle class, almost all of them are also middle class. Any disadvantage they may have from their race pales into insignificance against the disadvantages faced by, for example, the kids growing up in overcrowded accommodation in the council estate in the western edge of town. What colour your skin is not much of a factor in your future success or otherwise compared to how much money your parents had/have. If that was what RH was getting at, then well done her. But it felt much more like an exercise in goalpost-shifting.
It would have been fair (politically) to say that, despite how he looks, Kwarteng is just other expensively-educated Tory who looks down at the working classes.
But that’s not what she said. She said that he isn’t really black. Which is racist. If she’d talked about his class and privilege, rather than denying the colour of his skin, she’d have been fine.
The biggest "tell" in Fox's press release about Tucker Carlson's exit is that he is not getting a final show. No chance to say goodbye on his own terms or point people to his next home. Fox says "Carlson's last program was Friday April 21st." https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1650523878534332419
As fired as a Ukranian remote-controlled machine gun. If my actions had cost my employer a materially significant amount of money, I’d get fired too.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
I agree. In her own mind she was responding to THAT Guardian article, which to be fair, go look at the article, is at odds with Abbotts and many others long time understanding of lived racism against them, and that was her context. It’s normal politics to see something you don’t agree with, and challenge it. It came across differently as a general statement detached from what she was responding to, detached from the context. For that reason the Labour Party process of giving an all round fair hearing will likely exonerate Abbott, tell her she made mistake for sure, she has already admitted those herself, but will agree with what she was trying to do as the right thing to do. It certainly won’t threaten her party membership.
Getting cleared by the party process is not the same as autocrat leader, obsessed by what the Mail and Sun May say tomorrow, giving the whip back. Once Abbots is cleared by the party, on basis of replying to an article, and challenging it’s concept of racism, All the pressure and focus will fall on Starmer, is the likely outcome in this one.
Between the lines you can read Starmer clearly knows this isn’t an open and shut case at all, and knows it’s going to become very difficult and messy for him. It already is after today.
Reading the original article (which was very nuanced) does not make Diane Abbot's letter in response look any better. There's nothing inflammatory about the original article.
She's not going to get the whip back.
Totally agree. that’s my point. The whip so quickly taken away yesterday certainly can’t come back, or else Starmer leadership credibility is toast.
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
Hence the mess Starmer is in.
It's not that uncommon for MPs to regain the whip having lost it pending an investigation. Rupa Huq is a recent Labour example, Conor Burns for the Conservatives... and Anne-Marie Morris has had it withdrawn and restored twice.
True. But imagine the field day Starmer’s Tory opponents and all the media will have in this particular case of whip returned, after Starmer’s statement today.
It'll take some political capital, certainly, but I think you slightly overestimate media interest in circumstances where the MP is genuinely and effusively apologetic. Huq's comments were bad, but ultimately her readmission wasn't big news. Similarly with other withdrawal/restorations - time and contrition go a fair way.
The issues are whether Abbott is willing to row it back (she has apologised but has she learned?) and whether Starmer is willing to burn any political capital or whether he actually sees an opportunity here to ease out a big left wing figure.
As has been mentioned, Abbott will be over 70 by the next election. There is some case for a deal being done involving a reconciliation and a retirement.
Color coding or genetic distance coding? Most of the discussion inspired by what an MP said assumed the first. But, according to Colin McEvedy, in his Atlas of African History, the second may be more important: " . . . it turns out that all non-African races of mankind -- Europeans and Middle Easterners, Chinese and Japanese, Indians and Indonesians, Polynesians, Amerindians and Australian Aboriginese -- have very similar genetic constitutions. . . . Anthropologists recognize four distinct sub-Saharan populations: Negroes, Nilo-Saharans, Pygmies, and San." (p. 20)
So, if someone wants to say there are five "races" of mankind, the four in sub-Saharan Africa, and one everywhere else, they could say they are just "following the science".
(Disclaimer: I am not a geneticist, nor have I tried to locate the papers McEvedy bases these claims on -- but they seem plausible to me.
Disclosure: Like many Americans, I am, by European standards, something of a mongrel, with two German grandparents, one Danish grandparent, and one English grandparent. There is a family rumor that there was a French woman on the German side, way back, but I have never tried to trace that down.)
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
Yes, I know. But from the letter you could get to thinking its author doesn't - hence the problem.
My impression is she was thinking only about Britain today, and about skin colour, saying black people face what others don't.
“My impression is she was thinking only about Britain today, and about skin colour, saying black people face what others don't.”
You mean she knew what she was saying, and is correct in what she was saying in your opinion, as being your quote above, everyone else don’t understand what she was saying, but think they do, so are wrong in that?
But that is quite a stupid hole for a politician to dig themself in. For example, imagine she is in charge of an advertising campaign, and that point she was making about racism was her product.
Her basic central point is imo valid (if it's the one I think it is). However the wrapping around the point is so bad as to merit the uproar.
“Her basic central point is imo valid (if it's the one I think it is).”
You are against long time MPs losing the whip, merely for making a valid point clumsily?
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
In their heads, Jews are WAY more prosperous and powerful than everyone else, and, by extension, than they actually are.
Therefore they must be the oppressors. The fact that Jewish people are, as an average, on relatively higher incomes, obviously hides a significant discrepancy in their lived experiences. However for Corbyn and Abbott, it just does not compute.
They would never accept that because there can be wealthy or powerful black Britons, racism against them does not exist, but they fail to extend that argument.
They must be confused as anything when they see a photo of the current Cabinet. How did the Conservatives manage to get such a diverse-looking group of people at the top table, without imposing targets or quotas for each minority?
This point is valid but as Rupa Huq found to her cost it needs a skilful elaboration if attacked.
Obviously in other ways Sunak's cabinet is admirably diverse. What more elaboration does it need?
Ok so -
"He's much more culturally, ideologically and intellectually a product of the elite education system he's been through in the UK than his Ghanaian heritage."
This is from a Times profile of Kwasi at the time he was made CoE.
Question: In essence how different is this from the sentiment that got Rupa Huq into hot water?
Massively different. IIRC Huq pretty much suggested he wasn't really black ffs! About as racist a statement as it is possible to make. In other words if someone is black they cannot continue to be recognised as such if their parents were successful enough to want a top quality education for them, or that they learn to speak in a particular way. What about Obama's children? They have had a very privileged background. Does that make them any less black?
I am surprised you needed to pose the question.
This is to take the comment absurdly literally imo.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.
She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.
The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.
Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.
Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.
I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.
I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
In their heads, Jews are WAY more prosperous and powerful than everyone else, and, by extension, than they actually are.
Therefore they must be the oppressors. The fact that Jewish people are, as an average, on relatively higher incomes, obviously hides a significant discrepancy in their lived experiences. However for Corbyn and Abbott, it just does not compute.
They would never accept that because there can be wealthy or powerful black Britons, racism against them does not exist, but they fail to extend that argument.
They must be confused as anything when they see a photo of the current Cabinet. How did the Conservatives manage to get such a diverse-looking group of people at the top table, without imposing targets or quotas for each minority?
This point is valid but as Rupa Huq found to her cost it needs a skilful elaboration if attacked.
Obviously in other ways Sunak's cabinet is admirably diverse. What more elaboration does it need?
Ok so -
"He's much more culturally, ideologically and intellectually a product of the elite education system he's been through in the UK than his Ghanaian heritage."
This is from a Times profile of Kwasi at the time he was made CoE.
Question: In essence how different is this from the sentiment that got Rupa Huq into hot water?
The thing is though, I'm not responsible for the Times profile or Rupa Huq's sentiment, neither of which I am very familiar with, but they don't seem to be terribly relevant to the statistic I gave. It's not surprising if most of the cabinet are privately educated that most of the ethnic minority cabinet ministers are also privately educated. It would only be worth noting if that wasn't the case!
First you have to find an attack on the point that in terms of the numbers of state-educated ministers Sunak's cabinet is way less inclusive than May's (or any Labour cabinet), and then I'll see if it need any skilful elaboration.
It's about what 'diversity' is. Sorry, cross purposes, I was meaning to develop the point generally from your comment not put you on the spot about it.
I often wonder how things would have panned out had John McDonnell been the standard bearer of the Labour Left in 2015.
Both Corbyn and Abbott suffer from ultimately having pretty poor political brains. They end up veering onto stuff that doesn't swing votes (never more than a sentence away from a rant about Assange or Bolivian peanut farmers) or saying something that goes down around the kitchen table with fellow travellers, but comes across as, y'know, pretty f***ing dodgy when written down.
McDonnell is equally left wing but does actually "get" politics. He pretty obviously thinks Corbyn is the author of his own misfortune, sees pretty clearly the risks around Stop The War and Russian associations etc. He's more authentically "working man's club" than "socialist discussion group".
I think the answer is probably that his lack of apparent personal warmth would have been his problem, and he'd still have been portrayed in the press (not totally unfairly) as unreconstructed hard left. But he'd not have made things as easy politically, I suspect.
I think he'd've won GE2017. Hs behavior as depicted in the book "Left Out" indicates somebody who is politically pragmatic, willing to make deals, and a Bidenesque capability for management of the bureaucracy.
His age (he's only 44) means, in theory, he can easily sit 2024 out and be a perfectly viable candidate in a future Presidential election up to the 2040s at least.
In practice, though, he's so clearly indicated he'd go for it, and that Trump would be a poor choice, that he badly damages his credibility to wimp out. He's also an ex-Governor in 2026 (due to term limits) with no vacancies pending for him in the Senate, and there's a real risk it all fizzles out. Very hard to re-establish momentum when it's gone.
I didn't know they had term limits in Florida, that does put a different complexion on his choice. Pulling a Biden and having another go decades later may not appeal.
It's not impossible in that people do get back in the game having been out of office.
Reagan is a pretty good template having ceased to be California Governor in 1975, essentially keeping enough momentum for a pretty decent tilt against Ford in 1976, making himself the standard bearer and remaining it when Ford lost. That timing potentially works for DeSantis - his term would end January 2027 and he'd be campaigning to succeed either Biden or Trump in 2028.
But DeSantis is no Reagan, and will be mocked for losing his bottle faced with Trump (also hard to get national attention having choked once).
So could happen, but I'm not sure there's enough there for him to be head of the taxi rank in four years time.
Color coding or genetic distance coding? Most of the discussion inspired by what an MP said assumed the first. But, according to Colin McEvedy, in his Atlas of African History, the second may be more important: " . . . it turns out that all non-African races of mankind -- Europeans and Middle Easterners, Chinese and Japanese, Indians and Indonesians, Polynesians, Amerindians and Australian Aboriginese -- have very similar genetic constitutions. . . . Anthropologists recognize four distinct sub-Saharan populations: Negroes, Nilo-Saharans, Pygmies, and San." (p. 20)
So, if someone wants to say there are five "races" of mankind, the four in sub-Saharan Africa, and one everywhere else, they could say they are just "following the science".
(Disclaimer: I am not a geneticist, nor have I tried to locate the papers McEvedy bases these claims on -- but they seem plausible to me.
Disclosure: Like many Americans, I am, by European standards, something of a mongrel, with two German grandparents, one Danish grandparent, and one English grandparent. There is a family rumor that there was a French woman on the German side, way back, but I have never tried to trace that down.)
Yes, you're quite right: there is far more genetic diversity among the black population than among the entire rest of humanity, all of whom (it is largely believed) descended from a comparatively small population which left Africa somewhere between 50 and 150 thousand years ago. Indeed, many believe there is exactly one common female ancestor for all non-black humans dating from around this time.
Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic
The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour
Starmer struggling with response
Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
One mistake??????????
Depends how bad the mistake is.
Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.
It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.
So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
There’s a flawed kernel of truth within her arguments, which I don’t think she really understands herself - certainly she’s unable coherently to express it.
Jewish people experienced systematic prejudice and brutal persecution in Europe long before the Transatlantic save trade - and the prejudice was as much religious as against the ‘other’. But ‘racism’ was a term which didn’t then exist: ‘race’ itself dates as a word in English from the 16th century, didn’t mean peoples of common forbears with common distinguishing characteristics until the 18th, and didn’t acquire its pseudo-scientific modern meaning until late in the nineteenth.
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and other 'inferior races' was to an extent informed and inspired by American treatment of black and indigenous people in the 19th century. That fact alone ought to explode her argument if she thought about it.
Impossible to know without being her but my impression is she'd read an article which claimed white people in Britain suffer just as much racism as people of colour and it angered her. Her reply was from the hip/heart not the brain. She reacted rather than responded
The 'racism vs prejudice' distinction she makes isn't particularly accurate or useful imo. In any case putting antisemitism in the same sentence as prejudice against gingernuts is crasser than crass. Lobbing in Irish and Travellers, hardly less so. Just a really really bad letter.
For me the valid point that's in there with the dross is about skin colour. She's saying black people face an incessant insidious racism 'all their lives' in a way and to an extent that white people and people who look white do not. And of course she says this from a position of deep personal insight.
Yes, I know. But from the letter you could get to thinking its author doesn't - hence the problem.
My impression is she was thinking only about Britain today, and about skin colour, saying black people face what others don't.
“My impression is she was thinking only about Britain today, and about skin colour, saying black people face what others don't.”
You mean she knew what she was saying, and is correct in what she was saying in your opinion, as being your quote above, everyone else don’t understand what she was saying, but think they do, so are wrong in that?
But that is quite a stupid hole for a politician to dig themself in. For example, imagine she is in charge of an advertising campaign, and that point she was making about racism was her product.
Her basic central point is imo valid (if it's the one I think it is). However the wrapping around the point is so bad as to merit the uproar.
“Her basic central point is imo valid (if it's the one I think it is).”
You are against long time MPs losing the whip, merely for making a valid point clumsily?
Comments
Soldiers of the 🇺🇦68th Brigade started to use Ukrainian-made automated remote firing system Shablia (Sword)
Fire is coordinated with the help of a remote control panel, which allows fighting at a distance without risking the operator's life.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1650516696434900993
His age (he's only 44) means, in theory, he can easily sit 2024 out and be a perfectly viable candidate in a future Presidential election up to the 2040s at least.
In practice, though, he's so clearly indicated he'd go for it, and that Trump would be a poor choice, that he badly damages his credibility to wimp out. He's also an ex-Governor in 2026 (due to term limits) with no vacancies pending for him in the Senate, and there's a real risk it all fizzles out. Very hard to re-establish momentum when it's gone.
Jeremy Jahns spoiler-free review, Season 3. He liked it.
PS @TSE can I talk about spoilers now?
But at whatever point there’s a fair hearing, do you really think that her contribution to debate, to challenge that articles understanding of racism, deserves her to be thrown out the party too?
Hence the mess Starmer is in.
https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1650445614486892547
He looks more of a doofus than does Trump.
But, if she expresses herself in a manner that is stupid and offensive, (which she did) her leader is entitled to decide he'd rather not have her as one of his candidates.
How does reading the original article make her letter read any better?
In any case, the bar for being expelled from a political party is necessarily, much higher than the bar for being prevented from standing for it.
https://youtu.be/cS06eprlj2I
Approx 3 minutes in.
(Awaits the anti-woke Trekkies to wake up...)
There's actually an interesting point here. I am not a Trek fan. I don't go to sleep in Star Trek pyjamas, and have not memorised the deck layout of every Constellation-class starship. But I do like sci-fi; and unencumbered with a great deal of Star Trek love, that's my view of the series. I wonder how the view varies between the hardcore Trek fans and those who just want entertainment, and how the viewing figures between the groups?
I wonder why that might be?
The obvious way forward, is for everyone to say nothing for a few weeks, and then for DA to announce that she’ll retire from the Commons at the next election, aged 70 or 71, allowing the disciplinary case to be dropped and the whip withheld. Bonus points for doing it during the Coronation recess, when everyone has got other things on their mind.
Occassionally politicos do unfortunately get away with offensive stuff but either they are very low profile or it is being co-ordinated by the leadership for cynical tactical reasons. Neither applies here.
I couldn't really care if she is allowed to stay a Labour member or not but would think significantly less of them and make me less likely to vote for them if she is allowed to stand again.
But then Charles the first wanting his own head chopped off by his enemies, not a big political mistake either.
There could be a touch of The Life of David Gale going on here, considering how quickly she recanted her letter, once knowing the whip withdraw was imminent.
Perhaps.
I was looking around a very expensive yacht when a saleswoman came up and politely, yet hurriedly, ushered all the visitors off. I hung around on the pontoon and watched as, a few minutes later, the guest arrived with his ladies, and a couple of better-dressed security men. everyone else had to put plastic shoe covers over out shoes; they just waltzed on board.
(I've no problem with the yacht manufacturers doing that; there was zero chance any of the grockles would be buying the yacht, and I daresay he might.)
Incidentally, I used to sometimes see massive yachts being transported down the road between St Neots and Cambridge. They were made somewhere near Oundle, and this was the no height restriction route to the sea.
I saw almost none of the original Patrick Stewart series, but still enjoyed this third series much more than the two preceding.
(I gave up on the second.)
And like Star Wars, it's not really modern SF at all. More nostalgic science fantasy.
What the Times profile says was that KK acts in a way which owes more to his upbringing than to his Ghanaian heritage.
That may be what RH meant to say. But what she said was that KK isn't properly black. Which is clearly not true and given the charged nature of comments about race, on pretty dodgy ground.
Our son was in a hurry yesterday to take the family to a rugby tournament and accidently (very unlike him) put petrol into their diesel which very quickly conked out
As ever to the rescue I went to collect his wife as she went to collect her mothers car and in getting into my car she commented
'It is a good job I didn't put petrol in our diesel car'
I collapsed laughing
If you think of the very opposite of the big presumptions you are making, that might be a lot closer to the truth.
1m
Labour leads by 15%, up three points from last week.
Westminster VI (23 April):
Labour 44% (–)
Conservative 29% (-3)
Liberal Democrat 11% (+1)
Reform UK 6% (+2)
Green 5% (+1)
Scottish National Party 3% (-1)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 16 April
AP - Tucker Carlson out at Fox News, network confirms
Though to be fair the whole senior apparatus was on board with boosting the lies, even if they worried behind the scenes some were too crazy.
I wonder how long after Fox “agreed to part ways with” over 3/4 of a billion dollars they also agreed to part ways with Tucker Carlson.
I mean how many minutes specifically?
https://order-order.com/2023/04/24/gb-news-still-beating-talktv-one-year-later/
Those numbers for TalkTV are ridiculously small...how long is Rupert going to bother with this failing tv channel. There is no money in UK equivalent to the US entertainews (which is also going down the pan, CNN has lost loads of viewership).
You are against long time MPs losing the whip, merely for making a valid point clumsily?
You know what, the phantom menace wasnt that bad ok? It was deeply flawed, but not one of the worst movies ever.
I am surprised you needed to pose the question.
Both Corbyn and Abbott suffer from ultimately having pretty poor political brains. They end up veering onto stuff that doesn't swing votes (never more than a sentence away from a rant about Assange or Bolivian peanut farmers) or saying something that goes down around the kitchen table with fellow travellers, but comes across as, y'know, pretty f***ing dodgy when written down.
McDonnell is equally left wing but does actually "get" politics. He pretty obviously thinks Corbyn is the author of his own misfortune, sees pretty clearly the risks around Stop The War and Russian associations etc. He's more authentically "working man's club" than "socialist discussion group".
I think the answer is probably that his lack of apparent personal warmth would have been his problem, and he'd still have been portrayed in the press (not totally unfairly) as unreconstructed hard left. But he'd not have made things as easy politically, I suspect.
But will enough of the other polls support MoonRabbits theory, in order to reshape the upward curve into a big boob on the graphical chart?
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1650523878534332419
New thread
Starmer leads Sunak by 4%.
At this moment, which of the following do Britons think would be the better Prime Minister for the UK? (23 April)
Keir Starmer 38% (+1)
Rishi Sunak 34% (-2)
Changes +/- 16 April
But that’s not what she said. She said that he isn’t really black. Which is racist. If she’d talked about his class and privilege, rather than denying the colour of his skin, she’d have been fine.
Breaking: Don Lemon is out at CNN, reports @grynbaum @BenMullin @koblin
The issues are whether Abbott is willing to row it back (she has apologised but has she learned?) and whether Starmer is willing to burn any political capital or whether he actually sees an opportunity here to ease out a big left wing figure.
As has been mentioned, Abbott will be over 70 by the next election. There is some case for a deal being done involving a reconciliation and a retirement.
" . . . it turns out that all non-African races of mankind -- Europeans and Middle Easterners, Chinese and Japanese, Indians and Indonesians, Polynesians, Amerindians and Australian Aboriginese -- have very similar genetic constitutions.
. . . Anthropologists recognize four distinct sub-Saharan populations: Negroes, Nilo-Saharans, Pygmies, and San." (p. 20)
So, if someone wants to say there are five "races" of mankind, the four in sub-Saharan Africa, and one everywhere else, they could say they are just "following the science".
(Disclaimer: I am not a geneticist, nor have I tried to locate the papers McEvedy bases these claims on -- but they seem plausible to me.
Disclosure: Like many Americans, I am, by European standards, something of a mongrel, with two German grandparents, one Danish grandparent, and one English grandparent. There is a family rumor that there was a French woman on the German side, way back, but I have never tried to trace that down.)
Reagan is a pretty good template having ceased to be California Governor in 1975, essentially keeping enough momentum for a pretty decent tilt against Ford in 1976, making himself the standard bearer and remaining it when Ford lost. That timing potentially works for DeSantis - his term would end January 2027 and he'd be campaigning to succeed either Biden or Trump in 2028.
But DeSantis is no Reagan, and will be mocked for losing his bottle faced with Trump (also hard to get national attention having choked once).
So could happen, but I'm not sure there's enough there for him to be head of the taxi rank in four years time.
Sorry. I’ll leave you alone with that.