When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
STOP bringing facts to the conversation. Any bad thing connected to any non-white culture is always a "tiny minority". That's what the left-wing guide book says. And even then it down to marginalisation or economics. Anything that doesn't blame black or brown people.
(Unless of course you are blaming it on religion. If you are blaming it on religion then it's not the religion, it's culture.)
Have you interviewed every pakistani-heritage person alive?
Let's have the breakdown; I'm as interested as the next person about the stats.
Or is it actually bollocks?
The facts I was referring to were very clearly those in foxinsoxuk's post: he provided a link for God's sake.
To say that there are problems with violence and attitudes towards women in Pakistan (and Afghanistan "topped" that poll on account of, you know, bombs and airstrikes and so forth) is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained (loving that word) in a culture.
Trying to find more about that Thomson Reuters Foundation survey but it ain't happening at 11pm on a Friday night.
Amnesty International: 960 honour killings of women in Pakistan in 2010. Yup, that's an attitude problem.
When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
STOP bringing facts to the conversation. Any bad thing connected to any non-white culture is always a "tiny minority". That's what the left-wing guide book says. And even then it down to marginalisation or economics. Anything that doesn't blame black or brown people.
(Unless of course you are blaming it on religion. If you are blaming it on religion then it's not the religion, it's culture.)
Have you interviewed every pakistani-heritage person alive?
Let's have the breakdown; I'm as interested as the next person about the stats.
Or is it actually bollocks?
The facts I was referring to were very clearly those in foxinsoxuk's post: he provided a link for God's sake.
To say that there are problems with violence and attitudes towards women in Pakistan (and Afghanistan "topped" that poll on account of, you know, bombs and airstrikes and so forth) is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained (loving that word) in a culture.
Trying to find more about that Thomson Reuters Foundation survey but it ain't happening at 11pm on a Friday night.
Not all of the top 10 worst countries for women are predominantly Muslim, but read the section here on Afghanistan:
1 in 11 women in Afghanistan die in childbirth. Most Afghan brides are under 16 and are arranged marriages. I cannot see how any of this is caused by NATO bombs!
Indeed one of the talibans grievances is that western education corrupts their girls with alien ideas of personal rights.
I hope that you are just trolling, and do not believe that these cultures are ones that respect women.
Er! Let me think about this "Crossing The Floor" business that has been mentioned.
My first thoughts were that this is not unknown. I believe Winston Churchill crossed the floor of the house 3 times without causing an election, and I wonder what happened to him. (Probably a reason very few politicians at that time, at Westminster, trusted him).
Secondly, Carswell has not crossed the floor to another existing parliamentary party. He has, for whatever reason, resigned his seat, forced an election which he hopes to win and return to Westminster as an MP for another party.
Tactically, if he was to win, that would mean that he would have precedence over Farage. Which could be interesting.
It depends what you mean by crossing the floor.
Churchill represented (iirc, and I hope I do) 3 parties in parliament, Conservatives twice, Liberal, and constitutionalist.
He crossed the floor from Con-Lib. Much later lost his seat as a Lib, later won another seat as a Constitutionalist then crossed the floor back to Con.
I would have thought that it was pretty obvious that Cameron is not happy with the status quo in the EU. Perhaps he should shout it louder, or perhaps he thinks that megaphone diplomacy will not help him in his dealings with other EU leaders.
Cameron really needs to take a stance. He's put it off for too long, and irrespective of how it plays politically he simply has to make it clear to the other EU leaders that the UK isn't happy with the status quo.
Ed needs to agree to a referendum. A mutual, and minimal shopping list could then be agreed. Even the LDs want some change.
...
Cameron is only unhappy with the status quo for as long as it is an issue which threatens his chances of winning in 2015. No one seriously thinks that if it didn't have the potential to derail his aim to be PM after next May he would have any concerns about it at all.
His concern with the EU and its influence over the UK stretches exactly as far as its potential to cause him problems with his own MPs and the voters.
I would have thought that it was pretty obvious that Cameron is not happy with the status quo in the EU. Perhaps he should shout it louder, or perhaps he thinks that megaphone diplomacy will not help him in his dealings with other EU leaders.
Cameron is only unhappy with the status quo for as long as it is an issue which threatens his chances of winning in 2015. No one seriously thinks that if it didn't have the potential to derail his aim to be PM after next May he would have any concerns about it at all.
His concern with the EU and its influence over the UK stretches exactly as far as its potential to cause him problems with his own MPs and the voters.
Cameron's speeches on the subject have been clear and straight forward - they go back quite a few years and seem quite sensible. If your assumptions fantasies and prejudices keep you happy then I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies.
Cameron has indeed been quite clear. He has consistently said he will not contemplate the UK leaving the EU. Making that clear to those he is supposed to be getting concessions from in Europe completely destroys any chance he has of obtaining any meaningful concessions. He knows that which is one of the reasons he does it.
Seriously? David Herdson? Do you write regular pieces for PB on elections and so forth? You should be ashamed of yourself. A disgusting comment. Misogyny is engrained (sic) in the pakistani-heritage muslim population?
I can see why @SouthamObserver left and I'm as right wing as they come.
You may apologise.
I note you omitted a word from your quote (for which you didn't use quote marks).
I should be ashamed of myself, should I? Why? Because I've said something you disagree with? Because I've written something that might cause a silence at a polite dinner party? Why precisely is it 'disgusting'? Because it's not true or because you very much hope it's not true but that a great deal of evidence suggests it is.
I have a lot of experience with Pakistani-heritage muslims (Mirpuri primarily). I lived in Bradford district for 39 years until last year. I was a councillor on Bradford Council for four years. I was a governor at a school where around 95% of the intake came from precisely the kind of background we're talking about. I have played cricket with and against many Pakistani-Asians. I accept that anecdote is not a substitute for balanced data but when it is not an isolated example but a broad range of experiences accumulated over decades that is not mere anecdote.
Culture and religion in this case are so intertwined that it's pointless to try to separate them. In any case, both are used to reinforce the other and both are so central to identity that one could not be denied without denying the other.
Is there hope? Potentially. Up to mid-teens, attitudes (or at least, actions) are more westernised but the power of the madrassas and the continued importing of husbands and brides from Pakistan undoes what small steps might be made in schools. There has been a noticeable increase in the wearing of the full burka in the last five or so years, for example. I am deeply sceptical that this is an initiative that has come from women's groups, judging by the attitudes and opinions of the girls at the school I was involved with.
We cannot wish this problem away. We cannot pretend things are all right when they so clearly are not. (And for the record, just because one community has a particular problem, it doesn't mean that's the only community that has it, or that others don't have a prevalence in other problems). But the first step is acknowledging that there is a problem and that the criminality is an extreme outcome from that problem, it is nonetheless related to it.
Ray Honeyford made many of the points you make all those years ago. If only we had listened, properly listened to him then.
Er! How long did it take for the Church Of England to have women priests? Or when did women in the UK get to Vote? When were women allowed to have bank accounts, mortgages or any financial transaction confirmed in the UK without a male, husband or family member confirming it.
When was the last time in the UK a woman was drowned, burnt at the stake or imprisoned for being a witch (The last may surprise you)
How long did it take to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and tobacco users, or alcohol, or crime.
It does, unfortunately, take time to change the beliefs and cultures of people, even our "own".
@Cyclefree Many of the things that we claim are abhorrent about the Muslim culture, were the norm in Victorian Britain Our society adapted over several generations to an idea they have only had a few generations to assimilate And, like many Victorians did, they try to cling on to the old ideas more firmly. Change is scary for everyone.
*snip sorry couldn't find a way of fitting it all in*
David I respect your experience but you really must be careful with the way you discuss some of this stuff. I am delighted to hear that you have played cricket with many Pakistani-Asians and found them delightful.
But you could look at many groupings and find equally reprehensible traits which would should not be assigned to that broader cultural grouping.
One of my friends was hit over the head with a metal bar at the Bridgehouse in Canning Town many years ago because he was sitting with a black woman (he is white). At that time if you wandered along many areas of London as a mixed couple you would find yourself in all kinds of trouble. Perhaps there are still those neighbourhoods. What are we to make of that?
In China it is known that female babies were killed because families wanted sons for a number of reasons. What are we to make of the Chinese because of it?
There are no doubt hugely important issues regarding attitudes and violence towards women in pakistan. No doubt at all. But that is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained to the point whereby me must be wary of our work colleagues and friends who are of pakistani-heritage. Which is sort of what the people here are saying.
Sorry - it doesn't make for a clickbait Daily Telegraph article but it is more complex than that.
I wonder what future generations will find abhorrent in our current culture. I'm predicting some kind of backlash that sees us all as decadent degenerates, and I fear we won't live up to that image and so disappoint burgeoning historians of the period looking to see what made us so vile.
As for the point about cultures changing slowly and with reluctance (certain bits come in fits and starts, where there is fertile ground for some larger changes), that's true, but you don't have to wait for it to change by some kind of cultural osmosis alone, contact between cultures leading to gradual change. Proselytize. Work hard to convince them actively, no need to wring hands about how minority or majority communities haven't caught up with the way things should be.
One of the paradoxes in all this is that immigration to Britain is driven by desire for economic improvement, but the culture of opposition to womens education is one of the major predictors of poor economic development: http://www.unfpa.org/gender/empowerment2.htm
I personally think that our DIFD funding of womens education projects is a far more effective way of undermining the influence of Islamist politics than much of our defence spending on aircraft carriers without planes or Trident submarines.
Hit the bastards where it hurts, educate their women!
When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
STOP bringing facts to the conversation. Any bad thing connected to any non-white culture is always a "tiny minority". That's what the left-wing guide book says. And even then it down to marginalisation or economics. Anything that doesn't blame black or brown people.
(Unless of course you are blaming it on religion. If you are blaming it on religion then it's not the religion, it's culture.)
Have you interviewed every pakistani-heritage person alive?
Let's have the breakdown; I'm as interested as the next person about the stats.
Or is it actually bollocks?
The facts I was referring to were very clearly those in foxinsoxuk's post: he provided a link for God's sake.
To say that there are problems with violence and attitudes towards women in Pakistan (and Afghanistan "topped" that poll on account of, you know, bombs and airstrikes and so forth) is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained (loving that word) in a culture.
Trying to find more about that Thomson Reuters Foundation survey but it ain't happening at 11pm on a Friday night.
Amnesty International: 960 honour killings of women in Pakistan in 2010. Yup, that's an attitude problem.
Stop making a prat of yourself.
960/180 million. Do you really want me to find the number of people killed by trouser presses in the UK (non-trivial number I assure you) and draw some conclusion from that?
What-aboutery won't serve you here. Women got the vote at the same time as most working class males, in 1918. Crime rates fell dramatically in the nineteenth century. Use of alcohol and tobacco is irrelevant to this discussion.
Er! Let me think about this "Crossing The Floor" business that has been mentioned.
My first thoughts were that this is not unknown. I believe Winston Churchill crossed the floor of the house 3 times without causing an election, and I wonder what happened to him. (Probably a reason very few politicians at that time, at Westminster, trusted him).
Secondly, Carswell has not crossed the floor to another existing parliamentary party. He has, for whatever reason, resigned his seat, forced an election which he hopes to win and return to Westminster as an MP for another party.
Tactically, if he was to win, that would mean that he would have precedence over Farage. Which could be interesting.
It depends what you mean by crossing the floor.
Churchill represented (iirc, and I hope I do) 3 parties in parliament, Conservatives twice, Liberal, and constitutionalist.
He crossed the floor from Con-Lib. Much later lost his seat as a Lib, later won another seat as a Constitutionalist then crossed the floor back to Con.
Though he regarded Constitutionalist as meaning 'Opposed to Labour but not specifically Lib or Con', so it's not necessarily crossing the floor to join a Con govt. There wasn't really an effective Constitutionalist Party as such.
That said, you could include the 1916 Liberal split as 'crossing the floor', when Asquith remained leader of the official Liberals but Lloyd George formed a government with (most of) the Tories.
Er! How long did it take for the Church Of England to have women priests? Or when did women in the UK get to Vote? When were women allowed to have bank accounts, mortgages or any financial transaction confirmed in the UK without a male, husband or family member confirming it.
When was the last time in the UK a woman was drowned, burnt at the stake or imprisoned for being a witch (The last may surprise you)
How long did it take to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and tobacco users, or alcohol, or crime.
It does, unfortunately, take time to change the beliefs and cultures of people, even our "own".
But, outside of London at least, this isn't a case of progress happening too slowly. It's getting worse. Young Muslims, on average, are more extreme on matters of religion, more regressive on social issues, and more opposed to British identity, than their parents or grandparents. I grew up with the streets full of saris. When I go home now they are full of niqabs (if the women are allowed out at all).
British Islam has gone, in a little over a generation, from being predominantly Indian in disposition, and primarily manifested around personal faith and community, to being predominantly Arab in disposition, manifested in the demands it makes of others and in its angry response to challenge.
When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
STOP bringing facts to the conversation. Any bad thing connected to any non-white culture is always a "tiny minority". That's what the left-wing guide book says. And even then it down to marginalisation or economics. Anything that doesn't blame black or brown people.
(Unless of course you are blaming it on religion. If you are blaming it on religion then it's not the religion, it's culture.)
I am mildly left of centre (currently LibDem formerly New Labour) and I think that many on the left have been wrong on this in the past. In my book the rights of women to education and free expression trumps the rights of their culture to its traditions. There is nothing left wing about conservative patriarchal societies that oppress women and others.
Indeed. I'm generally painted as a raging right-winger on here, but I don't see myself as that right-wing. I'm strongly supportive of equal rights for women and gay people etc.
Here's another fact: 88% of Pakistanis believe wives should obey their husbands:
@Cyclefree Many of the things that we claim are abhorrent about the Muslim culture, were the norm in Victorian Britain Our society adapted over several generations to an idea they have only had a few generations to assimilate And, like many Victorians did, they try to cling on to the old ideas more firmly. Change is scary for everyone.
Well, sure, but isn't it stupid to import people with unpleasant attitudes that we know will take them 60-90 years for their families to get over?
Er! How long did it take for the Church Of England to have women priests? Or when did women in the UK get to Vote? When were women allowed to have bank accounts, mortgages or any financial transaction confirmed in the UK without a male, husband or family member confirming it.
When was the last time in the UK a woman was drowned, burnt at the stake or imprisoned for being a witch (The last may surprise you)
How long did it take to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and tobacco users, or alcohol, or crime.
It does, unfortunately, take time to change the beliefs and cultures of people, even our "own".
And no doubt you'd support the people in the past who actively tried to change those things and don't support the people who actively tried to prevent it.
Domestic violence and mysogeny are terrible. I worked in an office where it became apparent that a secretary was living in a secret adress unknown to her former husband who beat her. We found out when she had tpo leave and move and live somewhere else because hye had found out where she was. She and he were both white. There is no peculiar racial element to domestic violence or violence against women. Where Pakistanis behave both appallingly and illegaly they should be caught and prosecuted - just like anyone else would or should be. Its quite simple. That it was allowed to not only continue but grow is utterly appalling and as we see from the comments in some quarters - princpally elsewhere - it has had the total opposite effect to what was the alleged intention.
No matter what the centuries old prejudices and bigotry are, or may be, which may be used to justify this activity, it has no place in the UK. Going bonkers mad on anti muslim rants do not help anyone either.
When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
STOP bringing facts to the conversation. Any bad thing connected to any non-white culture is always a "tiny minority". That's what the left-wing guide book says. And even then it down to marginalisation or economics. Anything that doesn't blame black or brown people.
(Unless of course you are blaming it on religion. If you are blaming it on religion then it's not the religion, it's culture.)
I am mildly left of centre (currently LibDem formerly New Labour) and I think that many on the left have been wrong on this in the past. In my book the rights of women to education and free expression trumps the rights of their culture to its traditions. There is nothing left wing about conservative patriarchal societies that oppress women and others.
Indeed. I'm generally painted as a raging right-winger on here, but I don't see myself as that right-wing. I'm strongly supportive of equal rights for women and gay people etc.
Here's another fact: 88% of Pakistanis believe wives should obey their husbands:
On a lighter note, I expect 88% of British wives think their husbands should obey them.
The traditional christian marriage ceremony says love honour and obey.
And requires husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church.
I was not aware Christ loved the Church quite so much, or carnally at any rate. As it came about after his death, I guess he shows his love for it through divine favour only though.
@Cyclefree Many of the things that we claim are abhorrent about the Muslim culture, were the norm in Victorian Britain Our society adapted over several generations to an idea they have only had a few generations to assimilate And, like many Victorians did, they try to cling on to the old ideas more firmly. Change is scary for everyone.
Were there many honour killings in Victorian times?
Let's take my own Italian family. My grandmother was educated but not to university level and the expectation was that she would marry and have a family. My mother: same expectation. It was a source of regret to her that her brothers went to university and not her. She was fiercely determined that I would get the best education she could get for me and use it and she was very proud of my work achievements.
3 generations was all it took. And yet we're talking about 2nd / 3rd and probably 4th generation Pakistani-heritage men born and educated in this country who have difficulty accepting the concept of girls being educated and choosing how to live their lives to the extent that some of them will kill them?
Really? How long are we supposed to wait? This won't do. It really won't.
When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
STOP bringing facts to the conversation. Any bad thing connected to any non-white culture is always a "tiny minority". That's what the left-wing guide book says. And even then it down to marginalisation or economics. Anything that doesn't blame black or brown people.
(Unless of course you are blaming it on religion. If you are blaming it on religion then it's not the religion, it's culture.)
Have you interviewed every pakistani-heritage person alive?
Let's have the breakdown; I'm as interested as the next person about the stats.
Or is it actually bollocks?
The facts I was referring to were very clearly those in foxinsoxuk's post: he provided a link for God's sake.
To say that there are problems with violence and attitudes towards women in Pakistan (and Afghanistan "topped" that poll on account of, you know, bombs and airstrikes and so forth) is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained (loving that word) in a culture.
Trying to find more about that Thomson Reuters Foundation survey but it ain't happening at 11pm on a Friday night.
Amnesty International: 960 honour killings of women in Pakistan in 2010. Yup, that's an attitude problem.
Stop making a prat of yourself.
Topping is either a deluded fool, or he is rather elderly, doddery, and idiotic. I suspect the latter.
Either way, he is best ignored, on this subject.
How is that an interesting or wry response to what I have been posting, Sean?
*snip sorry couldn't find a way of fitting it all in*
David I respect your experience but you really must be careful with the way you discuss some of this stuff. I am delighted to hear that you have played cricket with many Pakistani-Asians and found them delightful.
But you could look at many groupings and find equally reprehensible traits which would should not be assigned to that broader cultural grouping.
One of my friends was hit over the head with a metal bar at the Bridgehouse in Canning Town many years ago because he was sitting with a black woman (he is white). At that time if you wandered along many areas of London as a mixed couple you would find yourself in all kinds of trouble. Perhaps there are still those neighbourhoods. What are we to make of that?
In China it is known that female babies were killed because families wanted sons for a number of reasons. What are we to make of the Chinese because of it?
There are no doubt hugely important issues regarding attitudes and violence towards women in pakistan. No doubt at all. But that is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained to the point whereby me must be wary of our work colleagues and friends who are of pakistani-heritage. Which is sort of what the people here are saying.
Sorry - it doesn't make for a clickbait Daily Telegraph article but it is more complex than that.
No-one as far as I'm aware has said that we should be wary of our work colleagues and friends who are of pakistani-heritage. Who has said that?
@Cyclefree Many of the things that we claim are abhorrent about the Muslim culture, were the norm in Victorian Britain Our society adapted over several generations to an idea they have only had a few generations to assimilate And, like many Victorians did, they try to cling on to the old ideas more firmly. Change is scary for everyone.
The Victorian era was one of uninterrupted progress for the rights of women. Women had vastly greater legal rights in 1901 than they had in 1837.
@Topping: SO himself said before he left that it was clear that there was a problem within the Muslim community with its attitude to women and non-Muslim women in particular.
It does not mean that all Pakistani-heritage men here are like this nor that all Muslims are like this. But to ignore the role which culture and religion has in creating the environment in which men think they can do this is to fly in the face of reality.
It is to ignore the very real - and harrowing - testimony of those Pakistani-heritage girls and women who describe what goes on and who have been abandoned by the liberal left in favour of their violent and misogynistic menfolk.
If we do not describe a problem accurately, we have no hope of dealing with it.
The time has long since passed. Time for us to say things as they are; time for the good men within the Pakistani community to say things as they are (as, to be fair, some have done), no matter how embarrassing. Hard truths need to be spoken. The Freedlands of this world either cannot or won't. Only when it hits them personally will the penny drop.
Yes I agree.
We also have a problem with left-handed shoplifters.
Now.
Not all left-handed people are shoplifters but a large number of them. I'm sorry I can't give you the percentage breakdown of exactly how many but if you look at Croydon Crown Court last week you will see that there was a case where five left-handed shoplifters were prosecuted successfully.
So we must be careful.
Actually I have a better question to ask you than the one I asked of @Ishmael_X and @Socrates.
Think about it and I look forward to your answer.
Of all the pakistani-heritage people you know, either as friends or associates or workmates, how many do you think are violently misogynistic?
On this one occasion on PB I am prepared to take your own personal anecdotal experiences as a significant contribution to this debate.
Niquab and similar dress is very effective at covering bruises. Not being allowed out without accompanying male relative is another. That is my anecdote.
Incidentally, my Trust has started a campaign against FGM today, with a new policy and protocol of reporting all cases in a structured and organised way. Not before time!
Delighted to hear about your Trust - sounds a worthwhile cause.
just out of interest (and you didn't answer the question I asked about the pakistani-heritage people YOU KNOW), how do you know the Niqab covers bruises because, you know, they're covered.
I am a doctor, so sometimes myself and the nurses are the only non family members to see under the Niqab. Nuff said, before I breach confidentiality.
*snip sorry couldn't find a way of fitting it all in*
David I respect your experience but you really must be careful with the way you discuss some of this stuff. I am delighted to hear that you have played cricket with many Pakistani-Asians and found them delightful.
But you could look at many groupings and find equally reprehensible traits which would should not be assigned to that broader cultural grouping.
One of my friends was hit over the head with a metal bar at the Bridgehouse in Canning Town many years ago because he was sitting with a black woman (he is white). At that time if you wandered along many areas of London as a mixed couple you would find yourself in all kinds of trouble. Perhaps there are still those neighbourhoods. What are we to make of that?
In China it is known that female babies were killed because families wanted sons for a number of reasons. What are we to make of the Chinese because of it?
There are no doubt hugely important issues regarding attitudes and violence towards women in pakistan. No doubt at all. But that is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained to the point whereby me must be wary of our work colleagues and friends who are of pakistani-heritage. Which is sort of what the people here are saying.
Sorry - it doesn't make for a clickbait Daily Telegraph article but it is more complex than that.
Of course it's complex and I haven't said that people should be wary of work colleagues.
However, we cannot excuse or explain away one wrong simply because other wrongs go on elsewhere, or did forty years ago. Nor should we pretend all problems are of a similar scale.
I agree we should be careful about how we discuss it but too often that phrase is used as a euphemism for "we shouldn't discuss it at all, or if we have to, we shouldn't do it publicly". Unfortunately, that attitude is precisely what gives the criminals the green light: they believe, accurately, that the establishment will not take meaningful action against them.
What is needed in discussion is a willingness not to flinch from the facts nor to exaggerate them. The extremists on one side and the deniers on the other will try to do so; they are two sides of the same coin.
Er! Let me think about this "Crossing The Floor" business that has been mentioned.
My first thoughts were that this is not unknown. I believe Winston Churchill crossed the floor of the house 3 times without causing an election, and I wonder what happened to him. (Probably a reason very few politicians at that time, at Westminster, trusted him).
Secondly, Carswell has not crossed the floor to another existing parliamentary party. He has, for whatever reason, resigned his seat, forced an election which he hopes to win and return to Westminster as an MP for another party.
Tactically, if he was to win, that would mean that he would have precedence over Farage. Which could be interesting.
It depends what you mean by crossing the floor.
Churchill represented (iirc, and I hope I do) 3 parties in parliament, Conservatives twice, Liberal, and constitutionalist.
He crossed the floor from Con-Lib. Much later lost his seat as a Lib, later won another seat as a Constitutionalist then crossed the floor back to Con.
Er! Sorry, your point is? Did he or did he not cross the floor of the house to join an opposition party because he disagreed with the politics of the party to which he was elected, without going to the electorate? And what did become of him?
Carswell is playing the Great Game. Who knows how it will play out? I suspect that even Carswell doesn't know... but he certainly has high hopes.
Well, the four men in a car, injected a little white girl of 13 with a lethal dose of herion and threw her out in a car park to die were sikhs, Birmingham about 13 years ago. I still remember the relief and smile of the BBC newsreader when could explain the girl was a prostitute and drug addict, out of control. The men got 18 months.
And there have been plenty of reports of terrible attacks on women in India.
So it is not just pakistanis. It is the whole continent.
Yes, precisely! Severely tempting as someone of Indian extraction for me to point the finger at the Pakistanis, but it would be disingenuous!
When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
The facts I was referring to were very clearly those in foxinsoxuk's post: he provided a link for God's sake.
To say that there are problems with violence and attitudes towards women in Pakistan (and Afghanistan "topped" that poll on account of, you know, bombs and airstrikes and so forth) is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained (loving that word) in a culture.
Trying to find more about that Thomson Reuters Foundation survey but it ain't happening at 11pm on a Friday night.
Amnesty International: 960 honour killings of women in Pakistan in 2010. Yup, that's an attitude problem.
Stop making a prat of yourself.
Topping is either a deluded fool, or he is rather elderly, doddery, and idiotic. I suspect the latter.
Either way, he is best ignored, on this subject.
How is that an interesting or wry response to what I have been posting, Sean?
Er! How long did it take for the Church Of England to have women priests? Or when did women in the UK get to Vote? When were women allowed to have bank accounts, mortgages or any financial transaction confirmed in the UK without a male, husband or family member confirming it.
When was the last time in the UK a woman was drowned, burnt at the stake or imprisoned for being a witch (The last may surprise you)
How long did it take to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and tobacco users, or alcohol, or crime.
It does, unfortunately, take time to change the beliefs and cultures of people, even our "own".
The change should have happened when the grandparents or great-grandparents came to this country. If the change in views didn't happen it was because of the pernicious multi-culturalism doctrine which allowed people from rural Pakistan to live here as if they were still in rural Pakistan and because of the growth and spread of the Arabic view of Islam and its social/political attitudes.
The change would have happened much sooner if we had insisted on it as all self-respecting societies do, as we used to do.
When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
STOP bringing facts to the conversation. Any bad thing connected to any non-white culture is always a "tiny minority". That's what the left-wing guide book says. And even then it down to marginalisation or economics. Anything that doesn't blame black or brown people.
(Unless of course you are blaming it on religion. If you are blaming it on religion then it's not the religion, it's culture.)
I am mildly left of centre (currently LibDem formerly New Labour) and I think that many on the left have been wrong on this in the past. In my book the rights of women to education and free expression trumps the rights of their culture to its traditions. There is nothing left wing about conservative patriarchal societies that oppress women and others.
Indeed. I'm generally painted as a raging right-winger on here, but I don't see myself as that right-wing. I'm strongly supportive of equal rights for women and gay people etc.
Here's another fact: 88% of Pakistanis believe wives should obey their husbands:
On a lighter note, I expect 88% of British wives think their husbands should obey them.
The traditional christian marriage ceremony says love honour and obey.
And requires husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church.
I take your point - obviously - but it does not require husbands to obey. My point is a small one. No husband should expect his wife to 'obey' and I am quite prepared to agree that Pakistani men to name one group are grotesquely behind the times. But not all - the tory culture minister is not in that group.
Looking at this from the other end of the telescope I can see that there may well be something in a desire for women to behave with some decorum. Call me old fashioned but the sight of women cavorting drunk saddens me (Mrs Speaker is an obvious exampleI'd like to think women could be more civilising than men). But they are and should be free to be as equally stupid as men... A simplistic naive desire for decency and decorum should not be used as justification of oppression.
@Cyclefree Many of the things that we claim are abhorrent about the Muslim culture, were the norm in Victorian Britain Our society adapted over several generations to an idea they have only had a few generations to assimilate And, like many Victorians did, they try to cling on to the old ideas more firmly. Change is scary for everyone.
The Victorian era was one of uninterrupted progress for the rights of women. Women had vastly greater legal rights in 1901 than they had in 1837.
Possibly due to having a female monarch. But how long between 1837 and 1901? 64 years or so? And another 28 years before all women got the vote.
*snip sorry couldn't find a way of fitting it all in*
David I respect your experience but you really must be careful with the way you discuss some of this stuff. I am delighted
Sorry - it doesn't make for a clickbait Daily Telegraph article but it is more complex than that.
I agree we should be careful about how we discuss it but too often that phrase is used as a euphemism for "we shouldn't discuss it at all, or if we have to, we shouldn't do it publicly". Unfortunately, that attitude is precisely what gives the criminals the green light: they believe, accurately, that the establishment will not take meaningful action against them.
Well said. Several years ago I doubt I would have agreed, or rather I would have defined the 'difficult to discuss appropriately' to mean 'not to be discussed at all/not worth discussing as you suggest, but as much of a sappy social liberal as I feel I am sometimes, prone to all sorts of PCness and the like, my mind keeps going back to an interview I saw on TV many years ago of some inarticulate leader of the EDF or other pretty unappealing group, discussing the problem of exactly the sort of thing we have learned was going on in Rotherham and in other places, and I mentally dismissed him as a nutter because he sounded like a nasty racist idiot. Now, he probably was a nasty racist idiot, but his raising of that issue, and how no-one would acknowledge it, has proven true.
It doesn't mean the rest of his screed is true, nor that problems do not exist in other communities and cultures, including the mainstream majority, that need addressing, but there needs to be at least the willingness to hear unflinching views which may be hard to hear, to discuss difficult issues. The key problem moving forward will of course be to avoid hysteria and exaggeration, latching on to one aspect of an abhorrent situation to the exclusion of other relevant factors, but all potential factors still need to be looked at first.
Er! How long did it take for the Church Of England to have women priests? Or when did women in the UK get to Vote? When were women allowed to have bank accounts, mortgages or any financial transaction confirmed in the UK without a male, husband or family member confirming it.
When was the last time in the UK a woman was drowned, burnt at the stake or imprisoned for being a witch (The last may surprise you)
How long did it take to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and tobacco users, or alcohol, or crime.
It does, unfortunately, take time to change the beliefs and cultures of people, even our "own".
The change should have happened when the grandparents or great-grandparents came to this country. If the change in views didn't happen it was because of the pernicious multi-culturalism doctrine which allowed people from rural Pakistan to live here as if they were still in rural Pakistan and because of the growth and spread of the Arabic view of Islam and its social/political attitudes.
The change would have happened much sooner if we had insisted on it as all self-respecting societies do, as we used to do.
Yes multiculturalism is wrong and indeed Cameron made a speech a little while ago making that point.
Well, the four men in a car, injected a little white girl of 13 with a lethal dose of herion and threw her out in a car park to die were sikhs, Birmingham about 13 years ago. I still remember the relief and smile of the BBC newsreader when could explain the girl was a prostitute and drug addict, out of control. The men got 18 months.
And there have been plenty of reports of terrible attacks on women in India.
So it is not just pakistanis. It is the whole continent.
Yes, precisely! Severely tempting as someone of Indian extraction for me to point the finger at the Pakistanis, but it would be disingenuous!
I had not realised the sanitation situation was still so bad - I had offhandly heard of Modi's slogan quoted in the piece, and now I understand its appeal much more.
On his stump, the new prime minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist BJP had promised, "Toilets first, Temples later". He needs to do that sooner to save lives of more women.
Domestic violence and mysogeny are terrible. I worked in an office where it became apparent that a secretary was living in a secret adress unknown to her former husband who beat her. We found out when she had tpo leave and move and live somewhere else because hye had found out where she was. She and he were both white. There is no peculiar racial element to domestic violence or violence against women. Where Pakistanis behave both appallingly and illegaly they should be caught and prosecuted - just like anyone else would or should be. Its quite simple. That it was allowed to not only continue but grow is utterly appalling and as we see from the comments in some quarters - princpally elsewhere - it has had the total opposite effect to what was the alleged intention.
No matter what the centuries old prejudices and bigotry are, or may be, which may be used to justify this activity, it has no place in the UK. Going bonkers mad on anti muslim rants do not help anyone either.
Some decades ago I was living with my brother in a flat in South London. There was a knock on the door at midnight. It was a tearful and facially bruised young woman, a friend of my brothers from university with nowhere else to go when she was beaten by her violent boyfriend at their flat. Both were white and worked as Merchant bankers in the classic 80's yuppie life.* Domestic violence happens everywhere.
This woman at least had the knowledge and ability to escape, and a place to go. In more traditional societies that escape is often not there.
*she stayed a few nights, before returning to her boyfriend who she later married and had children with. Astonishing really.
Er! How long did it take for the Church Of England to have women priests? Or when did women in the UK get to Vote? When were women allowed to have bank accounts, mortgages or any financial transaction confirmed in the UK without a male, husband or family member confirming it.
When was the last time in the UK a woman was drowned, burnt at the stake or imprisoned for being a witch (The last may surprise you)
How long did it take to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and tobacco users, or alcohol, or crime.
It does, unfortunately, take time to change the beliefs and cultures of people, even our "own".
The change should have happened when the grandparents or great-grandparents came to this country. If the change in views didn't happen it was because of the pernicious multi-culturalism doctrine which allowed people from rural Pakistan to live here as if they were still in rural Pakistan and because of the growth and spread of the Arabic view of Islam and its social/political attitudes.
The change would have happened much sooner if we had insisted on it as all self-respecting societies do, as we used to do.
Oh! Puhleeze!
People are not allowed to make numpty statements and election promises these days? For goodness sake, that would put 90% of UKIP in prison.
@foxinsoxuk Abused women returning to the person who committed the abuse is very common. It has always been a mystery to me why they do it, but from observation they do.
When only 15% feel that domestic violence is never right then it is reasonable to say that Pakistani men are endemically mysogynistic. Ignoring facts does not make them go away.
STOP bringing facts to the conversation. Any bad thing connected to any non-white culture is always a "tiny minority". That's what the left-wing guide book says. And even then it down to marginalisation or economics. Anything that doesn't blame black or brown people.
(Unless of course you are blaming it on religion. If you are blaming it on religion then it's not the religion, it's culture.)
I am mildly left of centre (currently LibDem formerly New Labour) and I think that many on the left have been wrong on this in the past. In my book the rights of women to education and free expression trumps the rights of their culture to its traditions. There is nothing left wing about conservative patriarchal societies that oppress women and others.
Indeed. I'm generally painted as a raging right-winger on here, but I don't see myself as that right-wing. I'm strongly supportive of equal rights for women and gay people etc.
Here's another fact: 88% of Pakistanis believe wives should obey their husbands:
On a lighter note, I expect 88% of British wives think their husbands should obey them.
The traditional christian marriage ceremony says love honour and obey.
And requires husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church.
I was not aware Christ loved the Church quite so much, or carnally at any rate. As it came about after his death, I guess he shows his love for it through divine favour only though.
@foxinsoxuk Abused women returning to the person who committed the abuse is very common. It has always been a mystery to me why they do it, but from observation they do.
It was also true of some of the Rotherham girls, who would escape from care to visit their abusers. Controlling behaviour is hard to understand from the outside.
It's also worth bearing in mind that in Victorian times, or even medieval times, you didn't see women that would cover even their faces for modesty. I see it every time I go to certain parts of London now.
Indeed. I'm generally painted as a raging right-winger on here, but I don't see myself as that right-wing. I'm strongly supportive of equal rights for women and gay people etc.
Here's another fact: 88% of Pakistanis believe wives should obey their husbands:
Um. I try not to describe other posters as any "thing", especially as the left/right axis is hopeless for this sort of discussion, but if I may say so, you strike me primarily as unhelpfully OTT, even when you're absolutely right. It's not just about things as serious as child rape but about everything from the inclusion of certain battles in history to the villainy of the GOP. If you came to a PB meet, you'd pick a fight with the barman over the taste of the Unspeakably! Vile! Beer! What comes across is primarily a state of continuous fury, and it discourages some of us from engaging with you. It's easier to discuss with Mr Jones, even though he supported, perhaps still supports, the BNP, because he expresses himself with some restraint and occasionally concedes a point.
Most of the discussion revolves around two points:
1. The rapist gangs were profiting from unhealthy tolerance and reluctance to oblige people who hated them not because they were rapists but because they were Asian. I agree that we need to learn from that; it is just as racist to tolerate evil-doing because it is committed by members of a minority as to persecute harmless people because they're in a minority.
2. The majority of people of Asian background have nothing whatsoever to do with rape or other illegal activity, and it's IMHO wrong to suggest that we should be wary of them, or demand that they make declarations, or that they reject their religion, or do anything but simply behave according to the law.
That leaves the question of what should be legal, and what is merely a matter of diffierent customs. There are important issues there, notably on women's rights, but they benefit from sober discussion and evolve over time, as Britain's own habits have done in my lifetime.
@foxinsoxuk Abused women returning to the person who committed the abuse is very common. It has always been a mystery to me why they do it, but from observation they do.
Agreed, I've come across a couple of cases personally known to me. When I've questioned the abused (as an employer, I was obliged) I was assured that the abuser had promised to change. Never did. I ended up having to get one of the women into a shelter and managed to help her get her life back.
@SeanT I would say that money was a factor, they used the same methods as pimps the world over use. Of course, there are places where you might have to purchase a child, but after that, it follows the same basic format
@Topping: SO himself said before he left that it was clear that there was a problem within the Muslim community with its attitude to women and non-Muslim women in particular.
Niquab and similar dress is very effective at covering bruises. Not being allowed out without accompanying male relative is another. That is my anecdote.
Incidentally, my Trust has started a campaign against FGM today, with a new policy and protocol of reporting all cases in a structured and organised way. Not before time!
If your Trust does sex changes, British Muslims will regard you and your Trust as stinking hypocrites.
I think you might be a bit sensitive and over-interpret the tone of my posts. There are certain subjects where I deliberately pull no punches. I really am very contemptuous of politicians that do nothing or next to nothing in the face of appalling crimes, like mass child rape or nations' aggressive invasions of neighbours. I feel that is quite appropriate, even if it ruffles feathers.
On more minor issues, I might use language like "Gordon Bennett" or "bloody hell", but this is much more in a roll my eyes type way. Whenever anyone engages with me, I always answer every question and try to be measured and civil. The few occasions I'm uncivil to people is when those people have been abusive to me (the accusation of racism or bigotry I regard as being abusive).
I don't see how I've been "unhelpful" in this thread. That to me seems like a way to just exclude views you dislike. Most of my points are about large chunks of the Muslim community having some very unsavourable views that need to be acknowledged and challenged publicly so that change happens. I don't see how that is "unhelpful".
@Topping: SO himself said before he left that it was clear that there was a problem within the Muslim community with its attitude to women and non-Muslim women in particular.
Niquab and similar dress is very effective at covering bruises. Not being allowed out without accompanying male relative is another. That is my anecdote.
Incidentally, my Trust has started a campaign against FGM today, with a new policy and protocol of reporting all cases in a structured and organised way. Not before time!
If your Trust does sex changes, British Muslims will regard you and your Trust as stinking hypocrites.
And they'd be right.
It does do sex changes on the NHS. Why does that make it hypocritical?
Sex change patients are adults and have compulsory psychiatric assessment and prolonged counselling and give full informed consent.
Unhappy voters of Rotherham, they voted Labour for unlimited Council non-jobs with easy conditions, unlimited sick leave, early retirement on stress, made up pension funds, lightly supervised benefits and council housing. And modern automation in the form of community elders and postal voting means their efforts are no longer needed by the Labour party.
@foxinsoxuk Abused women returning to the person who committed the abuse is very common. It has always been a mystery to me why they do it, but from observation they do.
Theodore Dalrymple has written about the phenomenon:
@Topping: SO himself said before he left that it was clear that there was a problem within the Muslim community with its attitude to women and non-Muslim women in particular.
Niquab and similar dress is very effective at covering bruises. Not being allowed out without accompanying male relative is another. That is my anecdote.
Incidentally, my Trust has started a campaign against FGM today, with a new policy and protocol of reporting all cases in a structured and organised way. Not before time!
If your Trust does sex changes, British Muslims will regard you and your Trust as stinking hypocrites.
And they'd be right.
I trust that you are just feeling inconvenienced today with your pre transgender operation drugs, keep taking the tablets. After all, a quick snip and you too will be speaking in a higher octave.
Sorry, didn't notice that you already were. Was it fully successful?
*snip sorry couldn't find a way of fitting it all in*
David I respect your experience but you really must be careful with the way you discuss some of this stuff. I am delighted to hear that you have played cricket with many Pakistani-Asians and found them delightful.
But you could look at many groupings and find equally reprehensible traits which would should not be assigned to that broader cultural grouping.
One of my friends was hit over the head with a metal bar at the Bridgehouse in Canning Town many years ago because he was sitting with a black woman (he is white). At that time if you wandered along many areas of London as a mixed couple you would find yourself in all kinds of trouble. Perhaps there are still those neighbourhoods. What are we to make of that?
In China it is known that female babies were killed because families wanted sons for a number of reasons. What are we to make of the Chinese because of it?
There are no doubt hugely important issues regarding attitudes and violence towards women in pakistan. No doubt at all. But that is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained to the point whereby me must be wary of our work colleagues and friends who are of pakistani-heritage. Which is sort of what the people here are saying.
Sorry - it doesn't make for a clickbait Daily Telegraph article but it is more complex than that.
No-one as far as I'm aware has said that we should be wary of our work colleagues and friends who are of pakistani-heritage. Who has said that?
There again, there aren't any 12 to 15 year old White girls posting on this thread.
I think you might be a bit sensitive and over-interpret the tone of my posts. There are certain subjects where I deliberately pull no punches. I really am very contemptuous of politicians that do nothing or next to nothing in the face of appalling crimes, like mass child rape or nations' aggressive invasions of neighbours. I feel that is quite appropriate, even if it ruffles feathers.
On more minor issues, I might use language like "Gordon Bennett" or "bloody hell", but this is much more in a roll my eyes type way. Whenever anyone engages with me, I always answer every question and try to be measured and civil. The few occasions I'm uncivil to people is when those people have been abusive to me (the accusation of racism or bigotry I regard as being abusive).
I don't see how I've been "unhelpful" in this thread. That to me seems like a way to just exclude views you dislike. Most of my points are about large chunks of the Muslim community having some very unsavourable views that need to be acknowledged and challenged publicly so that change happens. I don't see how that is "unhelpful".
Thanks for the reasonable reply. It's sometimes difficult to distinguish fury from eye-rolling irony through online posts, and I'm probably misreading some of your posts. I'm sorry if I was too personal.
The area where we disagree is that you feel that people with legal views that don't fit with our general outlook should be challenged, cross-examined by visa officials, even refused entry to Britain. For example, I'd dislike living under Sharia law, but I don't mind someone peacefully disagreeing and thinking it'd be great. You feel, I think, that unless we ensure that new arrivals think as we do, society will crumble. I think that a society that checks for undesirable opinions has already crumbled (and that the search for agreed desirable opinions is more elusive than one might think).
Neil 'Cash for questions' Hamilton? I often wonder about UKIP's wisdom in taking him on board.
Will voters care that much about an issue from more than 20 years ago? Cash for questions seems like small beer compared to more recent scandals. Like Rotherham. Or Stafford.
I don't know how to put this. Any NHS story, however bad, is good for Labour and bad for the Tories.
The Tories are welcome to raise Stafford [ tragic though it was ]. Health will always help Labour. Like defence only helps right wing parties.
Have you any idea how grotesque that sounds? "Yeah, we can preside over old dears drinking their flower water so as not to die of dehydration. We can have mass deaths on our watch due to neglect. So what? Our voters still think the sun shines out of our arse on the NHS....."
@foxinsoxuk Abused women returning to the person who committed the abuse is very common. It has always been a mystery to me why they do it, but from observation they do.
It was also true of some of the Rotherham girls, who would escape from care to visit their abusers. Controlling behaviour is hard to understand from the outside.
It's quite easy to understand in that situation. These were deeply neglected girls (and boys, also), who were so needy and broken they saw love and hope in an ugly Pakistani man offering them a few cigarettes and some vodka. Human nature, innit. They would grasp at anything.
What is less explicable is the total acquiescence of the Rotherham authorities in this industrial-scale child rape.
There are rumours floating around Twitter that money was a factor: e.g. that the taxi companies used to ferry the girls from town to town were owned by certain significant people.
It's worth remembering that Alexis Jay herself, in her report, says of the abuse:
"it offered career and financial opportunities to young Asian men who got involved"
What a striking phrase.
to add to that
there's a specific child aspect here - like ducklings who imprint on the first thing they see children are designed to "attach" imo as a survival mechanism. so targeting very young girls when they're past puberty but still at duckling age takes advantage of that trait (and why they break away when they get a bit older because of that "duckling" effect goes around 15-17 ish
the gangs would generally use the younger better looking ones to do the initial grooming then once they had the girl attached to them then they'd share the girls among their older relatives so the 1st stage is the initial grooming the 2nd stage is forcing them to have sex with their older relatives
"that the taxi companies used to ferry the girls from town to town were owned by certain significant people"
and the 3rd stage is that "community leader" link which is the bit that would damage Labour the most not because of direct collusion but because of all the smiley photos shaking hands with them
"In 2004 the Channel 4 documentary Edge of the City, which explored claims that Asian men in Bradford were grooming white girls as young as 11, sexually abusing them and passing them on to their friends, was initially withdrawn from the schedules after the BNP described it as "a party political broadcast", and the chief constable of West Yorkshire police warned that it could spark disorder.
Anecdotally, as far back as the mid-90s, local agencies have been aware of the participation of ethnic minority men in some cases of serial abuse. But what has not emerged is any consistent evidence to suggest that Pakistani Muslim men are uniquely and disproportionately involved in these crimes, nor that they are preying on white girls because they believe them to be legitimate sexual quarry, as is now being suggested."
@Topping: SO himself said before he left that it was clear that there was a problem within the Muslim community with its attitude to women and non-Muslim women in particular.
Niquab and similar dress is very effective at covering bruises. Not being allowed out without accompanying male relative is another. That is my anecdote.
Incidentally, my Trust has started a campaign against FGM today, with a new policy and protocol of reporting all cases in a structured and organised way. Not before time!
If your Trust does sex changes, British Muslims will regard you and your Trust as stinking hypocrites.
And they'd be right.
It does do sex changes on the NHS. Why does that make it hypocritical?
Sex change patients are adults and have compulsory psychiatric assessment and prolonged counselling and give full informed consent.
None of which is true of FGM patients.
So, if girls receive counselling before being mutilated, that's OK?
First time I've heard of FGM on the NHS being advocated before, but the NHS quite happily kills hundreds of thousands of babies each without asking their consent, so at least you're being consistent.
Must say, whilst I'm generally not one for ranting and raving on internet blogs, I'm not surprised there is a LOT of anger about what's gone on in Rotherham. It's very distressing and outrageous.
What surprise's me more is that there's not more anger really. It's a wonder people aren't out on the street's of some of the Northern towns/cities protesting.
The British people always surprise me with their tolerance sometimes bordering on apathy.
Oddly enough, it's exactly 10 years since Channel 4 screened their documentary "The Edge Of The City" after it had been controversially pulled from the schedules in May that year:
"More than a year in the making, Edge of the City follows social workers with difficult cases in one inner city.
The most controversial of these witnesses authorities and parents trying to stop groups of young men who are grooming girls as young as 11 for sex.
Although none of the officials in the film raise race as the issue in these predatory relationships, the filmmakers make it perfectly clear that the abusers are predominantly Asian, and all of the abused girls are white."
Must say, whilst I'm generally not one for ranting and raving on internet blogs, I'm not surprised there is a LOT of anger about what's gone on in Rotherham. It's very distressing and outrageous.
What surprise's me more is that there's not more anger really. It's a wonder people aren't out on the street's of some of the Northern towns/cities protesting.
The British people always surprise me with their tolerance sometimes bordering on apathy.
The people who'd most get angry have known about this for maybe 10-12 years if not longer. It finally getting in the papers is good but also massively depressing at the same time. The most likely reaction there would be a slight increase in off licence sales.
STOP FGM UK @STOPFGMUK 2h Ive Spoken to a white victim of a grooming gang that was given fgm because it fetched more money she said she's not alone.
I've been wondering if there is any leftist sacred cow that Rotherham hasn't pummelled into the ground. FGM and gay rights were the only ones I could think of.
Must say, whilst I'm generally not one for ranting and raving on internet blogs, I'm not surprised there is a LOT of anger about what's gone on in Rotherham. It's very distressing and outrageous.
What surprise's me more is that there's not more anger really. It's a wonder people aren't out on the street's of some of the Northern towns/cities protesting.
The British people always surprise me with their tolerance sometimes bordering on apathy.
The people who'd most get angry have known about this for maybe 10-12 years if not longer. It finally getting in the papers is good but also massively depressing at the same time. The most likely reaction there would be a slight increase in off licence sales.
Worth noting that Rotherham is huge news abroad - widely covered in German, French, Spanish and American press, etc. It is probably the biggest domestic British news story - in global terms - in several years.
Foreigners are reading headlines like "a nation's shame".
Perhaps they are more objective than us. They realize how big this is, whereas we just sit here, gobsmacked - and wishing it away.
Still no meaningful response from either Cameron or Miliband.
This is going to be one of greatest scandals any of us have known, in Britain.
Nothing changed after the Times reporting because by their inaction the political class showed ambitious senior plod what the score was.
The current political class won't do a single thing about this because the full story would destroy Labour which means they'd do whatever was necessary to stop the Tories doing anything about it.
Must say, whilst I'm generally not one for ranting and raving on internet blogs, I'm not surprised there is a LOT of anger about what's gone on in Rotherham. It's very distressing and outrageous.
What surprise's me more is that there's not more anger really. It's a wonder people aren't out on the street's of some of the Northern towns/cities protesting.
The British people always surprise me with their tolerance sometimes bordering on apathy.
The people who'd most get angry have known about this for maybe 10-12 years if not longer. It finally getting in the papers is good but also massively depressing at the same time. The most likely reaction there would be a slight increase in off licence sales.
Worth noting that Rotherham is huge news abroad - widely covered in German, French, Spanish and American press, etc. It is probably the biggest domestic British news story - in global terms - in several years.
Foreigners are reading headlines like "a nation's shame".
Perhaps they are more objective than us. They realize how big this is, whereas we just sit here, gobsmacked - and wishing it away.
yeah, could be - i find the whole thing depressing as ****
Must say, whilst I'm generally not one for ranting and raving on internet blogs, I'm not surprised there is a LOT of anger about what's gone on in Rotherham. It's very distressing and outrageous.
What surprise's me more is that there's not more anger really. It's a wonder people aren't out on the street's of some of the Northern towns/cities protesting.
The British people always surprise me with their tolerance sometimes bordering on apathy.
The people who'd most get angry have known about this for maybe 10-12 years if not longer. It finally getting in the papers is good but also massively depressing at the same time. The most likely reaction there would be a slight increase in off licence sales.
Worth noting that Rotherham is huge news abroad - widely covered in German, French, Spanish and American press, etc. It is probably the biggest domestic British news story - in global terms - in several years.
Foreigners are reading headlines like "a nation's shame".
Perhaps they are more objective than us. They realize how big this is, whereas we just sit here, gobsmacked - and wishing it away.
And following on from the riots just a few years ago, the broken side of Britain has been globally advertised.
I think you might be a bit sensitive and over-interpret the tone of my posts. There are certain subjects where I deliberately pull no punches. I really am very contemptuous of politicians that do nothing or next to nothing in the face of appalling crimes, like mass child rape or nations' aggressive invasions of neighbours. I feel that is quite appropriate, even if it ruffles feathers.
On more minor issues, I might use language like "Gordon Bennett" or "bloody hell", but this is much more in a roll my eyes type way. Whenever anyone engages with me, I always answer every question and try to be measured and civil. The few occasions I'm uncivil to people is when those people have been abusive to me (the accusation of racism or bigotry I regard as being abusive).
I don't see how I've been "unhelpful" in this thread. That to me seems like a way to just exclude views you dislike. Most of my points are about large chunks of the Muslim community having some very unsavourable views that need to be acknowledged and challenged publicly so that change happens. I don't see how that is "unhelpful".
NPXMP "a bit sensitive"??!!
I generally despise the man, and everything he says, does, and thinks, and I often hope his hair explodes, but give him credit for coming on here and taking flak as himself - and as an MP - when he could hide behind anonymity (like you).
He is brave to do that, and also - I would hazard - fairly immune to criticism. A stark contrast with Stewart Jackson, the Tory MP, who auto-combusted on here, after a few arguments.
I meant sensitive in terms of how he interpreted how aggressive my words. As for anonymity, I have professional reasons that stop me from voicing public political views.
This is going to be one of greatest scandals any of us have known, in Britain.
Nothing changed after the Times reporting because by their inaction the political class showed ambitious senior plod what the score was.
The current political class won't do a single thing about this because the full story would destroy Labour which means they'd do whatever was necessary to stop the Tories doing anything about it.
You could be right, I am sure the entire elite wants to squash this, and will attempt to do so.
And yet this story is so incendiary - with so many pulsating elements: race, sex, religion - it might escape the clutches of the Establishment. And spiral out of control.
Hard to say right now.
What we can say is that it has already done severe damage to the lefty shibboleths of anti-racism and political correctness. The public contempt is palpable.
Yeah in the end they won't be able to hide it because it keeps getting worse every year. It's just the number of girls who have to pay the price before our glorious rulers are forced to do something.
"Channel 4 has been forced to pull a documentary, which shows Asian men in Bradford grooming young white girls for sex, after local police claimed the programme could spark race riots in the city.
Police claimed the observational documentary, which was replaced by an episode of Faking It, would risk creating public disorder in Bradford where race tensions are still running high.
C4 branded the claims as "ludicrous" and said the programme, which follows the work of Bradford Social Services, was not about colour but abuse."
"This month, Channel 4 will finally screen Edge of the City, its controversial documentary depicting the bleak realities of life in the most deprived parts of Bradford. The film was originally due to go out in May, but hours before transmission it was pulled from the schedules, after it was advertised on the British National Party website as a "party political broadcast", and the chief constable of West Yorkshire warned that its screening could provoke community disorder in the run-up to the local and European elections.
The controversy centred on the film's claims that men - most of them British Asians - in Bradford and neighbouring Keighley were grooming under-age white schoolgirls for sex. At the eye of the storm was the film's producer and director, Anna Hall."
Must say, whilst I'm generally not one for ranting and raving on internet blogs, I'm not surprised there is a LOT of anger about what's gone on in Rotherham. It's very distressing and outrageous.
What surprise's me more is that there's not more anger really. It's a wonder people aren't out on the street's of some of the Northern towns/cities protesting.
The British people always surprise me with their tolerance sometimes bordering on apathy.
The people who'd most get angry have known about this for maybe 10-12 years if not longer. It finally getting in the papers is good but also massively depressing at the same time. The most likely reaction there would be a slight increase in off licence sales.
Probably quite a few suicides as well now I think of it.
Worth noting that Rotherham is huge news abroad - widely covered in German, French, Spanish and American press, etc. It is probably the biggest domestic British news story - in global terms - in several years.
Foreigners are reading headlines like "a nation's shame".
Perhaps they are more objective than us. They realize how big this is, whereas we just sit here, gobsmacked - and wishing it away.
A few points to note:
1. After the ERM debacle, it took a few weeks before the Tories collapsed in the polls. The event was too big for people to assimilate immediately. In another context, it took me a full year to get my head around exactly what the BBC had done wrong re:Savile.
2. The countries you mention are either Catholic or have much higher Catholic populations than England. They know all about child abuse. They cannot believe how recent the cases are and so much worse than the RCC's treatment of the same issue, no mean feat.
3. The press are in the doghouse after Leveson. The BBC are in the doghouse after Savile. The police are in the doghouse after Savile and Rotherham. Three mighty forces looking for redemption. Add to the mix the mass ranks of internet activists and the inchoate anger felt (just look at the comments under Guardian apologias).
The British people are slow to anger, but when angry, they are unstoppable.
The pound is not an asset......... The pound is not an asset......... The pound is not an asset......... The pound is not an asset.........
He [Salmond] and other SNP ministers have argued that Scotland would not take on its share of the UK’s liabilities unless its resources were also distributed fairly, including the pound.
However, economists have said sterling is not an asset that can be divided between two countries as its value rests on the ability of UK taxpayers to stand behind it. A separate Scotland would no longer pay taxes to the UK Treasury.
Mr Salmond stumbled during a phone-in on BBC Radio Scotland after being pressed by a caller to admit that the pound was not an asset but “a means of exchange”.
The First Minister replied: “We haven’t argued it’s the currency that’s the asset, it’s the financial assets of the United Kingdom.”
This is an attempt to silence the Unionists The nationalist mobs that have targeted Jim Murphy are trying to intimidate their opponents as the independence referendum takes an increasingly ugly turn
This is an attempt to silence the Unionists The nationalist mobs that have targeted Jim Murphy are trying to intimidate their opponents as the independence referendum takes an increasingly ugly turn
Not a few of them will have witnessed their leader constantly heckling, interrupting and lobbing accusations at Alastair Darling during the 2nd TV debate.
So they now think that's acceptable behaviour. What monkey sees, monkey does.
@Topping: SO himself said before he left that it was clear that there was a problem within the Muslim community with its attitude to women and non-Muslim women in particular.
Niquab and similar dress is very effective at covering bruises. Not being allowed out without accompanying male relative is another. That is my anecdote.
Incidentally, my Trust has started a campaign against FGM today, with a new policy and protocol of reporting all cases in a structured and organised way. Not before time!
If your Trust does sex changes, British Muslims will regard you and your Trust as stinking hypocrites.
And they'd be right.
It does do sex changes on the NHS. Why does that make it hypocritical?
Sex change patients are adults and have compulsory psychiatric assessment and prolonged counselling and give full informed consent.
None of which is true of FGM patients.
So, if girls receive counselling before being mutilated, that's OK?
First time I've heard of FGM on the NHS being advocated before, but the NHS quite happily kills hundreds of thousands of babies each without asking their consent, so at least you're being consistent.
You are being wilfully obtuse. I have never advocated FGM on the NHS.
What my Trust is doing is setting up a new reporting system so that any female patient who is found to have had FGM when seen by medical or midwifery staff has this reported and recorded, so the practice can be stamped out.
I hope that is clear enough. If not then you are too stupid for words.
Busy day ahead, but some final thoughts on the indyref.
My friend earlier in the week described the current settlement as 'spousal abuse', Scotland the put upon partner, and while acknowledging that leaving would be risky and painful, she just wants the beatings to stop...
It was mentioned up-thread in another context that often abused partners remain in the relationship for reasons that are unfathomable from the outside, but I reject the analogy completely. That is just not my experience.
My friend and I both grew up in Edinburgh during the Thatcher years, both went to (different) bog standard comprehensives where I had a great time (she didn't), I got a World class (Scottish) education that enabled me to ply my trade around the globe on a British passport, paying into a UK pension scheme in Sterling backed by the BoE.
I have never had a problem being Scottish (when we are duffing up England at Twickenham, celebrating Hogmanay) and British (when TeamGB are topping the medal table at the European championships, Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph). I don't feel disenfranchised by an out of touch political elite in the same way that she does, despite 13 years of a Labour government I did not vote for, or successive administrations in Holyrood I never voted for.
I was very unhappy when Gordon Brown's catastrophic mishandling if the economy contributed to the biggest crash in history, but we voted the bastards out. That's how it is supposed to work. We don't need a change of system just cause we don't like the result.
I do detest Nationalists of any creed or colour. Alex Salmond and Nigel Farage are absolutely two cheeks of the same arse. I have no time for their core message "Our life would be brilliant of it wasn't for those bastards in Brussels/Westminster (delete as appropriate)". Petty Nationalism is a cancer on the body politic that I wish we could excise, but I respect the legitimacy and democratic validity of their current mandates. Other people voted for them. That's democracy.
So I don't accept the spousal abuse analogy at all, but for those who do think along those lines I offer an alternative, that of the teenage strop.
"I WANT to move out, even though I have no qualifications and no job, and you can't STOP me, but can I keep the credit card you gave me for emergencies?"
Whether they stay or go, there WILL be tears before bedtime...
"There is no equivalent term for ‘rape’ in the Qur'an. Likewise, there is not a single verse in the Qur'an which even remotely discourages forced sex. In contrast, there are several verses in this book which give the green light to rape and other sexual crimes against women"
Could one of our Alapologists please point me to an equivalent page for any other religion? I very much doubt it.
This is an attempt to silence the Unionists The nationalist mobs that have targeted Jim Murphy are trying to intimidate their opponents as the independence referendum takes an increasingly ugly turn
Not a few of them will have witnessed their leader constantly heckling, interrupting and lobbing accusations at Alastair Darling during the 2nd TV debate.
So they now think that's acceptable behaviour. What monkey sees, monkey does.
Dear Dear we have real fruitcakes on here. You need to see a doctor.
Busy day ahead, but some final thoughts on the indyref.
My friend earlier in the week described the current settlement as 'spousal abuse', Scotland the put upon partner, and while acknowledging that leaving would be risky and painful, she just wants the beatings to stop...
It was mentioned up-thread in another context that often abused partners remain in the relationship for reasons that are unfathomable from the outside, but I reject the analogy completely. That is just not my experience.
My friend and I both grew up in Edinburgh during the Thatcher years, both went to (different) bog standard comprehensives where I had a great time (she didn't), I got a World class (Scottish) education that enabled me to ply my trade around the globe on a British passport, paying into a UK pension scheme in Sterling backed by the BoE.
I have never had a problem being Scottish (when we are duffing up England at Twickenham, celebrating Hogmanay) and British (when TeamGB are topping the medal table at the European championships, Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph). I don't feel disenfranchised by an out of touch political elite in the same way that she does, despite 13 years of a Labour government I did not vote for, or successive administrations in Holyrood I never voted for.
I was very unhappy when Gordon Brown's catastrophic mishandling if the economy contributed to the biggest crash in history, but we voted the bastards out. That's how it is supposed to work. We don't need a change of system just cause we don't like the result.
I do detest Nationalists of any creed or colour. Alex Salmond and Nigel Farage are absolutely two cheeks of the same arse. I have no time for their core message "Our life would be brilliant of it wasn't for those bastards in Brussels/Westminster (delete as appropriate)". Petty Nationalism is a cancer on the body politic that I wish we could excise, but I respect the legitimacy and democratic validity of their current mandates. Other people voted for them. That's democracy.
So I don't accept the spousal abuse analogy at all, but for those who do think along those lines I offer an alternative, that of the teenage strop.
"I WANT to move out, even though I have no qualifications and no job, and you can't STOP me, but can I keep the credit card you gave me for emergencies?"
Whether they stay or go, there WILL be tears before bedtime...
Ha Ha Ha , smart Tories vote NO but all those thick people have been fooled into voting YES because they are stupid. The rantings of stupid Tories is breathtaking.
This is an attempt to silence the Unionists The nationalist mobs that have targeted Jim Murphy are trying to intimidate their opponents as the independence referendum takes an increasingly ugly turn
@Topping: SO himself said before he left that it was clear that there was a problem within the Muslim community with its attitude to women and non-Muslim women in particular.
Niquab and similar dress is very effective at covering bruises. Not being allowed out without accompanying male relative is another. That is my anecdote.
Incidentally, my Trust has started a campaign against FGM today, with a new policy and protocol of reporting all cases in a structured and organised way. Not before time!
If your Trust does sex changes, British Muslims will regard you and your Trust as stinking hypocrites.
And they'd be right.
It does do sex changes on the NHS. Why does that make it hypocritical?
Sex change patients are adults and have compulsory psychiatric assessment and prolonged counselling and give full informed consent.
None of which is true of FGM patients.
So, if girls receive counselling before being mutilated, that's OK?
First time I've heard of FGM on the NHS being advocated before, but the NHS quite happily kills hundreds of thousands of babies each without asking their consent, so at least you're being consistent.
You are being wilfully obtuse. I have never advocated FGM on the NHS.
What my Trust is doing is setting up a new reporting system so that any female patient who is found to have had FGM when seen by medical or midwifery staff has this reported and recorded, so the practice can be stamped out.
I hope that is clear enough. If not then you are too stupid for words.
So, you are breaking patient confidentiality so you can see Muslims in gaol?
Because that's how it will look to the Muslim community.
I note your complete failure to address my points on abortion, by the way.
@Topping: SO himself said before he left that it was clear that there was a problem within the Muslim community with its attitude to women and non-Muslim women in particular.
Niquab and similar dress is very effective at covering bruises. Not being allowed out without accompanying male relative is another. That is my anecdote.
Incidentally, my Trust has started a campaign against FGM today, with a new policy and protocol of reporting all cases in a structured and organised way. Not before time!
If your Trust does sex changes, British Muslims will regard you and your Trust as stinking hypocrites.
And they'd be right.
It does do sex changes on the NHS. Why does that make it hypocritical?
Sex change patients are adults and have compulsory psychiatric assessment and prolonged counselling and give full informed consent.
None of which is true of FGM patients.
So, if girls receive counselling before being mutilated, that's OK?
First time I've heard of FGM on the NHS being advocated before, but the NHS quite happily kills hundreds of thousands of babies each without asking their consent, so at least you're being consistent.
You are being wilfully obtuse. I have never advocated FGM on the NHS.
What my Trust is doing is setting up a new reporting system so that any female patient who is found to have had FGM when seen by medical or midwifery staff has this reported and recorded, so the practice can be stamped out.
I hope that is clear enough. If not then you are too stupid for words.
So, you are breaking patient confidentiality so you can see Muslims in gaol?
Because that's how it will look to the Muslim community.
I note your complete failure to address my points on abortion, by the way.
My views on abortion may surprise you. I am against it.
This is not my policy on FGM reporting. It is a joint project with social services and other agencies. I can assure you that patient confidentiality is not breached, but like cases of child abuse confidentiality is not absolute.
I suspect some aspects of the policy are going to meet with objections from some parts of Leicesters Somali community in particular. So be it.
Comments
Stop making a prat of yourself.
http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/international/Ten-Worst-Countries-for-Women.html
1 in 11 women in Afghanistan die in childbirth. Most Afghan brides are under 16 and are arranged marriages. I cannot see how any of this is caused by NATO bombs!
Indeed one of the talibans grievances is that western education corrupts their girls with alien ideas of personal rights.
I hope that you are just trolling, and do not believe that these cultures are ones that respect women.
Churchill represented (iirc, and I hope I do) 3 parties in parliament, Conservatives twice, Liberal, and constitutionalist.
He crossed the floor from Con-Lib. Much later lost his seat as a Lib, later won another seat as a Constitutionalist then crossed the floor back to Con.
When was the last time in the UK a woman was drowned, burnt at the stake or imprisoned for being a witch (The last may surprise you)
How long did it take to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and tobacco users, or alcohol, or crime.
It does, unfortunately, take time to change the beliefs and cultures of people, even our "own".
Many of the things that we claim are abhorrent about the Muslim culture, were the norm in Victorian Britain
Our society adapted over several generations to an idea they have only had a few generations to assimilate
And, like many Victorians did, they try to cling on to the old ideas more firmly.
Change is scary for everyone.
*snip sorry couldn't find a way of fitting it all in*
David I respect your experience but you really must be careful with the way you discuss some of this stuff. I am delighted to hear that you have played cricket with many Pakistani-Asians and found them delightful.
But you could look at many groupings and find equally reprehensible traits which would should not be assigned to that broader cultural grouping.
One of my friends was hit over the head with a metal bar at the Bridgehouse in Canning Town many years ago because he was sitting with a black woman (he is white). At that time if you wandered along many areas of London as a mixed couple you would find yourself in all kinds of trouble. Perhaps there are still those neighbourhoods. What are we to make of that?
In China it is known that female babies were killed because families wanted sons for a number of reasons. What are we to make of the Chinese because of it?
There are no doubt hugely important issues regarding attitudes and violence towards women in pakistan. No doubt at all. But that is a long way from saying that such attitudes are engrained to the point whereby me must be wary of our work colleagues and friends who are of pakistani-heritage. Which is sort of what the people here are saying.
Sorry - it doesn't make for a clickbait Daily Telegraph article but it is more complex than that.
As for the point about cultures changing slowly and with reluctance (certain bits come in fits and starts, where there is fertile ground for some larger changes), that's true, but you don't have to wait for it to change by some kind of cultural osmosis alone, contact between cultures leading to gradual change. Proselytize. Work hard to convince them actively, no need to wring hands about how minority or majority communities haven't caught up with the way things should be.
I personally think that our DIFD funding of womens education projects is a far more effective way of undermining the influence of Islamist politics than much of our defence spending on aircraft carriers without planes or Trident submarines.
Hit the bastards where it hurts, educate their women!
That said, you could include the 1916 Liberal split as 'crossing the floor', when Asquith remained leader of the official Liberals but Lloyd George formed a government with (most of) the Tories.
British Islam has gone, in a little over a generation, from being predominantly Indian in disposition, and primarily manifested around personal faith and community, to being predominantly Arab in disposition, manifested in the demands it makes of others and in its angry response to challenge.
A Domain I have sleep to go to.
There is no peculiar racial element to domestic violence or violence against women.
Where Pakistanis behave both appallingly and illegaly they should be caught and prosecuted - just like anyone else would or should be. Its quite simple.
That it was allowed to not only continue but grow is utterly appalling and as we see from the comments in some quarters - princpally elsewhere - it has had the total opposite effect to what was the alleged intention.
No matter what the centuries old prejudices and bigotry are, or may be, which may be used to justify this activity, it has no place in the UK.
Going bonkers mad on anti muslim rants do not help anyone either.
Let's take my own Italian family. My grandmother was educated but not to university level and the expectation was that she would marry and have a family. My mother: same expectation. It was a source of regret to her that her brothers went to university and not her. She was fiercely determined that I would get the best education she could get for me and use it and she was very proud of my work achievements.
3 generations was all it took. And yet we're talking about 2nd / 3rd and probably 4th generation Pakistani-heritage men born and educated in this country who have difficulty accepting the concept of girls being educated and choosing how to live their lives to the extent that some of them will kill them?
Really? How long are we supposed to wait? This won't do. It really won't.
And @Ishmael_X - further to trouserpressgate.
You have told me that in 2010 0.00053% of the population in Pakistan were killed by "honour" killings (or "murders" as I prefer to call them).
All of them tragic but in the great scheme of things not proof of such killings being "engrained" in the culture.
Goodnight, sweet ladies, good night good night.
However, we cannot excuse or explain away one wrong simply because other wrongs go on elsewhere, or did forty years ago. Nor should we pretend all problems are of a similar scale.
I agree we should be careful about how we discuss it but too often that phrase is used as a euphemism for "we shouldn't discuss it at all, or if we have to, we shouldn't do it publicly". Unfortunately, that attitude is precisely what gives the criminals the green light: they believe, accurately, that the establishment will not take meaningful action against them.
What is needed in discussion is a willingness not to flinch from the facts nor to exaggerate them. The extremists on one side and the deniers on the other will try to do so; they are two sides of the same coin.
Carswell is playing the Great Game. Who knows how it will play out? I suspect that even Carswell doesn't know... but he certainly has high hopes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-27635363
The change would have happened much sooner if we had insisted on it as all self-respecting societies do, as we used to do.
Looking at this from the other end of the telescope I can see that there may well be something in a desire for women to behave with some decorum. Call me old fashioned but the sight of women cavorting drunk saddens me (Mrs Speaker is an obvious exampleI'd like to think women could be more civilising than men). But they are and should be free to be as equally stupid as men... A simplistic naive desire for decency and decorum should not be used as justification of oppression.
It doesn't mean the rest of his screed is true, nor that problems do not exist in other communities and cultures, including the mainstream majority, that need addressing, but there needs to be at least the willingness to hear unflinching views which may be hard to hear, to discuss difficult issues. The key problem moving forward will of course be to avoid hysteria and exaggeration, latching on to one aspect of an abhorrent situation to the exclusion of other relevant factors, but all potential factors still need to be looked at first.
On his stump, the new prime minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist BJP had promised, "Toilets first, Temples later". He needs to do that sooner to save lives of more women.
This woman at least had the knowledge and ability to escape, and a place to go. In more traditional societies that escape is often not there.
*she stayed a few nights, before returning to her boyfriend who she later married and had children with. Astonishing really.
Average Labour lead = 3.18%:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2014
35 weeks to go to election day.
People are not allowed to make numpty statements and election promises these days? For goodness sake, that would put 90% of UKIP in prison.
Abused women returning to the person who committed the abuse is very common. It has always been a mystery to me why they do it, but from observation they do.
Might be? but it appears far more complex, almost all the women I have talked to about it give different reasons.
Most of the discussion revolves around two points:
1. The rapist gangs were profiting from unhealthy tolerance and reluctance to oblige people who hated them not because they were rapists but because they were Asian. I agree that we need to learn from that; it is just as racist to tolerate evil-doing because it is committed by members of a minority as to persecute harmless people because they're in a minority.
2. The majority of people of Asian background have nothing whatsoever to do with rape or other illegal activity, and it's IMHO wrong to suggest that we should be wary of them, or demand that they make declarations, or that they reject their religion, or do anything but simply behave according to the law.
That leaves the question of what should be legal, and what is merely a matter of diffierent customs. There are important issues there, notably on women's rights, but they benefit from sober discussion and evolve over time, as Britain's own habits have done in my lifetime.
I would say that money was a factor, they used the same methods as pimps the world over use.
Of course, there are places where you might have to purchase a child, but after that, it follows the same basic format
And they'd be right.
I think you might be a bit sensitive and over-interpret the tone of my posts. There are certain subjects where I deliberately pull no punches. I really am very contemptuous of politicians that do nothing or next to nothing in the face of appalling crimes, like mass child rape or nations' aggressive invasions of neighbours. I feel that is quite appropriate, even if it ruffles feathers.
On more minor issues, I might use language like "Gordon Bennett" or "bloody hell", but this is much more in a roll my eyes type way. Whenever anyone engages with me, I always answer every question and try to be measured and civil. The few occasions I'm uncivil to people is when those people have been abusive to me (the accusation of racism or bigotry I regard as being abusive).
I don't see how I've been "unhelpful" in this thread. That to me seems like a way to just exclude views you dislike. Most of my points are about large chunks of the Muslim community having some very unsavourable views that need to be acknowledged and challenged publicly so that change happens. I don't see how that is "unhelpful".
Sex change patients are adults and have compulsory psychiatric assessment and prolonged counselling and give full informed consent.
None of which is true of FGM patients.
It is very sad.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_1_oh_to_be.html
Sorry, didn't notice that you already were. Was it fully successful?
The area where we disagree is that you feel that people with legal views that don't fit with our general outlook should be challenged, cross-examined by visa officials, even refused entry to Britain. For example, I'd dislike living under Sharia law, but I don't mind someone peacefully disagreeing and thinking it'd be great. You feel, I think, that unless we ensure that new arrivals think as we do, society will crumble. I think that a society that checks for undesirable opinions has already crumbled (and that the search for agreed desirable opinions is more elusive than one might think).
Early start tomorrow - good night!
Good night all.
there's a specific child aspect here - like ducklings who imprint on the first thing they see children are designed to "attach" imo as a survival mechanism. so targeting very young girls when they're past puberty but still at duckling age takes advantage of that trait (and why they break away when they get a bit older because of that "duckling" effect goes around 15-17 ish
the gangs would generally use the younger better looking ones to do the initial grooming then once they had the girl attached to them then they'd share the girls among their older relatives so the 1st stage is the initial grooming the 2nd stage is forcing them to have sex with their older relatives
"that the taxi companies used to ferry the girls from town to town were owned by certain significant people"
and the 3rd stage is that "community leader" link which is the bit that would damage Labour the most not because of direct collusion but because of all the smiley photos shaking hands with them
"In 2004 the Channel 4 documentary Edge of the City, which explored claims that Asian men in Bradford were grooming white girls as young as 11, sexually abusing them and passing them on to their friends, was initially withdrawn from the schedules after the BNP described it as "a party political broadcast", and the chief constable of West Yorkshire police warned that it could spark disorder.
Anecdotally, as far back as the mid-90s, local agencies have been aware of the participation of ethnic minority men in some cases of serial abuse. But what has not emerged is any consistent evidence to suggest that Pakistani Muslim men are uniquely and disproportionately involved in these crimes, nor that they are preying on white girls because they believe them to be legitimate sexual quarry, as is now being suggested."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/07/grooming-racialising-crime-tradition
First time I've heard of FGM on the NHS being advocated before, but the NHS quite happily kills hundreds of thousands of babies each without asking their consent, so at least you're being consistent.
Must say, whilst I'm generally not one for ranting and raving on internet blogs, I'm not surprised there is a LOT of anger about what's gone on in Rotherham. It's very distressing and outrageous.
What surprise's me more is that there's not more anger really. It's a wonder people aren't out on the street's of some of the Northern towns/cities protesting.
The British people always surprise me with their tolerance sometimes bordering on apathy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3602854.stm
"More than a year in the making, Edge of the City follows social workers with difficult cases in one inner city.
The most controversial of these witnesses authorities and parents trying to stop groups of young men who are grooming girls as young as 11 for sex.
Although none of the officials in the film raise race as the issue in these predatory relationships, the filmmakers make it perfectly clear that the abusers are predominantly Asian, and all of the abused girls are white."
Ten years ago. On a national TV channel.
And then there was one.
The current political class won't do a single thing about this because the full story would destroy Labour which means they'd do whatever was necessary to stop the Tories doing anything about it.
"Channel 4 has been forced to pull a documentary, which shows Asian men in Bradford grooming young white girls for sex, after local police claimed the programme could spark race riots in the city.
Police claimed the observational documentary, which was replaced by an episode of Faking It, would risk creating public disorder in Bradford where race tensions are still running high.
C4 branded the claims as "ludicrous" and said the programme, which follows the work of Bradford Social Services, was not about colour but abuse."
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/c4-pulls-edge-of-the-city/1093804.article
9th August 2004:
"This month, Channel 4 will finally screen Edge of the City, its controversial documentary depicting the bleak realities of life in the most deprived parts of Bradford. The film was originally due to go out in May, but hours before transmission it was pulled from the schedules, after it was advertised on the British National Party website as a "party political broadcast", and the chief constable of West Yorkshire warned that its screening could provoke community disorder in the run-up to the local and European elections.
The controversy centred on the film's claims that men - most of them British Asians - in Bradford and neighbouring Keighley were grooming under-age white schoolgirls for sex. At the eye of the storm was the film's producer and director, Anna Hall."
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/aug/09/channel4.otherparties
Probably quite a few suicides as well now I think of it.
1. After the ERM debacle, it took a few weeks before the Tories collapsed in the polls. The event was too big for people to assimilate immediately. In another context, it took me a full year to get my head around exactly what the BBC had done wrong re:Savile.
2. The countries you mention are either Catholic or have much higher Catholic populations than England. They know all about child abuse. They cannot believe how recent the cases are and so much worse than the RCC's treatment of the same issue, no mean feat.
3. The press are in the doghouse after Leveson. The BBC are in the doghouse after Savile. The police are in the doghouse after Savile and Rotherham. Three mighty forces looking for redemption. Add to the mix the mass ranks of internet activists and the inchoate anger felt (just look at the comments under Guardian apologias).
The British people are slow to anger, but when angry, they are unstoppable.
The pound is not an asset.........
The pound is not an asset.........
The pound is not an asset.........
The pound is not an asset.........
He [Salmond] and other SNP ministers have argued that Scotland would not take on its share of the UK’s liabilities unless its resources were also distributed fairly, including the pound.
However, economists have said sterling is not an asset that can be divided between two countries as its value rests on the ability of UK taxpayers to stand behind it. A separate Scotland would no longer pay taxes to the UK Treasury.
Mr Salmond stumbled during a phone-in on BBC Radio Scotland after being pressed by a caller to admit that the pound was not an asset but “a means of exchange”.
The First Minister replied: “We haven’t argued it’s the currency that’s the asset, it’s the financial assets of the United Kingdom.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11064526/Alex-Salmond-drops-pound-shared-asset-claim.html
Abusive Nats?
Never!
This is an attempt to silence the Unionists
The nationalist mobs that have targeted Jim Murphy are trying to intimidate their opponents as the independence referendum takes an increasingly ugly turn
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/11065165/This-is-an-attempt-to-silence-the-Unionists.html
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bDi1OXJn4Vw&feature=youtu.be
I worry Scotland is going to be a very embittered and divided place after the referendum, whatever the result.
So they now think that's acceptable behaviour. What monkey sees, monkey does.
What my Trust is doing is setting up a new reporting system so that any female patient who is found to have had FGM when seen by medical or midwifery staff has this reported and recorded, so the practice can be stamped out.
I hope that is clear enough. If not then you are too stupid for words.
My friend earlier in the week described the current settlement as 'spousal abuse', Scotland the put upon partner, and while acknowledging that leaving would be risky and painful, she just wants the beatings to stop...
It was mentioned up-thread in another context that often abused partners remain in the relationship for reasons that are unfathomable from the outside, but I reject the analogy completely. That is just not my experience.
My friend and I both grew up in Edinburgh during the Thatcher years, both went to (different) bog standard comprehensives where I had a great time (she didn't), I got a World class (Scottish) education that enabled me to ply my trade around the globe on a British passport, paying into a UK pension scheme in Sterling backed by the BoE.
I have never had a problem being Scottish (when we are duffing up England at Twickenham, celebrating Hogmanay) and British (when TeamGB are topping the medal table at the European championships, Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph). I don't feel disenfranchised by an out of touch political elite in the same way that she does, despite 13 years of a Labour government I did not vote for, or successive administrations in Holyrood I never voted for.
I was very unhappy when Gordon Brown's catastrophic mishandling if the economy contributed to the biggest crash in history, but we voted the bastards out. That's how it is supposed to work. We don't need a change of system just cause we don't like the result.
I do detest Nationalists of any creed or colour. Alex Salmond and Nigel Farage are absolutely two cheeks of the same arse. I have no time for their core message "Our life would be brilliant of it wasn't for those bastards in Brussels/Westminster (delete as appropriate)". Petty Nationalism is a cancer on the body politic that I wish we could excise, but I respect the legitimacy and democratic validity of their current mandates. Other people voted for them. That's democracy.
So I don't accept the spousal abuse analogy at all, but for those who do think along those lines I offer an alternative, that of the teenage strop.
"I WANT to move out, even though I have no qualifications and no job, and you can't STOP me, but can I keep the credit card you gave me for emergencies?"
Whether they stay or go, there WILL be tears before bedtime...
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Rape_in_Islam
"There is no equivalent term for ‘rape’ in the Qur'an. Likewise, there is not a single verse in the Qur'an which even remotely discourages forced sex. In contrast, there are several verses in this book which give the green light to rape and other sexual crimes against women"
Could one of our Alapologists please point me to an equivalent page for any other religion? I very much doubt it.
Because that's how it will look to the Muslim community.
I note your complete failure to address my points on abortion, by the way.
This is not my policy on FGM reporting. It is a joint project with social services and other agencies. I can assure you that patient confidentiality is not breached, but like cases of child abuse confidentiality is not absolute.
I suspect some aspects of the policy are going to meet with objections from some parts of Leicesters Somali community in particular. So be it.