Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
She's not the Scottish Barack Obama, Mike didn't tip her at 50/1
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Cyclefree says -- ''I do not know why priests abused children but I feel that an enforced celibacy must have something to do with it.''
Is it not that these men become priests because it allows them to abuse children? It puts them into that position where they have power and control.
Strangely we do not see Farage and all his little kipper helpers going round slagging off the Catholic Church or the Scouting Association or pointing out names like ''Father O'Malley wink wink nudge nudge''.
The idea that Labour are going to lose 30 seats to the SNP and still win most seats overall is a bit unlikely I think. Not a value bet IMO.
It's very possible if they can win 40 seats off the Tories and 10 off the Lib Dems in England. That does look increasingly unlikely though. The SNP is doing very well but they need huge swings to wipe Labour out or even take 30 seats. I still think 20 may be more likely.
Rotherham will still return a Labour MP at the GE. If Labour councillors don't care about children being raped, why would Labour voters?
In what sense is returning a dedicated, campaigning MP who has done a lot of work on combating the exploitation of children a sign that Rotherham voters dont care about children being raped?
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Cyclefree says -- ''I do not know why priests abused children but I feel that an enforced celibacy must have something to do with it.''
Is it not that these men become priests because it allows them to abuse children? It puts them into that position where they have power and control.
Strangely we do not see Farage and all his little kipper helpers going round slagging off the Catholic Church or the Scouting Association or pointing out names like ''Father O'Malley wink wink nudge nudge''.
Yeah you properly got the wrong end of the stick last night about that didn't you tingtong.. see you are still at it now.. dear dear
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
That just reminded me: Hattie for next Foreign Sec? She won't be Deputy PM in a coalition, and would expect a top job (sorry if someone suggested this yesterday, I didn't read the whole thread)
But as RCS and others have pointed out, child abuse happens when groups of people have power over children and a sense of immunity. In Rotherham PC culture gave that sense of immunity; a mysogynistic culture provided the breeding ground for the crimes. In the Catholic church, the sense of immunity came from a widespread feeling that one did not criticise a priest - and this was reinforced by the church hierarchy. I do not know why priests abused children but I feel that an enforced celibacy must have something to do with it. There have been plenty of cases of priests having affairs with women and fathering children as well.
It is depressing to realise how widespread child abuse is. We urgently need to recalibrate how we view children and how we treat them.
I'm afraid that the general public massively underestimates how many men are sexually attracted to children. Precisely because it is so taboo, it is very hidden. So the scale has been hidden also.
The recent explosion of unrelated scandals shows just how prevalent it is in reality. If we want to reduce the sexual abuse of children, we have to start by recognising that extremely unpalatable fact.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
She's not the Scottish Barack Obama, Mike didn't tip her at 50/1
Was that @MikeK or @MikeL .... PB deserves to know of such heroics.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
That just reminded me: Hattie for next Foreign Sec? She won't be Deputy PM in a coalition, and would expect a top job (sorry if someone suggested this yesterday, I didn't read the whole thread)
To date she has combined Deputy Leader of the party with Leader of the House and Shadow International Development and Shadow Culture. Those posts would seem to be about her level. She wont get promoted above that simply because she is Deputy Leader of the party.
I've also noticed that all the dodgy Romanist priests are white and catholic.
There is a common factor between the politicians, the priests and the Pakistani Muslim taxi drivers. Not much normal mixing between the sexes, and - in particular - a lot of single sex education.
I'm not sure about the last factor. A lot of the young men in Rotherham will have been educated in state schools. Misogyny is certainly a factor - a fear of women which can lead to brutality against young girls. But one factor is surely a culture which prevents or limits normal day to day interaction between the sexes, imposes ludicrously strict limitations on normal human urges and desires and, paradoxically, idealises women on one level (the Virgin Mary / Asian view of women as maintaining the family's "honour" by being pure) but means that women themselves in all their gloriously messy paradoxes are seen as impure if they want to live their lives to the full, if they exhibit sexual desire and therefore as something to be controlled and abused, if they fall outside this non-existent ideal. FGM comes from the same root.
Women are seen as simply a vehicle for giving birth but the men cannot get their pretty little heads around the fact that to do this women must have sex. Nor that they might actually enjoy it, the horror!
OK, but now explain BBC TV personalities. No shortage of inter-gender interaction there.
I think the main commonality is strong communities and institutions with hierarchies strong enough to suppress dissent and stitch up whistle-blowers.
I was trying to explain one reason for the possible link between priests and Pakistani taxi drivers being involved in the abuse rather than in why it wasn't uncovered.
Agree with you on your point above re why no-one spoke up or was listened to.
Honestly, I don't know why someone like a Rolf Harris or the PR bloke would do such a thing. The whole idea of abusing a child or a young girl is so repellent to me, so unlike any idea of what good sex can be that I find it difficult to get my head round why anyone would do it. I would hazard one guess: a fear or disgust of women at some level must be there. What we learnt these people did is not - to my mind - what happens in a normal sexual relationship. At the heart of it there is surely a respect for the woman (and vice versa). Respect is what seems to me to be lacking: it's degrading - for the victim but also in some way for the perpetrator. How can any man with any sense of self-respect want to have sex in such a way?
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
That just reminded me: Hattie for next Foreign Sec? She won't be Deputy PM in a coalition, and would expect a top job (sorry if someone suggested this yesterday, I didn't read the whole thread)
Prescott was Deputy Leader of the Labour party and never got a top job. Harriet was deputy under Brown and didn't get a big job. She doesn't have one now so I see little reason why she would suddenly get one of the great offices in a coalition.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Did you hear the one about white, posh, publicly school educated politicians of all hues who raped and abused young children?
Yes I did, what of it?
Ummm?
Can I quote you quoting the piece: "it hasn't happened and it coundn't happen".
Which doesn't seem to be true, really.
Ummmm..
Wasn't the piece talking about white men singling out Pakistani kids?
So, the fact that the politicians indiscriminately targeted kids without regards to their ethnicity makes it OK?
Who said that?
You have jumped head first into an argument without realising you've made a ricket,,, step back
I suspect Pakistani men targeted white girls because they though they'd get away with more easily and because it was the "thrill of the new".
I am not talking about the motives of the people who did it, no doubt they are universal. I am talking about the reason why people who should have known better looked the other way
The celebrities got away with it because people fawn over celebrities
The Rotherham rapists got away with it because politicians fawn over ethnic minorities (and their votes)
The EU can block the Americans and pressure the Kiev government to give concessions that would lead to a negotiated peace. The war party in Kiev and Washington needs to be faced down. The reality is only 20000 of the targeted 100000 conscripts turned up in their last mobilization, they have suffered a series of military reverses in the past month and the Ukrainian economy has collapsed.
I suspect everyone on here found the Rotherham issue repugnant, even the 'liberals' with their attempts at what-about-ery. Go easy on them, their cherished 'political correctness' is getting a beating and they probably fear a small increase in Ukip support as a result. A double whammy for them.
You're fervent in your support for the Kippers, so you should have more sympathy when other people's deeply held opinions are being attacked.
I'm in the happy position of not being particularly bothered who wins the next election. Even if Neil and his merry mix of idealists manage a majority, I'll live with it.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
But as RCS and others have pointed out, child abuse happens when groups of people have power over children and a sense of immunity. In Rotherham PC culture gave that sense of immunity; a mysogynistic culture provided the breeding ground for the crimes. In the Catholic church, the sense of immunity came from a widespread feeling that one did not criticise a priest - and this was reinforced by the church hierarchy. I do not know why priests abused children but I feel that an enforced celibacy must have something to do with it. There have been plenty of cases of priests having affairs with women and fathering children as well.
It is depressing to realise how widespread child abuse is. We urgently need to recalibrate how we view children and how we treat them.
I'm afraid that the general public massively underestimates how many men are sexually attracted to children. Precisely because it is so taboo, it is very hidden. So the scale has been hidden also.
The recent explosion of unrelated scandals shows just how prevalent it is in reality. If we want to reduce the sexual abuse of children, we have to start by recognising that extremely unpalatable fact.
That is absolutely correct. Those who want to sexually abuse children will use whatever levers they can find to do it. Another aspect of the Rotherham case - as with so many others up and down the country - is that the victims themselves were judged by many in the police and other agencies to be not worth worrying about - they were inarticulate, poorly educated, socially dysfunctional and generally worthy of disdain: often the kind of kids who in other circumstances would be condemned more generally for their drug taking, drunkenness, rowdy behaviour, accents, clothes etc. We see it in newspaper coverage of "chavs", for example. Abusers see an opportunity there - grooming kids that no-one really gives two tosses about. Throw in a culture of political correctness and general intimidation and you have a predators' paradise.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
That just reminded me: Hattie for next Foreign Sec? She won't be Deputy PM in a coalition, and would expect a top job (sorry if someone suggested this yesterday, I didn't read the whole thread)
Prescott was Deputy Leader of the Labour party and never got a top job. Harriet was deputy under Brown and didn't get a big job. She doesn't have one now so I see little reason why she would suddenly get one of the great offices in a coalition.
Hardly.
Prescott was Deputy PM, First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
Gordon LD @7/1 and LD to get no Scottish seats at 6/5?
EDIT Forget that... just seen Charles Kennedys price
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
So all those high profile, rich, white, middle class entertainers and media figures got away with child abuse for decades due to cultural reasons did they?
No Polly they didn't, they got away with it because they were thought to be untouchable because they were celebrities. The villains in Rotherham got away with it because they were thought to be untouchable because they were Pakistani Muslims, that is the point.
Both cases are to do with reluctance to deal with people who are elevated above usual levels of scrutiny
Sycophancy around fame was the reason for the celebrities getting away with it, fawning over any ethnic minority was the reason the Rotherham rapists did for so long
What we know now is that the police and agencies will often go to great lengths to avoid taking action when children say that they have been sexually abused. And we also know that sexual predators know that.
Anti-Conservative tactical voters in places like Cheltenham only have two choices though: Vote Lib Dem and accept they might enter a Conservative coalition as a moderating influence, or vote Labour / Green and help the Tories take the seat. The evidence is that they'll do the former.
Going from supporting the Tories in 2010 to supporting some sort of Labour - SNP government in 2015 would be a good way of alienating literally everyone in the space of two elections. I agree that it's something the Lib Dems will want to avoid.
I can't see it happening either. I could see the LDs supporting a genuinely "liberal conservative" administration but that's not what the 2015 Conservative Party is offering. It is unashamedly moved away from the "liberal conservative" positions of 2010 with which it seems many of its activists weren't comfortable and the brief convergence of the LDs and Tories has ended.
Do I see a renewed convergence with Labour ? Not while Ed Miliband is leader to be blunt. For me, Labour has always been as centralising and authoritarian as the worst excesses of the Conservatives - the struggle for the Tory soul is always entertaining.
But as RCS and others have pointed out, child abuse happens when groups of people have power over children and a sense of immunity. In Rotherham PC culture gave that sense of immunity; a mysogynistic culture provided the breeding ground for the crimes. In the Catholic church, the sense of immunity came from a widespread feeling that one did not criticise a priest - and this was reinforced by the church hierarchy. I do not know why priests abused children but I feel that an enforced celibacy must have something to do with it. There have been plenty of cases of priests having affairs with women and fathering children as well.
It is depressing to realise how widespread child abuse is. We urgently need to recalibrate how we view children and how we treat them.
I'm afraid that the general public massively underestimates how many men are sexually attracted to children. Precisely because it is so taboo, it is very hidden. So the scale has been hidden also.
The recent explosion of unrelated scandals shows just how prevalent it is in reality. If we want to reduce the sexual abuse of children, we have to start by recognising that extremely unpalatable fact.
Yes - and then work out how to deal with it. It will not be at all easy simply because of the taboos and because, frankly, it's a horrible subject to talk about. Once you start saying just what you've said you get into the "All men are potential child abusers" territory, at which point the level of hysteria will prevent any further useful discussion, let alone action.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
Gordon LD @7/1 and LD to get no Scottish seats at 6/5?
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Did you hear the one about white, posh, publicly school educated politicians of all hues who raped and abused young children?
Yes I did, what of it?
Ummm?
Can I quote you quoting the piece: "it hasn't happened and it coundn't happen".
Which doesn't seem to be true, really.
Ummmm..
Wasn't the piece talking about white men singling out Pakistani kids?
So, the fact that the politicians indiscriminately targeted kids without regards to their ethnicity makes it OK?
Who said that?
You have jumped head first into an argument without realising you've made a ricket,,, step back
I suspect Pakistani men targeted white girls because they though they'd get away with more easily and because it was the "thrill of the new".
I'd say it was because they're racists that can dehumanise their victims because they are different to them.
I suspect there was an element of "not shitting where you sleep". If you rape your next door neighbour's daughter, you're much more likely to get caught than if you rape someone on the other side of town.
Mr. Antifrank, if the Lib Dems get wiped out in Scotland, then allying with the SNP would not exactly endear them with English voters, one suspects.
Plus, we'd have a PM from a party with fewer MPs and probably far fewer votes (especially in England) than another. That is entirely legitimate under the system we have, but then getting into bed with the SNP makes the potential for constitutional crisis very high.
That said, I don't think the SNP will go for a formal coalition under any circumstances, perhaps excepting Scotland getting the moon on a stick, paid for by the English. Easier for them to vote on a case-by-case basis.
If they refuse formal coalition or supply-and-confidence, then those numbers make it either Con-Lib 2, or a second election.
As long as it's a Scottish Moon on a Scottish Stick.
But as RCS and others have pointed out, child abuse happens when groups of people have power over children and a sense of immunity. In Rotherham PC culture gave that sense of immunity; a mysogynistic culture provided the breeding ground for the crimes. In the Catholic church, the sense of immunity came from a widespread feeling that one did not criticise a priest - and this was reinforced by the church hierarchy. I do not know why priests abused children but I feel that an enforced celibacy must have something to do with it. There have been plenty of cases of priests having affairs with women and fathering children as well.
It is depressing to realise how widespread child abuse is. We urgently need to recalibrate how we view children and how we treat them.
I'm afraid that the general public massively underestimates how many men are sexually attracted to children. Precisely because it is so taboo, it is very hidden. So the scale has been hidden also.
The recent explosion of unrelated scandals shows just how prevalent it is in reality. If we want to reduce the sexual abuse of children, we have to start by recognising that extremely unpalatable fact.
Yes - and then work out how to deal with it. It will not be at all easy simply because of the taboos and because, frankly, it's a horrible subject to talk about. Once you start saying just what you've said you get into the "All men are potential child abusers" territory, at which point the level of hysteria will prevent any further useful discussion, let alone action.
"All men are potential child abusers" is an unhelpful statement.
"More men than we care to acknowledge are potential child abusers, and what is worse, we can't easily identify them" is a better starting point.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
Gordon LD @7/1 and LD to get no Scottish seats at 6/5?
EDIT Forget that... just seen Charles Kennedys price
Charlie Kennedy isn't the main obstacle to this bet
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
Gordon LD @7/1 and LD to get no Scottish seats at 6/5?
EDIT Forget that... just seen Charles Kennedys price
Charlie Kennedy isn't the main obstacle to this bet
But as RCS and others have pointed out, child abuse happens when groups of people have power over children and a sense of immunity. In Rotherham PC culture gave that sense of immunity; a mysogynistic culture provided the breeding ground for the crimes. In the Catholic church, the sense of immunity came from a widespread feeling that one did not criticise a priest - and this was reinforced by the church hierarchy. I do not know why priests abused children but I feel that an enforced celibacy must have something to do with it. There have been plenty of cases of priests having affairs with women and fathering children as well.
It is depressing to realise how widespread child abuse is. We urgently need to recalibrate how we view children and how we treat them.
I'm afraid that the general public massively underestimates how many men are sexually attracted to children. Precisely because it is so taboo, it is very hidden. So the scale has been hidden also.
The recent explosion of unrelated scandals shows just how prevalent it is in reality. If we want to reduce the sexual abuse of children, we have to start by recognising that extremely unpalatable fact.
Yes - and then work out how to deal with it. It will not be at all easy simply because of the taboos and because, frankly, it's a horrible subject to talk about. Once you start saying just what you've said you get into the "All men are potential child abusers" territory, at which point the level of hysteria will prevent any further useful discussion, let alone action.
"All men are potential child abusers" is an unhelpful statement.
"More men than we care to acknowledge are potential child abusers, and what is worse, we can't easily identify them" is a better starting point.
I wasn't saying that. I was trying to describe how the argument might be put. It is such a taboo subject that getting any sort of sensible debate about what the problem is and how to deal with it is going to be mightily difficult.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
Gordon LD @7/1 and LD to get no Scottish seats at 6/5?
EDIT Forget that... just seen Charles Kennedys price
Charlie Kennedy isn't the main obstacle to this bet
Save the Viscount.
I'd love it if Viscount Thurso holds his seat whilst wee Dougie loses his. It'd be hilarious, utterly hilarious.
As an LD (there's me, the guy in Motherwell and Nick Clegg left apparently), my view has long been the Party won't go into Coalition-type environment with the Conservatives unless the election is clearly an endorsement of the existing arrangement. IF the LDs lose half their seats and the Conservatives fall back as well, that couldn't be regarded as endorsement.
Could the Party support a minority Conservative administration ? The numbers don't look there for that so it looks as though the SNP will be where the LDs were in 2010 except they "may" have the option of "supporting" (in whatever form) a minority Conservative or minority Labour Government.
If we take the SNP at face value, the Conservatives are going to need every seat they can get as only the DUP look obvious allies and I doubt UKIP having enough seats to make any difference.
It's almost de rigueur on here to write off Labour's prospects but London looks promising and other cities and towns may yet deliver some key marginals. The Ashcroft numbers on Monday showed up to 45 Labour gains in England and therefore having the duopoly parties at around 280 each looks about right.
We can probably agree that Labour's had a challenging week, so it'll be interesting to see whether it makes much difference to the polls - my guess is that there will be another small Tory lead tonight and it will then subside again next week. If so, the thesis that the electorate isn't going to move much, regardless of events, will be reinforced.
Certainly we feel quite confident in my neck of the woods - we are better-funded and supported with organised canvassing than I've ever experienced, even in 1997 (when people didn't think we had much chance). The Tories are I understand still struggling to get even small canvass teams out regularly. Other seats where I'm hearing particularly good rumours for Labour are Cambridge and Hendon (where Dismore's personal vote remains very significant), but DYOR. Overall I agree with Tissueprice that the mood is grouchy, actually in all the main parties - the election is going to be about who loses least ground, and nobody is really happy with that.
In the blue corner Hague; in the purple corner Cooke. Fight! Fight!
Err William Hague is standing down
I think he saw the UKIP selection coming and decided not to fight.
I think it's more that his many outside interests seem more attractive. He has done a lot for the Tory party and was, in some ways, incredibly unlucky to be elected leader when he was. Could have made a brilliant PM.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
One of the blokes I work with is from just outside Belfast and to me his eight sounds like e-Yate.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
One of the blokes I work with is from just outside Belfast and to me his eight sounds like e-Yate.
e-Yate poewnds. Ehm not payin thaaht
Its bad enough having a Bristol Pound, but eYate Pounds, must be one of the virtual currencies.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
Did you hear the one about white, posh, publicly school educated politicians of all hues who raped and abused young children?
Yes I did, what of it?
Ummm?
Can I quote you quoting the piece: "it hasn't happened and it coundn't happen".
Which doesn't seem to be true, really.
Ummmm..
Wasn't the piece talking about white men singling out Pakistani kids?
So, the fact that the politicians indiscriminately targeted kids without regards to their ethnicity makes it OK?
Who said that?
You have jumped head first into an argument without realising you've made a ricket,,, step back
I suspect Pakistani men targeted white girls because they though they'd get away with more easily and because it was the "thrill of the new".
I'd say it was because they're racists that can dehumanise their victims because they are different to them.
I suspect there was an element of "not shitting where you sleep". If you rape your next door neighbour's daughter, you're much more likely to get caught than if you rape someone on the other side of town.
True but the irony is that the point of much of the PC agenda - to respect people regardless of their gender/race is presumably there because of a belief that we don't necessarily empathise with the 'other'. A great deal of effort has gone into inculcating these views amongst the white population. Sadly there appears to have been less concern with doing so amongst men of Pakistani origin. When Yasmin Alibhai Brown admits there's a big problem, it's probably safe to say there is.
In the blue corner Hague; in the purple corner Cooke. Fight! Fight!
Err William Hague is standing down
I think he saw the UKIP selection coming and decided not to fight.
I think it's more that his many outside interests seem more attractive. He has done a lot for the Tory party and was, in some ways, incredibly unlucky to be elected leader when he was. Could have made a brilliant PM.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
So all those high profile, rich, white, middle class entertainers and media figures got away with child abuse for decades due to cultural reasons did they?
No Polly they didn't, they got away with it because they were thought to be untouchable because they were celebrities. The villains in Rotherham got away with it because they were thought to be untouchable because they were Pakistani Muslims, that is the point.
Both cases are to do with reluctance to deal with people who are elevated above usual levels of scrutiny
What we know now is that the police and agencies will often go to great lengths to avoid taking action when children say that they have been sexually abused. And we also know that sexual predators know that.
My Dad was an academy coach at West Ham, and a PE teacher in East London. He coached mentally handicapped men in Tower Hamlets, and all black football side in the East End called Lucia Sportif.
Then one day he called a kid at the school a "tube", god knows why, apparently Scottish slang he had heard on talksport...
The kid was a Nigerian and reported my Dad for calling him a "Jew".. when my Dad said it wouldnt seem an obvious thing to call him if you wanted to be nasty, which he wasnt being, he was made out to be racist for saying that
He was arrested and put on bail for six months
The kids at his school were some of the poorest in London, from all different backgrounds. A lot are asylum seekers children He used to give away his free tickets to Upton Park to kids who couldn't afford to go to Premiership football matches.. the police accused him of grooming
So an perfectly innocent, well liked man had his reputation on the line because of a misheard word.. he could easily have lost his job and had the stigma of being guilty of being a racist and possible child groomer hanging around him forever
All this was done instantly and without any evidence, so I don't really buy that people look the other way when kids tell tales
Thankfully the truth won, and all charges were dropped
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
So all those high profile, rich, white, middle class entertainers and media figures got away with child abuse for decades due to cultural reasons did they?
What we know now is that the police and agencies will often go to great lengths to avoid taking action when children say that they have been sexually abused. And we also know that sexual predators know that.
My Dad was an academy coach at West Ham, and a PE teacher in East London. He coached mentally handicapped men in Tower Hamlets, and all black football side in the East End called Lucia Sportif.
Then one day he called a kid at the school a "tube", god knows why, apparently Scottish slang he had heard on talksport...
The kid was a Nigerian and reported my Dad for calling him a "Jew".. when my Dad said it wouldnt seem an obvious thing to call him if you wanted to be nasty, which he wasnt being, he was made out to be racist for saying that
He was arrested and put on bail for six months
The kids at his school were some of the poorest in London, from all different backgrounds. A lot are asylum seekers children He used to give away his free tickets to Upton Park to kids who couldn't afford to go to Premiership football matches.. the police accused him of grooming
So an perfectly innocent, well liked man had his reputation on the line because of a misheard word.. he could easily have lost his job and had the stigma of being guilty of being a racist and possible child groomer hanging around him forever
All this was done instantly and without any evidence, so I don't really buy that people look the other way when kids tell tales
Read the multiple reports of child abuse. That's exactly what happens.
I should also add that what happened to your Dad was a disgrace. I imagine that you, he and the rest of your family must have felt utterly let down, furious and powerless all at the same time.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I suspect he will get a "19yo opponent with a likely credibility deficit" boost.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
One of the blokes I work with is from just outside Belfast and to me his eight sounds like e-Yate.
e-Yate poewnds. Ehm not payin thaaht
Its bad enough having a Bristol Pound, but eYate Pounds, must be one of the virtual currencies.
You can actually get an eight pound note in Belfast. You can always change it in a bank. They'll give you two fours for it.
But as RCS and others have pointed out, child abuse happens when groups of people have power over children and a sense of immunity. In Rotherham PC culture gave that sense of immunity; a mysogynistic culture provided the breeding ground for the crimes. In the Catholic church, the sense of immunity came from a widespread feeling that one did not criticise a priest - and this was reinforced by the church hierarchy. I do not know why priests abused children but I feel that an enforced celibacy must have something to do with it. There have been plenty of cases of priests having affairs with women and fathering children as well.
It is depressing to realise how widespread child abuse is. We urgently need to recalibrate how we view children and how we treat them.
I'm afraid that the general public massively underestimates how many men are sexually attracted to children. Precisely because it is so taboo, it is very hidden. So the scale has been hidden also.
The recent explosion of unrelated scandals shows just how prevalent it is in reality. If we want to reduce the sexual abuse of children, we have to start by recognising that extremely unpalatable fact.
That is absolutely correct. Those who want to sexually abuse children will use whatever levers they can find to do it. Another aspect of the Rotherham case - as with so many others up and down the country - is that the victims themselves were judged by many in the police and other agencies to be not worth worrying about - they were inarticulate, poorly educated, socially dysfunctional and generally worthy of disdain: often the kind of kids who in other circumstances would be condemned more generally for their drug taking, drunkenness, rowdy behaviour, accents, clothes etc. We see it in newspaper coverage of "chavs", for example. Abusers see an opportunity there - grooming kids that no-one really gives two tosses about. Throw in a culture of political correctness and general intimidation and you have a predators' paradise.
On topic, it's incredible that we can talk about Labour 'winning' the next election when they are facing near obliteration in Scotland, and will be well behind in votes in England.
Yet they could supply the next PM of the United Kingdom. How perverse is that?
They could be well behind in votes and seats, and supply the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
eg
Con 285 Lab 270 LD 30 SNP 40
Those are entirely plausible numbers, but the most stable combination (apart from a grand coalition, which I put in the category of Not Going To Happen) is Labour + LD + SNP.
Strategic thinking
Seeing as Scottish Labour were talking up voting SNP as putting Dave into Government, isn't a far more plausible scenario that if Labour holds on against the odds in Scotland then a Lib-Lab coalition becomes far more likely actually with ...
Scotland frozen out.
This could be an angle for the SNP to go on. - A Government of the Red and Yellow Tories
Any coalition by Labour with a regionally prejudiced party must freeze out other regions. We would see the SNP voting on English only matters. Yet we still see people willing to vote UKIP in England and thus deliver a far left Lab/SNP coalition? Such a situation must turn the English against Scotland and play directly into the hands of the SNP.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
So all those high profile, rich, white, middle class entertainers and media figures got away with child abuse for decades due to cultural reasons did they?
What we know now is that the police and agencies will often go to great lengths to avoid taking action when children say that they have been sexually abused. And we also know that sexual predators know that.
My Dad was an academy coach at West Ham, and a PE teacher in East London. He coached mentally handicapped men in Tower Hamlets, and all black football side in the East End called Lucia Sportif.
Then one day he called a kid at the school a "tube", god knows why, apparently Scottish slang he had heard on talksport...
Read the multiple reports of child abuse. That's exactly what happens.
They look the other way when people tell the truth as well.. it depends on the agenda of the people in charge
The accused was a white Englishman, the "victim" was an African immigrant.. charged immediately and put on bail despite no evidence
The accused is a Asian Muslim, the victim is a white working class girl.. look the other way
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I suspect he will get a "19yo opponent with a likely credibility deficit" boost.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I suspect he will get a "19yo opponent with a likely credibility deficit" boost.
I'm very happy to close out at 6/4 Labour.
Can you get more than a fiver on with Betfair Sportsbook though ?
I can't fathom why so many adults in positions of authority and power always turn the other cheek when it comes to hearing reports of child abuse, of whatever stripe.
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I suspect he will get a "19yo opponent with a likely credibility deficit" boost.
I'm very happy to close out at 6/4 Labour.
Can you get more than a fiver on with Betfair Sportsbook though ?
I can't fathom why so many adults in positions of authority and power always turn the other cheek when it comes to hearing reports of child abuse, of whatever stripe.
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
So all those high profile, rich, white, middle class entertainers and media figures got away with child abuse for decades due to cultural reasons did they?
What we know now is that the police and agencies will often go to great lengths to avoid taking action when children say that they have been sexually abused. And we also know that sexual predators know that.
My Dad was an academy coach at West Ham, and a PE teacher in East London. He coached mentally handicapped men in Tower Hamlets, and all black football side in the East End called Lucia Sportif.
Then one day he called a kid at the school a "tube", god knows why, apparently Scottish slang he had heard on talksport...
Read the multiple reports of child abuse. That's exactly what happens.
They look the other way when people tell the truth as well.. it depends on the agenda of the people in charge
The accused was a white Englishman, the "victim" was an African immigrant.. charged immediately and put on bail despite no evidence
The accused is a Asian Muslim, the victim is a white working class girl.. look the other way
There have been plenty of immigrant victims of abuse whose stories have not been listened to or acted upon. Likewise, a lot of white men have sexually abused white working class children and they have got away with it because the kids have been ignored. That does not make what happened to your Dad excusable, of course; but it is a fact.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
One of the blokes I work with is from just outside Belfast and to me his eight sounds like e-Yate.
I can't fathom why so many adults in positions of authority and power always turn the other cheek when it comes to hearing reports of child abuse, of whatever stripe.
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
1) There's a natural tendency to believe that X couldn't possibly be the type. 2) It's unpleasant. 3) X is often terrifically useful/dangerous to piss off. 4) The emotional and confused kid is never normally seen by the person to whom the allegations come, so that person doesn't feel invested in helping that kid. 5) If it all gets out, it will be tremendously messy. 6) It could all very well be completely untrue, in which case there would have been a huge amount of angst for no good reason.
Just a slight worry on the pile of money I've got on Dougie's seat - Any chance he gets a shadow foreign Secretary boost or does that sort of thing not concern your average Paisley voter ?
I am much more concerned that the SNP have put up a 19 year old. But perhaps that might be a masterstroke - inadvertently? - given the profile of Yes voters?
If she's 19 then she must be like the new Scottish Barack Obama or something. UKIP's Boston candidate seems quite good and he is very young.
I can't work out if she's a robot or not. Her YouTube speech on independence was over 8 minutes long and rather.. directive. It was lucid but slightly intimidating. Her style was very earnest, almost as if she came out of her mother's womb as a ready-made politico.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
Try getting your mouth around the northern Irish pronunciation of "eight". Something like A-yut-t.
One of the blokes I work with is from just outside Belfast and to me his eight sounds like e-Yate.
I can't fathom why so many adults in positions of authority and power always turn the other cheek when it comes to hearing reports of child abuse, of whatever stripe.
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
1) There's a natural tendency to believe that X couldn't possibly be the type. 2) It's unpleasant. 3) X is often terrifically useful/dangerous to piss off. 4) The emotional and confused kid is never normally seen by the person to whom the allegations come, so that person doesn't feel invested in helping that kid. 5) If it all gets out, it will be tremendously messy. 6) It could all very well be completely untrue, in which case there would have been a huge amount of angst for no good reason.
I can't fathom why so many adults in positions of authority and power always turn the other cheek when it comes to hearing reports of child abuse, of whatever stripe.
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
Laziness and, all too often, a feeling that the kids themselves somehow deserve it. Look at newspaper reports about teenage chavs - their behaviour, their clothes, their attitudes to authority etc. They are clearly seen as people to be scorned. And people do scorn them, among the general public as well as within police forces and agencies. It is these "chavs" who are often the victims of the abuse because they are vulnerable, marginalised, from dysfunctional families and generally despised.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
So all those high profile, rich, white, middle class entertainers and media figures got away with child abuse for decades due to cultural reasons did they?
No Polly they didn't, they got away with it because they were thought to be untouchable because they were celebrities. The villains in Rotherham got away with it because they were thought to be untouchable because they were Pakistani Muslims, that is the point.
Both cases are to do with reluctance to deal with people who are elevated above usual levels of scrutiny
What we know now is that the police and agencies will often go to great lengths to avoid taking action when children say that they have been sexually abused. And we also know that sexual predators know that.
My Dad was an academy coach at West Ham, and a PE teacher in East London. He coached mentally handicapped men in Tower Hamlets, and all black football side in the East End called Lucia Sportif.
Then one day he called a kid at the school a "tube", god knows why, apparently Scottish slang he had heard on talksport...
The kid was a Nigerian and reported my Dad for calling him a "Jew".. when my Dad said it wouldnt seem an obvious thing to call him if you wanted to be nasty, which he wasnt being, he was made out to be racist for saying that
He was arrested and put on bail for six months
...
Thankfully the truth won, and all charges were dropped
I sympathise with the story. It illustrates the quite frankly worrying nature of our police force. We have seen the Police Federation trying to frame a cabinet minister. We have seen another so called protection officer having an affair with a Labour ministers wife. I want to think the best of the police but they make it difficult. Just what goes through the minds of Yorkshire police defeats me.
"Did you hear about the gangs of white taxi drivers in the market towns of Southern England who over a period of decades have been grooming, drugging and serially raping under-age girls of Pakistani Kashmiri heritage?
No of course not. It hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen for any number of cultural reasons, the main one being this: the very second that the social services or the police or the victims’ community got even a whiff of what was going on there would be all hell to pay."
So all those high profile, rich, white, middle class entertainers and media figures got away with child abuse for decades due to cultural reasons did they?
What we know now is that the police and agencies will often go to great lengths to avoid taking action when children say that they have been sexually abused. And we also know that sexual predators know that.
My Dad was an academy coach at West Ham, and a PE teacher in East London. He coached mentally handicapped men in Tower Hamlets, and all black football side in the East End called Lucia Sportif.
Then one day he called a kid at the school a "tube", god knows why, apparently Scottish slang he had heard on talksport...
Read the multiple reports of child abuse. That's exactly what happens.
They look the other way when people tell the truth as well.. it depends on the agenda of the people in charge
The accused was a white Englishman, the "victim" was an African immigrant.. charged immediately and put on bail despite no evidence
The accused is a Asian Muslim, the victim is a white working class girl.. look the other way
There have been plenty of immigrant victims of abuse whose stories have not been listened to or acted upon. Likewise, a lot of white men have sexually abused white working class children and they have got away with it because the kids have been ignored. That does not make what happened to your Dad excusable, of course; but it is a fact.
The point is that the people in charge should have no agenda. The abusers are almost always on some pedestal or other.
Idolisation of celebrity is to blame for years of negligence in the case of Saville,, Harris etc
Fawning over ethnic minorities is to blame for negligence in the cases in Rotherham
I can't fathom why so many adults in positions of authority and power always turn the other cheek when it comes to hearing reports of child abuse, of whatever stripe.
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
1) There's a natural tendency to believe that X couldn't possibly be the type. 2) It's unpleasant. 3) X is often terrifically useful/dangerous to piss off. 4) The emotional and confused kid is never normally seen by the person to whom the allegations come, so that person doesn't feel invested in helping that kid. 5) If it all gets out, it will be tremendously messy. 6) It could all very well be completely untrue, in which case there would have been a huge amount of angst for no good reason.
7) I'm up to my neck in it as well.
Historically, at least, I think some people would have rationalised it away thinking even if the allegations/suspicions are true, it doesn't *really* affect the kid / they won't remember etc etc (especially for very young victims).
@Flightpath One of the things that goes on with the police is a sense of moral superiority. This tends to foster an "us and them" gang mentality and allows them to decide who it is important to protect, and who can be disregarded. While this is not true for all of them, the institution itself means that the better officers learn to keep their mouths shut about the wrong doing of the others.
I can't fathom why so many adults in positions of authority and power always turn the other cheek when it comes to hearing reports of child abuse, of whatever stripe.
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
1) There's a natural tendency to believe that X couldn't possibly be the type. 2) It's unpleasant. 3) X is often terrifically useful/dangerous to piss off. 4) The emotional and confused kid is never normally seen by the person to whom the allegations come, so that person doesn't feel invested in helping that kid. 5) If it all gets out, it will be tremendously messy. 6) It could all very well be completely untrue, in which case there would have been a huge amount of angst for no good reason.
All good reasons. I'd also add: don't forget the confidence and conviction of the kids themselves. Kids think it's somehow their fault and they are to blame. That will come across to adults who will take that as all the evidence they need to convince themselves that nothing really happened.
I know a couple of people who are now adults who experienced a verbally abusive and vindictive teacher at school. We all thought she was a monster at the time. Now, when people raise it on facebook, some who have never recovered from it are still angry.
The others have moved on, want to forget about it and leave it in the past. That's how things stay covered up.
Interesting to hear Martyn Williams on Scrum V over the week-end. I reckon he's a very, very shrewd judge.
Scotland are being called the dark horses of the tournament, but Williams said he reckoned they wouldn;t be. He reckons they'll underperform as much as they have recently.
So sell the Scotland spread might be one way to go. Trouble is, if they get stuffed in Paris the game will already be up and there won't be anything left in the trade.
o/t - The crowdfunder appeal to raise money to stand a Green candidate in every constituency in England and Wales has really taken off. It was less than £10k earlier in the week, it's almost halfway there at nearly £35k now. That's 70 extra candidates so far. Could there be a full slate of Green candidates in England and Wales in May?
I can't fathom why so many adults in positions of authority and power always turn the other cheek when it comes to hearing reports of child abuse, of whatever stripe.
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
1) There's a natural tendency to believe that X couldn't possibly be the type. 2) It's unpleasant. 3) X is often terrifically useful/dangerous to piss off. 4) The emotional and confused kid is never normally seen by the person to whom the allegations come, so that person doesn't feel invested in helping that kid. 5) If it all gets out, it will be tremendously messy. 6) It could all very well be completely untrue, in which case there would have been a huge amount of angst for no good reason.
7) I'm up to my neck in it as well.
8) The child is making it all up.
Children can, and do, invent the most outlandish stories, and sometimes allegations will be dismissed as such for that reason.
Comments
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Can I quote you quoting the piece: "it hasn't happened and it coundn't happen".
Which doesn't seem to be true, really.
I made some brilliantly profitable tips last year.
But this year, all I've got is Wales and Ireland to win.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmQyddLvCjY
Wasn't the piece talking about white men singling out Pakistani kids?
Is it not that these men become priests because it allows them to abuse children? It puts them into that position where they have power and control.
Strangely we do not see Farage and all his little kipper helpers going round slagging off the Catholic Church or the Scouting Association or pointing out names like ''Father O'Malley wink wink nudge nudge''.
O/T - the "Glasgow" accent is fascinatingly different from mine. Try as I might I just can't pronouce 'world' using 4-syllables, even though I can occasionally master a glottal stop.
You have jumped head first into an argument without realising you've made a ricket,,, step back
The recent explosion of unrelated scandals shows just how prevalent it is in reality. If we want to reduce the sexual abuse of children, we have to start by recognising that extremely unpalatable fact.
Ireland to take the title would be my guess, but that's about it.
Agree with you on your point above re why no-one spoke up or was listened to.
Honestly, I don't know why someone like a Rolf Harris or the PR bloke would do such a thing. The whole idea of abusing a child or a young girl is so repellent to me, so unlike any idea of what good sex can be that I find it difficult to get my head round why anyone would do it. I would hazard one guess: a fear or disgust of women at some level must be there. What we learnt these people did is not - to my mind - what happens in a normal sexual relationship. At the heart of it there is surely a respect for the woman (and vice versa). Respect is what seems to me to be lacking: it's degrading - for the victim but also in some way for the perpetrator. How can any man with any sense of self-respect want to have sex in such a way?
The celebrities got away with it because people fawn over celebrities
The Rotherham rapists got away with it because politicians fawn over ethnic minorities (and their votes)
The EU can block the Americans and pressure the Kiev government to give concessions that would lead to a negotiated peace. The war party in Kiev and Washington needs to be faced down. The reality is only 20000 of the targeted 100000 conscripts turned up in their last mobilization, they have suffered a series of military reverses in the past month and the Ukrainian economy has collapsed.
I suspect everyone on here found the Rotherham issue repugnant, even the 'liberals' with their attempts at what-about-ery. Go easy on them, their cherished 'political correctness' is getting a beating and they probably fear a small increase in Ukip support as a result. A double whammy for them.
You're fervent in your support for the Kippers, so you should have more sympathy when other people's deeply held opinions are being attacked.
I'm in the happy position of not being particularly bothered who wins the next election. Even if Neil and his merry mix of idealists manage a majority, I'll live with it.
Quite a few "Asian" girls were targeted, but they are even more reluctant to make statements due to their upbringing.
Prescott was Deputy PM, First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
EDIT Forget that... just seen Charles Kennedys price
Do I see a renewed convergence with Labour ? Not while Ed Miliband is leader to be blunt. For me, Labour has always been as centralising and authoritarian as the worst excesses of the Conservatives - the struggle for the Tory soul is always entertaining.
Why on earth would you back that
"More men than we care to acknowledge are potential child abusers, and what is worse, we can't easily identify them" is a better starting point.
Your starting point is probably right.
I reckon there's a sniff of a chance too.
Certainly we feel quite confident in my neck of the woods - we are better-funded and supported with organised canvassing than I've ever experienced, even in 1997 (when people didn't think we had much chance). The Tories are I understand still struggling to get even small canvass teams out regularly. Other seats where I'm hearing particularly good rumours for Labour are Cambridge and Hendon (where Dismore's personal vote remains very significant), but DYOR. Overall I agree with Tissueprice that the mood is grouchy, actually in all the main parties - the election is going to be about who loses least ground, and nobody is really happy with that.
e-Yate poewnds. Ehm not payin thaaht
Peak Richmond
Then one day he called a kid at the school a "tube", god knows why, apparently Scottish slang he had heard on talksport...
The kid was a Nigerian and reported my Dad for calling him a "Jew".. when my Dad said it wouldnt seem an obvious thing to call him if you wanted to be nasty, which he wasnt being, he was made out to be racist for saying that
He was arrested and put on bail for six months
The kids at his school were some of the poorest in London, from all different backgrounds. A lot are asylum seekers children He used to give away his free tickets to Upton Park to kids who couldn't afford to go to Premiership football matches.. the police accused him of grooming
So an perfectly innocent, well liked man had his reputation on the line because of a misheard word.. he could easily have lost his job and had the stigma of being guilty of being a racist and possible child groomer hanging around him forever
All this was done instantly and without any evidence, so I don't really buy that people look the other way when kids tell tales
Thankfully the truth won, and all charges were dropped
I should also add that what happened to your Dad was a disgrace. I imagine that you, he and the rest of your family must have felt utterly let down, furious and powerless all at the same time.
Sad to hear that
"You tube" is a favourite of Alan Brazil on the Sports Breakfast.
I've switched to Radio 4 recently, very pleasent left wing middle class brainwashing
Such a situation must turn the English against Scotland and play directly into the hands of the SNP.
The accused was a white Englishman, the "victim" was an African immigrant.. charged immediately and put on bail despite no evidence
The accused is a Asian Muslim, the victim is a white working class girl.. look the other way
I can only imagine that it's because it's so intensely disturbing and unpleasant to engage with, particularly when there is often an eloquent and articulate adult on one side, and an emotional and confused child on another, to just dismiss it and try to forget you ever heard about it.
2) It's unpleasant.
3) X is often terrifically useful/dangerous to piss off.
4) The emotional and confused kid is never normally seen by the person to whom the allegations come, so that person doesn't feel invested in helping that kid.
5) If it all gets out, it will be tremendously messy.
6) It could all very well be completely untrue, in which case there would have been a huge amount of angst for no good reason.
Who needs vowels anyway?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31141549
Idolisation of celebrity is to blame for years of negligence in the case of Saville,, Harris etc
Fawning over ethnic minorities is to blame for negligence in the cases in Rotherham
For me, that's the most horiffic part of it all.
One of the things that goes on with the police is a sense of moral superiority.
This tends to foster an "us and them" gang mentality and allows them to decide who it is important to protect, and who can be disregarded.
While this is not true for all of them, the institution itself means that the better officers learn to keep their mouths shut about the wrong doing of the others.
-£0.01 Labour
+£143 SNP it is.
What fostered the ability for politicians to "get away with it" for so long?
I know a couple of people who are now adults who experienced a verbally abusive and vindictive teacher at school. We all thought she was a monster at the time. Now, when people raise it on facebook, some who have never recovered from it are still angry.
The others have moved on, want to forget about it and leave it in the past. That's how things stay covered up.
1) If you're right, they might still get away with it and you're in the shithouse for evermore.
2) If you're wrong, see point 1)
Interesting to hear Martyn Williams on Scrum V over the week-end. I reckon he's a very, very shrewd judge.
Scotland are being called the dark horses of the tournament, but Williams said he reckoned they wouldn;t be. He reckons they'll underperform as much as they have recently.
So sell the Scotland spread might be one way to go. Trouble is, if they get stuffed in Paris the game will already be up and there won't be anything left in the trade.
And your points apply to the average constable on the street as well.
http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/green-party-in-your-seat/?af=egreens
Children can, and do, invent the most outlandish stories, and sometimes allegations will be dismissed as such for that reason.
(Actually ignore that - point 6 covered it)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-31130827
Could be a special election for me to abstain from. If it was on GE day, then I suppose I could spoil my ballot.