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I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition – politicalbetting.com

? Update: Kate Forbes has dropped her strongest hint yet that she will stand again to be Scotland’s first minister in a move that threatens to plunge the party into bitter infighting ??https://t.co/tbUqxRTjXe
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p.s. Dick the Butcher in Henry VI part 2
Defence barrister Rajiv Menon KC told the court of the “very detrimental effect” the case had on Ms Williams.
He said: “She has been punished to a large extent, not only by the conviction but by the end of her distinguished career as a police officer first in Nottinghamshire, latterly in the Metropolitan Police.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/case-dropped-against-traumatised-former-senior-officer-novlett-robyn-williams/ar-AA1nVSfP?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=4735f0dc62d447fdbff89b118319f62e&ei=14
For whatever noble, high falutin', dare I say uber woke reason your comment yesterday was vile. And unambiguously racist.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is British but from immigrant stock. Recent immigrant stock that is because few of us are not at some point in history.
You have just told them that they are not properly British, that they in your eyes can't escape a characteristic from their "own" culture and moreover that there is a defining characteristic of "their", and of British culture.
It is exactly the same language as the most virulent racists use to other such people.
To borrow from the PO Inquiry vernacular, you are either a racist or a moron and I don't care which it is.
So you can take your Archbishop John Sentamu told mes and your don't you realises and you can fuck right off.
Have you sought counselling?
https://lgiu.org/publication/ones-to-watch-2024/#section-13
We don’t often get on, but on this occasion you are unambiguously right in what you say, why you say it and how you say it.
Repeats from last thread.
Enough, no more. 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
The whole point is that people like Sunak are a disgrace to people of colour who have made this country what it is.
I’m sorry you and @Topping or @StillWaters are unable to see this. I’m happy to agree to disagree but I will not accept being called racist over it.
The bitter irony is that it’s the likes of Sunak, Badenoch, and Braverman who are causing untold damage to race relations, and minority relations, in this country.
I guess you tories just won’t get it until you have spent a long, long, time in the political wilderness. Which you will.
Next you'll be calling me superficially brown.
There’s a very Nasty streak running through the current Conservative Party.
You will have a long long time in the political wilderness to reflect on these words whilst Keir Starmer and Labour attempt to rebuild the social, and socially embracing, fabric of this country which includes those of all creeds, colours, and class.
p.s. I also note that the casual sexism, transphobia, homophobia which is uttered on here day in, day out, rarely gets such a challenge.
*) It's perfectly possible to be two (or more) things at once. You can be a 'person of colour' and wealthy. Or a 'person of colour' and see big issues with the cultures you were raised in. That isn't a betrayal.
*) The more we get away from stereotypes of how a certain person should act and behave according to sex, race, age, etc, the better. Women should stay at home and look after kids. Black people are all criminals. Gay men should all be flamboyant. Lesbians should all have short hair, the elderly are all waiting for God, etc, etc. Stereotypes are almost always unhelpful, and often destructive. Yet they're an easy (and lazy) way to judge people.
You have some very serious thinking to do. This is indeed a profoundly racist viewpoint.
One of the triumphs of this country is that people can succeed on their own merits. I am very proud to be a citizen where people from all sorts of backgrounds can make it to the very top of our politics on their own merits and it is not even an issue. We are all free to disagree and disapprove of the policies they carry out there but you are completely wrong to attack them from a racist perspective of what they "ought" to do or think.
And that has been the hallmark of this country with its welfare state and welcome of migrants from all parts of the globe.
I will leave it there. Name call if it makes you feel better but, later, reflect on the truth within my words.
Have a nice day everyone xx
Criticising a politician through the lens of ethnic background is racism.
You can seriously dislike a PM (and I don't much like Sunak either), but you can say so without calling them "a disgrace to people of colour" - as if you're some sort of arbiter of how "people of colour" ought to behave.
Stop digging, please.
Someone from @piersmorgan's staff asked if I would like to come onto Pier's show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, to talk about the state of his attire. Since he invited feedback, I thought I'd do a thread comparing his style to menswear icon Kermit the Frog. 🧵..
https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1785413336366293002
The state ought not to be funding religiously segregated schools, IMO.
England scraps 50% rule on faith school admissions
Allowing 100% faith-based access would be divisive and likely penalise disadvantaged children, say campaigners
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/may/01/england-scraps-50-rule-on-faith-school-admissions
When it comes to small minded authoritarianism, there is a rich vein of it which is entirely native to this country.
And is native to other countries and cultures.
As far as anyone can tell, it appears to be part of the human condition.
The belief that, if only you could get all those messy humans to obey enough rules, everything would be… tidy.
It's having the temerity to then attack him for damaging race relations, with absolutely no sense of irony whatsoever, really is tin-headed.
Politicians or all ethnicities should be able to be xenophobic or discriminatory, within the law, without bringing in their ethnic background into the conversation.
There's plenty to criticise on the substance of what the Sunak government is doing. The Rwanda policy in particular is a deeply unethical farce - in particular the fact that valid refugees are just as stuck in Rwanda as invalid ones.
The racial profile of the Tory frontbench has no bearing on this in either direction.
But that's significant on its own terms without bringing race or religion into it. Indeed, that throws off some chaff that hides the question.
I would prefer the 50% came down significantly. 100% is something that should be privately funded.
TwiX Times headline. Which invites a couple of questions. Like what has happened to The Times sense of proportion. And what state does a mainstream party have to be in so that a democratic contest between two well liked moderates, Swinney and Forbes, is some sort of bloodbath like that Scottish play whose name I can't remember?
Just asking. I have no dog in the fight, being a unionist WRT Scotland.
Street 2.08
Parker 1.72
I laid Labour at 1.14 some time ago. Only to lose/win £14/£100.
The last poll Yougov poll had Street leading by 2%. I like all these Shakespearen headers TSE but surely we need a leader saying
"STREET'S AHEAD!"
On the other hand, that 50% was for *new* faith schools, though. 100% is already OK for, for instance, C of E and RC schools unless I misunderstand? So it's unfair on (let's say) Jedi Knights for the new (say) Han Solo College to be restricted to 50% JKs when St Aloysius or St Michael's down the road aren't.
On the right there are bigots, absolutely, and they should be condemned. But they are rarely hypocritical about it.
Fortunately, most on both and left right are broadly reasonable.
Spotlighting and emphasising group differences vs desiring the melting pot.
On the one side the far and populist right, much of the modern identitarian left, BLM, most Northern Irish politicians, many religious groups.
On the other the secularists, the old centre-right and centre-left, market fundamentalists, the other Northern Irish politicians.
The criticism of secularist and melting pot / colour blind thinking is that it erases community or religious identity and freedom, and denies the effect of historical injustices that still influence life chances today. On a more prosaic level it dulls the rich diversity of cultural life.
The criticism of identitarian thinking is it just reinforces the segregation of society, encourages in-group and out-group thinking and stereotyping, and undermines social cohesion. At its worst it’s what leads to genocide.
Both ways of thinking have their problems, but I’d say we’ve overreacted and gone a bit too identitarian in recent years.
https://x.com/joannaccherry/status/1785566115759878604
🚨NEW London Mayoral Voting Intention for
@centreforlondon
📈10pt Sadiq Khan lead
🌹Lab 42 (-4)
🌳Con 32 (-1)
🔶LD 10 (+1)
🌍Green 8 (+1)
➡️Reform 3 (+1)
⬜️Other 3 (+1)
1,557 Londoners, 26-30 April
(all chg vs 8-17 April)
1) I, through impeccably liberal sensibilities, dislike the culture of group X
2) You make dodgy comments
3) He/She/They should be charged under the Race Relations Act, 1965
A handy tool is to reverse the racial categories in a statement or idea - everyone has personal biases and this is a handy way to find them.
2) The school operational policies of the Jedi breach a number of safeguarding rules. And some fairly major child protection ones.
3) Sith rocking up at a school would cause, at minimum, serious distress to the children and teachers. Given what has happened before.
Sturgeon's genius was converting a pre-2014 rural SNP into a central belt winning political machine. Going for Forbes = abandoning the central belt and a reversion to their former role as Tartan Tories.
There simply aren't enough rural constituencies for that to work, though perhaps Yousaf's failure to count is contagious?
Assume Derek will be going on the shitlist along with Harry & Megs.
Very very well said Sir.
Similarly, the easy Westminster story now features a beleaguered PM clinging onto power while his party plot and fight like ferrets in a sack, even if the actual news being reported is pretty neutral for Sunak.
It's a bit unfair, although the broad perception doesn't come from nowhere. They say you shouldn't kick someone when they are down... but it's basically the easiest and safest time to kick someone, so that's what happens.
@Heathener comments on Sunak were unacceptable, no matter how much you disagree with him, and as posters from across the political divide have rightly condemned the comments as racist
Uncalled for and deeply unpleasant
I know little of the London Mayoral contest apart from Khan is obnoxious and she's supposed to be a terrible candidate. But this seems not to make sense.
https://x.com/chrismusson/status/1785396751320395901
I see the sexist witch hunt against Kate Forbes is in full swing again this morning amongst some of our male commentariat. Cynical misrepresentation of her positions positively dripping with misogyny.
https://x.com/joannaccherry/status/1785559102472516077?
When Cameron ran to be leader of the Conservative Party, there were numerous attempts to spin it as "war", "strife" etc. Despite it being one of the more polite and policy based leadership campaigns I can recall.
I know Yousaf missed the equal marriage vote, for example, but he has been public about his support for it.
Racism is just not acceptable.
Topping was right to call it out. I caught up with it when I logged on this morning.
She does seem to have united right and left here on the matter though.
Sorry to break the PB consensus but given they have been in power (more or less) since 2007, their former CEO has been charged with embezzlement, former leader arrested, a campervan has gone missing, forensic tent on the drive, unable to recycle plastic bottles, and TRANS, that's rather astonishing.
You often hear it about politicians that "if only the public could see the person we see".
There are different approaches, but it's fine, in my opinion, to have personal views for oneself that are out of step with the party line, but not really possible to have personal views on what other people should do (or call them sinners) that are out of step with party line.
Take me - I don't think I would ever want an abortion for a child of mine, under any circumstances except danger to the mother or (possibly - and I'm not sure about this) knowing the foetus had severe abnormalities that would dramatically shorten life and lead to a poor quality of life in that time. But I absolutely believe in the rights of women to have control over their bodies and have abortions up to [some date - which is debatable, but I think the current UK threshold is reasoonable] for any reason. I could lead the Lib Dems with that viewpoint, but I don't think I could lead the Lib Dems if I thought abortion was a sin and quietly wanted it banned for others.
London Mayoral Voting Intention:
Khan (LAB): 47% (+1)
Hall (CON): 25% (-2)
Garbett (GRN): 7% (-2)
Blackie (LDM): 6% (-2)
Cox (RFM): 6% (=)
Others: 8% (+4)
Via
@YouGov
, 24-30 Apr.
Changes w/ 9-17 Apr.
YouGov have tended to show the biggest Lab leads for the general election as well, so will be an interesting test to see if YouGov are over-stating Labour in real elections or not.
I find it fascinating how people can hold different, often competing, identities, but sometimes (often?) their political identity is most important to them. An example of this would be Muslims who still support the Tory Party.
To me, it seems, Muslims are to the right, or certain sections of the right, what Jews were in the 30s. A bogeyman. And that fear, suspicion, dislike, call it what you will, of Muslims transcends any supposed solidarity that we in the UK suppose should exist between brown people.
So Braverman, Sunak, Badenoch, Habib for Reform, despite being non-white and perhaps in the eyes of many should have some kind of non-white brotherhood are instead very anti-Muslim. Because they supposedly don’t share ‘our values’ and are swamping the country from small boats, or something.
So if I were a Muslim I would think sod the Tories, they don’t like me and my kind. But many Muslim people do still support the Tories, because they agree with them in a number of ways that are more important to them than that underlying suspicion of Muslims.
If I’d been a gay Tory in times past I think similarly that I would have found it impossible to remain in the Party through section 28 and all that stuff.
You could say a similar argument could be made for Jews who stayed in Labour during the Corbyn years.
I don’t see why we should expect our non-white politicians to be any more immune from stoking race tensions, culture war, religious divisions, just because they’re not white.
I find some of Badenoch and Braverman’s comments around race and the legacy of empire extraordinary, personally, but humans are strange creatures.
While he wrote his histories from the point of view of Tudor ideology - something necessary for survival - he was pretty sly at presenting the opposing view in an equally dramatically compelling manner.
Macbeth was a very dangerous play to publish under the (justifiably) paranoid James Stuart, but his adroitness at presenting subversive ideas within a frame of orthodoxy allowed him to carry it off.
Today is the day @he Ooh, my 22/1 bet is now within the MoE.
Tasty.