I loathe the woman.
I have lost track of her hypocrisy in both actions and words over the years, so often and badly has she let down her electorate.
She is the archetypal gravy-train MP and has now blown her USP (see me, I represent a minority, can't you see I'm black?) right out of the water.

There will be people who have been genuinely fighting racism for years and for all the right reasons who will now have their hands in their hands.

If I was in her local party I'd have been wanting her deselected years ago.

Spot on.

Bollox, Its the way society interprets those words & actions that’s the key. Its near impossible to change the publics perception on issues like this & its important that the publics perception does not play into the hands of extremists. No form of Racialism or sexism should be tolerated, doesn’t matter who you are.

And just how has a lower tolerance of racism & sexism led to a more divisive UK?

Some of us are of an age that remembers when racism wasn't merely tolerated, it was wholeheartedly embraced by a large proportion of the population, we even had overtly racist "comedies" on national television. There were real signs in the windows of real pubs and boarding houses, informing some races that they would not be welcome.

Mind you, then some interfering political party went and introduced legislation to outlaw discrimination on grounds of race, gender and sexuality. I'll leave you to guess which political party that was.

Nah, it's the intent and context that's the key.


Not true, racism has dwindled to a fraction of what I used to witness (and unconsciously partake in) when I was a boy.

I believe that an unfortunate part of the human psyche is "differentist" (by that I include racism, religious and ethnic intolerance, dislike of rival rugby fans etc etc) and it may well be genetic and may have served early man very well in defending himself and his tribe.
Unfortunately, it is still there in everyone's subconscious but is allayed when we mix with those who we thought were different from ourselves and then we realise that we are all the same really.


We certainly agree on that bit.

Thats the complete definition of all "ism's" in one paragraph.

Its an unfortunate result of re-educating the masses that has led to a new generation who don't actually know what true racism looks like and who cannot therefore appreciate how far we have come in 40 years, however re-education can only go so far, it may take many generations before the "differentist" gene is obsolete.

I cannot believe the posts on here - some needs to grow some and watch some re-runs of Love they Neighbour.

Grow some?

The only thing needed to watch reruns of that sh[ii[/ite and others of a similar vein is idiot cells

I think that this is one of those very rare occasions where you and Sal and I all agree about racism (if I read him right).

WRT "Love thy Neighbour" though ... in its defence, you could say it took the p1ss out of racism.
The wives in it were perfectly good friends and there was no racist aspect there.
Only the central bigot character was actually racist ... and he was the butt of all the jokes, like Alf Garnett was.

It was still peurile shiite, mind.

If that's what you're looking for, look no further than [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd_Vjq5MEeQCurry & Chips[/url, not Johnny Speight's most glorious comedy

Rather than going on, I think that the following article, [url=http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=BBC+TV+sitcom+called+The+Melting+Pot "Race and Sitcom"[/url is a very good summary indeed. Especially for people too young to remember the programmes.

One important aspect of this is that the object of a sitcom is to make the audience laugh, but amongst the audience there is the whole range of people from the worst racists to the fairest minded, and however an author may write a sitcom, he or she can't dictate the response of the viewer. So while a sitcom may be designed as a satirisation of racist attitudes, for example, that won't come across at all on screen if the studio audience is full of bigots and intentional or unintentional racists, since they will not get the joke, and will laugh at the wrong things.

Alf Garnett (as indeed this article mentions) was a good case in point; to a reasonably enlightened person, he was the most outrageous right wing racist bigot, and you laughed at him, as he was ridiculous, and intentionally so. But the fact is there was a large chunk of the population who really didn't "get" that aspect at all, instead thinking "yeah, great, now there's a man who is saying exactly what I'm thinking".

I'm not sure what a comedy writer is supposed to do about that, or if it is their job. Though it must be true that both comedy writers and actors are ATEOTD creatures of their own time, and it would be a mistake to think that somehow that makes them mistake-free paragons of righteousness, who can never put a foot wrong. So, for example, it should have been apparent that despite the intention to satirise, the way in which use was made of the words "s" and "coons" (for example) as a comedy vehicle was unacceptable. This does not make the writer or the actor a racist-in-hindsight (they weren't), but they would never in a million years do the same if the sitcom was being written today.

You could see Harry Enfield's 'Loadsamoney' character and Al Murray's pub landlord in exactly the same way.