1. The Labour government has done not very much for a very long time
2. Everyone knew Gulf War II was illegal and immoral, but only a couple had the courage and principle to leave
3. All that neo-Georgian indigenous growth theory, or whatever, has done nothing but put the Kingdom into colossal debt.
4. These people will cut social services but keep nuclear weapons.
5. Under New Labour, Britain has become a police state
To which I am now adding:
6. That woman is a bigot and Gordon Brown should have told her so.
Or to put it another way, Britain has become a thoroughly nasty country, overstuffed with ABSOs and Tescos, a country where it is quite acceptable to complain about those Eastern European immigrants, because it's not like they are darkies, is it? No, they just go there to do jobs the local chavs and chavettes cannot be bothered to do.
Faced with this ghastly old trout whining about the immigrants, Brown muttered something about more Britons leaving than foreigners arriving, as if that were of any consequence. He might have pointed out, had he some principles and a spine to hang them on, that the Poles are entitled to go to Wisbech and pick potatoes, because they are citizens of the European Union; just as British prats are entitled to live in charming old villas in Tuscany and to write patronising novels about the quaint locals. In any case, I doubt that Penny Vincenzi's husband came from an old Rochdale family.
In Britain, having principles is so oldspeak; so, like, Twentieth Century. Michael Foot had principles and look what that did for Labour. Politics is about listening to the mood of the nation and adapting to it, even if it is a foul mood. Besides, casual racism is part of Britain's culture, like flat caps, allotments and whippets. It is preserved and cherished by the likes of the Daily Mail. Once it was the nig-nogs, then the wogs, now the Poles; it is only the hating that keeps the British going. Faced with the prospect of a Europe without frontiers, the British erect mental barriers. Given the opportunity to live anywhere they like in Europe, the British stay in truly awful places like Rochdale and mutter about the foreigners.
As someone once said, the tragedy of the British working class is that they are crucified by the poverty of their own desire.
2 comments:
Even worse than Brown's failure to tackle the woman's racism face-to-face was his subsequent grovelling apology for his off-camera remarks about her, which apparently were all just a matter of 'misunderstanding'. Pillock
Except that the political class here is tone deaf to the genuine concerns of people (the Poles have depressed many wages) due to the way it is commonly expressed. This aversion to addressing the issue for fear of not being PC is what is driving working class voters affected by this into the arms of the BNP.
You hear concerns expressed about this all the time from people who are not being racist, just concerned about how globalisation is hurting their community. Builders are losing £3 AN HOUR because cheap labour from Eastern Europe.
The chattering classes think Europe is great because for them it is villas in Tuscany and a second home in the Algarve. So you get a disconnect between them and those who work for a living who's income and employment is affected by people who will often work for less than the minimum wage, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Come to Scotland and stay in a Highland Hotel and you are unlikely to hear a Scottish accent from any of the staff other than management. The locals cannot live a decent life on the wages on offer. The Poles, Czechs etc are happy to live in scummy accommodation for a few years while they salt money away. Then they take it and go home. Those who want to live normal lives in a community cannot compete. That is a problem. To tell people that it is not because of the way they express it is not helpful.
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