Stop voting for fucking Tories

[Lobby]

This recent story would seem to support your’s and Paddington’s point about racism still being an issue in parts of Scotland.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... t-63807748

I wonder if that is in part due to the lack of diversity in Scotland, which according to the last census was 96% white.

My now-wife had a terrible time trying to get job interviews in Edinburgh and Glasgow after she graduated, despite having an excellent CV for the roles she was applying for. I"ve always assumed it was because of her foreign and probably brown sounding name.

On the flip side, a relative auditioned for a part in Shetland (the TV series) and was rejected for not being black enough

I’m not sure that a TV series produced by London-based Silverprint Pictures and ITV Studios for the BBC is necessarily representative of standard Scottish employment practices.

[JM2K6]

You write something like this then throw your arms up in the air and wonder why something like Brexit happened

This is a weird post, Slick. Are we not allowed to call the racists and scumbags racists and scumbags any more? Should we be giving people like Douglas Murray and Nigel Farage and all the far right / alt right headcases loads of respect for their disingenuous bleating over this?

Brexit happened in part because people like Farage weren't challenged on their absolute bullshit. Murray has been doing the whole "I told you guys this would happen and everyone called me a racist" schtick, conveniently ignoring that he claimed Christians would become a minority thanks to Islam - when in reality all that's happened is people have become less religious full stop.

We should spend even more time calling racist scumbags, racist and scumbags. What we shouldn't do is pat ourselves on the back from calling them that and dismiss concerns of millions of people.

But why respond to a post explicitly calling out the high profile racists and xenophobes the way you did? It just makes it look like you're legitimising them by equating them with the people whose concerns you do care about. These aren't people with honest and well thought out concerns. These are absolute scumbags. Some of them are purely motivated by greed. Some because they're racist. Some are even fascist. Sneering at Hal for having a go at these people, and then talking about dismissing the concerns of "ordinary" people is very strange in this context.

No-one was talking about anyone else. And it's an odd look to leap to the defence of the scumbags.

[C69]

Big swing to Labour in the Chester bye election.

[SaintK]

So the Tories sat on this for 2 years!

Overnight TalkTV and the Sun also revealed that a senior Tory backbencher has been reported by colleagues to police over allegations of rape and sexual assault. A group of Tory MPs submitted a report to police about the MP relating to allegations spanning two years, which have been investigated by a law firm. The MP has not been suspended from the Tory whip or from party membership, despite reports that senior party figures knew about the allegations for about two years.

[dpedin]

So the Tories sat on this for 2 years!

Overnight TalkTV and the Sun also revealed that a senior Tory backbencher has been reported by colleagues to police over allegations of rape and sexual assault. A group of Tory MPs submitted a report to police about the MP relating to allegations spanning two years, which have been investigated by a law firm. The MP has not been suspended from the Tory whip or from party membership, despite reports that senior party figures knew about the allegations for about two years.

What was it again .... integrity, professionalism and accountability?

[Hal Jordan]

Was it a senior backbencher at the time of the allegations, or a now senior backbencher who was higher up the food chain when it happened, I wonder?

[Paddington Bear]

See my reply to Slick - I live in England and have for at least 12 years. So happily point 5 can be totally disregarded. Fwiw I do think a number of Scots are racist as the terms you reference are still widely used.

Fair cop, you know what they say about assumptions...

Going to try and take the points in turn:

Your point about pace of change is curious. Because (a) if you've decided the change is bad because the faces are brown you are a racist I'm afraid. If someone has specific points about the culture changing I'd be interested in hearing what they are specifically regarding your locality.

Culture change comes hand in hand with demographic change regardless of skin colour. A poorly managed influx of (white) largely Polish people what? 15 years ago brought this issue and Farage into the mainstream. Almost no one likes rapid change around where they live, I used the example of white ex-North Londoners who despair at the state of say Harrow, but also black South Londoners who despair at the sight of white Yuppies heading for bottomless brunch off Electric Avenue.
As for my locality I live in a London suburb that is very white British, but my experience of demographic change would be:
1) My Mum's family have been North/East Londoners for generations (when I forgot my great aunt's address I looked up her uncle on the Commonwealth War Graves website to find it as she still lives in the same house). The road my great aunt lives on is now 1.5% White British and most of them will be dead by the time of the next census. From being a very middle class suburb 70 years ago it is now a road you need your wits about you to walk down, and an asian colleague of mine who grew up there and never goes back laughed and sent me links to stab proof vests when I mentioned I was going there a while back. Is this purely due to demographic change? No. Is it a factor?

2) My cricket club has made significant efforts to integrate the increasing Indian community in the town with mixed results. We've had an injection of players and passion into the club, we've had young lads join barely speaking English who are now exceptionally well integrated with mixed social groups, but we've also had a massive decline in respect for facilities/officals etc and had multiple committee meetings attempting to navigate such topics as 'my son's coach is from a lower caste than me and it is causing me to lose face' which probably wouldn't arise with a slightly slower pace of change. A side effect we probably should have seen coming but didn't is that the Indians are doing their absolute best to kick all Muslims out of the club.

(B) I've lived across the UK there's no homogeneous culture anyway. Which you actually allude to in point 3. Places change - what's concerning really is that when I go home to Dundee it hasn't changed in 20/30 years at all. I'd bet you that places that have minority white population now are least concerned by the changes.

It's very hard to judge how communities feel about rapid change in some ways because so many white people have left London because of what they perceive has happened to the areas they grew up in. I can only go off what I see and hear. Again, rapid change has been poorly managed which is the issue rather than a racial head count.

I appreciate the issues that arise in Leicester where there have been pitched cultural battles and yes I appreciate you have to integrate cultures is important and not happening as well as it could. But integration in London is actually pretty good you'd say, no?

This is an interesting one. London is an integration success story when compared to comparable European cities. I don't think that's quite the same as being a success story. What you see in London is a quiet system of segregation where white people are happy to live in certain areas, Hindus in others, Muslims in others, black people in others, Jews in very differentiated places etc. White people of course also see the capital, enjoy it and when they start to think about having kids make a sharp exit. As JMK rightly said, economic factors are at play here but the simple truth is that people have not forgotten how to be politically incorrect inside their own homes and believe (rightly or wrongly, I have no idea) that their kids will get eaten alive in a diverse London school, even when these schools get better results than those outside of it.

Integration is much easier with slower rates of change and more genuinely mixed communities, that is not what we see in London now.

Both Paddington’s post and your own are just a series of total non sequiturs.

Paddington says that people being different and change coming rapidly is a problem. Why?

People with lots of different opinions and perspectives here have tried to have a proper discussion about this. Pretending that you can't get these points and misrepresenting the ones made so that you can label sections of the public racist compared to your own moral good is fine but a waste of everyone's time. If over the next 20 years the part of Scotland you live in became say 60% English I bet you'd have a thing or two to say about it

[JM2K6]

[yermum]

This is an interesting one. London is an integration success story when compared to comparable European cities. I don't think that's quite the same as being a success story. What you see in London is a quiet system of segregation where white people are happy to live in certain areas, Hindus in others, Muslims in others, black people in others, Jews in very differentiated places etc. White people of course also see the capital, enjoy it and when they start to think about having kids make a sharp exit. As JMK rightly said, economic factors are at play here but the simple truth is that people have not forgotten how to be politically incorrect inside their own homes and believe (rightly or wrongly, I have no idea) that their kids will get eaten alive in a diverse London school, even when these schools get better results than those outside of it.

Integration is much easier with slower rates of change and more genuinely mixed communities, that is not what we see in London now.

Do you live in london?

[sockwithaticket]

Is there a whiff of someone's dodgy tax affairs starting to catch up with them?

[Paddington Bear]

This is an interesting one. London is an integration success story when compared to comparable European cities. I don't think that's quite the same as being a success story. What you see in London is a quiet system of segregation where white people are happy to live in certain areas, Hindus in others, Muslims in others, black people in others, Jews in very differentiated places etc. White people of course also see the capital, enjoy it and when they start to think about having kids make a sharp exit. As JMK rightly said, economic factors are at play here but the simple truth is that people have not forgotten how to be politically incorrect inside their own homes and believe (rightly or wrongly, I have no idea) that their kids will get eaten alive in a diverse London school, even when these schools get better results than those outside of it.

Integration is much easier with slower rates of change and more genuinely mixed communities, that is not what we see in London now.

Do you live in london?

I live within the m25 but not ‘in London’. I’m in London 4-6 days a week and have previously lived in town proper. A large amount of my family are/were Londoners

[yermum]

Some of my best friends are Londoners... got it!

[I like neeps]

Is there a whiff of someone's dodgy tax affairs starting to catch up with them?

Doubt it, I think this is Javid has realised he'll never be PM and so he's taking his ball home (to make millions in finance again) in a huff.

[I like neeps]

See my reply to Slick - I live in England and have for at least 12 years. So happily point 5 can be totally disregarded. Fwiw I do think a number of Scots are racist as the terms you reference are still widely used.

Fair cop, you know what they say about assumptions...

Going to try and take the points in turn:

Your point about pace of change is curious. Because (a) if you've decided the change is bad because the faces are brown you are a racist I'm afraid. If someone has specific points about the culture changing I'd be interested in hearing what they are specifically regarding your locality.

Culture change comes hand in hand with demographic change regardless of skin colour. A poorly managed influx of (white) largely Polish people what? 15 years ago brought this issue and Farage into the mainstream. Almost no one likes rapid change around where they live, I used the example of white ex-North Londoners who despair at the state of say Harrow, but also black South Londoners who despair at the sight of white Yuppies heading for bottomless brunch off Electric Avenue.
As for my locality I live in a London suburb that is very white British, but my experience of demographic change would be:
1) My Mum's family have been North/East Londoners for generations (when I forgot my great aunt's address I looked up her uncle on the Commonwealth War Graves website to find it as she still lives in the same house). The road my great aunt lives on is now 1.5% White British and most of them will be dead by the time of the next census. From being a very middle class suburb 70 years ago it is now a road you need your wits about you to walk down, and an asian colleague of mine who grew up there and never goes back laughed and sent me links to stab proof vests when I mentioned I was going there a while back. Is this purely due to demographic change? No. Is it a factor?

2) My cricket club has made significant efforts to integrate the increasing Indian community in the town with mixed results. We've had an injection of players and passion into the club, we've had young lads join barely speaking English who are now exceptionally well integrated with mixed social groups, but we've also had a massive decline in respect for facilities/officals etc and had multiple committee meetings attempting to navigate such topics as 'my son's coach is from a lower caste than me and it is causing me to lose face' which probably wouldn't arise with a slightly slower pace of change. A side effect we probably should have seen coming but didn't is that the Indians are doing their absolute best to kick all Muslims out of the club.

(B) I've lived across the UK there's no homogeneous culture anyway. Which you actually allude to in point 3. Places change - what's concerning really is that when I go home to Dundee it hasn't changed in 20/30 years at all. I'd bet you that places that have minority white population now are least concerned by the changes.

It's very hard to judge how communities feel about rapid change in some ways because so many white people have left London because of what they perceive has happened to the areas they grew up in. I can only go off what I see and hear. Again, rapid change has been poorly managed which is the issue rather than a racial head count.

I appreciate the issues that arise in Leicester where there have been pitched cultural battles and yes I appreciate you have to integrate cultures is important and not happening as well as it could. But integration in London is actually pretty good you'd say, no?

This is an interesting one. London is an integration success story when compared to comparable European cities. I don't think that's quite the same as being a success story. What you see in London is a quiet system of segregation where white people are happy to live in certain areas, Hindus in others, Muslims in others, black people in others, Jews in very differentiated places etc. White people of course also see the capital, enjoy it and when they start to think about having kids make a sharp exit. As JMK rightly said, economic factors are at play here but the simple truth is that people have not forgotten how to be politically incorrect inside their own homes and believe (rightly or wrongly, I have no idea) that their kids will get eaten alive in a diverse London school, even when these schools get better results than those outside of it.

Integration is much easier with slower rates of change and more genuinely mixed communities, that is not what we see in London now.

Both Paddington’s post and your own are just a series of total non sequiturs.

Paddington says that people being different and change coming rapidly is a problem. Why?

People with lots of different opinions and perspectives here have tried to have a proper discussion about this. Pretending that you can't get these points and misrepresenting the ones made so that you can label sections of the public racist compared to your own moral good is fine but a waste of everyone's time. If over the next 20 years the part of Scotland you live in became say 60% English I bet you'd have a thing or two to say about it

Farage is a racist, the Poles didn't do anything to Britain's social fabric, the racists did. Look at post Brexit - immigration is up and not high enough for the jobs we need to fill and inflation is up because we don't have cheap eastern European labour. Hardly a win for the racists like Nige.

Cultural change in your families neighbourhood is a bit chicken and egg though. The middle class whites must've had to leave for (I assume your comment around knife crime suggests not middle class anymore as crime is high in working class neighbourhoods) the diverse working class to move in? Why did they leave do you think? Do you consider the area to be where you're from? Do the changes affect you personally?

I think there's three things on this specific example. Do people no longer feel a connection from your area because the diversity and if you aren't white British you can't be from "my area"? As that is racist. Do you not like the neighborhood has high crime rates which yes diversity is an impact but poverty has a higher impact - are the concerned the neighborhood has gone down hill in terms of wealth? Or finally is it the butcher baker candlestick maker has been replaced by Tesco, Amazon and Deliveroo - as I have something to tell them.

Incidentally, I'm from Dundee which has "no go" zones in the dark. Dundee has the highest crime rate in Scotland. Dundee has a shocking lack of diversity. It does have very high poverty though.

Your point on cricket absolutely valid. As I said to slick too people in minority groups can be racist and that is a big problem!

If people don't put there kids in a school which has high attainment rates because it also have higher diversity rates they are making a negative judgement on people purely for their race/ethnicity/whatever they are a dictionary definition of a racist I'm afraid. It's mental people would put their prejudice above their children's attainment.

Fwiw, have you noticed that when people point out white working class Brits have the lowest attainment levels of any social or ethnic class they never recommend increasing investment into their areas or helping their parents it's always punitive nonsense or racist dog whistles. I wonder why our billionaire owned media class and ex private schoolies in the Speccie and Telegraph take that route?

[Simian]

See my reply to Slick - I live in England and have for at least 12 years. So happily point 5 can be totally disregarded. Fwiw I do think a number of Scots are racist as the terms you reference are still widely used.

Fair cop, you know what they say about assumptions...

Going to try and take the points in turn:

Your point about pace of change is curious. Because (a) if you've decided the change is bad because the faces are brown you are a racist I'm afraid. If someone has specific points about the culture changing I'd be interested in hearing what they are specifically regarding your locality.

Culture change comes hand in hand with demographic change regardless of skin colour. A poorly managed influx of (white) largely Polish people what? 15 years ago brought this issue and Farage into the mainstream. Almost no one likes rapid change around where they live, I used the example of white ex-North Londoners who despair at the state of say Harrow, but also black South Londoners who despair at the sight of white Yuppies heading for bottomless brunch off Electric Avenue.
As for my locality I live in a London suburb that is very white British, but my experience of demographic change would be:
1) My Mum's family have been North/East Londoners for generations (when I forgot my great aunt's address I looked up her uncle on the Commonwealth War Graves website to find it as she still lives in the same house). The road my great aunt lives on is now 1.5% White British and most of them will be dead by the time of the next census. From being a very middle class suburb 70 years ago it is now a road you need your wits about you to walk down, and an asian colleague of mine who grew up there and never goes back laughed and sent me links to stab proof vests when I mentioned I was going there a while back. Is this purely due to demographic change? No. Is it a factor?

2) My cricket club has made significant efforts to integrate the increasing Indian community in the town with mixed results. We've had an injection of players and passion into the club, we've had young lads join barely speaking English who are now exceptionally well integrated with mixed social groups, but we've also had a massive decline in respect for facilities/officals etc and had multiple committee meetings attempting to navigate such topics as 'my son's coach is from a lower caste than me and it is causing me to lose face' which probably wouldn't arise with a slightly slower pace of change. A side effect we probably should have seen coming but didn't is that the Indians are doing their absolute best to kick all Muslims out of the club.

(B) I've lived across the UK there's no homogeneous culture anyway. Which you actually allude to in point 3. Places change - what's concerning really is that when I go home to Dundee it hasn't changed in 20/30 years at all. I'd bet you that places that have minority white population now are least concerned by the changes.

It's very hard to judge how communities feel about rapid change in some ways because so many white people have left London because of what they perceive has happened to the areas they grew up in. I can only go off what I see and hear. Again, rapid change has been poorly managed which is the issue rather than a racial head count.

I appreciate the issues that arise in Leicester where there have been pitched cultural battles and yes I appreciate you have to integrate cultures is important and not happening as well as it could. But integration in London is actually pretty good you'd say, no?

This is an interesting one. London is an integration success story when compared to comparable European cities. I don't think that's quite the same as being a success story. What you see in London is a quiet system of segregation where white people are happy to live in certain areas, Hindus in others, Muslims in others, black people in others, Jews in very differentiated places etc. White people of course also see the capital, enjoy it and when they start to think about having kids make a sharp exit. As JMK rightly said, economic factors are at play here but the simple truth is that people have not forgotten how to be politically incorrect inside their own homes and believe (rightly or wrongly, I have no idea) that their kids will get eaten alive in a diverse London school, even when these schools get better results than those outside of it.

Integration is much easier with slower rates of change and more genuinely mixed communities, that is not what we see in London now.

Both Paddington’s post and your own are just a series of total non sequiturs.

Paddington says that people being different and change coming rapidly is a problem. Why?

People with lots of different opinions and perspectives here have tried to have a proper discussion about this. Pretending that you can't get these points and misrepresenting the ones made so that you can label sections of the public racist compared to your own moral good is fine but a waste of everyone's time. If over the next 20 years the part of Scotland you live in became say 60% English I bet you'd have a thing or two to say about it

I mean, the majority of my neighbours and colleagues are English. The only thing I have to say about it is that it really doesn’t bother me. That’s pretty much my point. I’m still no closer to understanding what the concerns you and slick are saying millions of people have about diversification if the concerns aren’t rooted in xenophobia etc.

[GogLais]

What is concerning about London not being a majority white British/english/Welsh/Scottish city though that isn't just racism?

Ah well. It saddens me when largely English incomers “swamp” villages in North Wales meaning that I rarely hear my mother tongue when I go there. Am I racist? Perhaps I don’t want to know.

I think this is bad faith as I doubt any village of Wales has majority English people anyway other than maybe peak holiday season and your issue there isn't actually the issue we're discussing. And English is the first language in Wales anyway. So much so the Welsh govt have been hugely investing in the Welsh language (which I like).

But, this is a "legitimate concern" I think isn't racist. But only 1% of people in England can't speak English and 91% speak English as a first language. Which is down 1% since the last census so something to monitor.

God forbid I should go off at a tangent. Couple of points - English certainly is the first language of Wales as a whole but not of all of it. And I don’t know where and when you’ve travelled there but I suspect I’m nearer the action than you where this is concerned. Anyway, it’s a legitimate concern so all is well.

[Insane_Homer]

[Slick]

See my reply to Slick - I live in England and have for at least 12 years. So happily point 5 can be totally disregarded. Fwiw I do think a number of Scots are racist as the terms you reference are still widely used.

Fair cop, you know what they say about assumptions...

Going to try and take the points in turn:

Your point about pace of change is curious. Because (a) if you've decided the change is bad because the faces are brown you are a racist I'm afraid. If someone has specific points about the culture changing I'd be interested in hearing what they are specifically regarding your locality.

Culture change comes hand in hand with demographic change regardless of skin colour. A poorly managed influx of (white) largely Polish people what? 15 years ago brought this issue and Farage into the mainstream. Almost no one likes rapid change around where they live, I used the example of white ex-North Londoners who despair at the state of say Harrow, but also black South Londoners who despair at the sight of white Yuppies heading for bottomless brunch off Electric Avenue.
As for my locality I live in a London suburb that is very white British, but my experience of demographic change would be:
1) My Mum's family have been North/East Londoners for generations (when I forgot my great aunt's address I looked up her uncle on the Commonwealth War Graves website to find it as she still lives in the same house). The road my great aunt lives on is now 1.5% White British and most of them will be dead by the time of the next census. From being a very middle class suburb 70 years ago it is now a road you need your wits about you to walk down, and an asian colleague of mine who grew up there and never goes back laughed and sent me links to stab proof vests when I mentioned I was going there a while back. Is this purely due to demographic change? No. Is it a factor?

2) My cricket club has made significant efforts to integrate the increasing Indian community in the town with mixed results. We've had an injection of players and passion into the club, we've had young lads join barely speaking English who are now exceptionally well integrated with mixed social groups, but we've also had a massive decline in respect for facilities/officals etc and had multiple committee meetings attempting to navigate such topics as 'my son's coach is from a lower caste than me and it is causing me to lose face' which probably wouldn't arise with a slightly slower pace of change. A side effect we probably should have seen coming but didn't is that the Indians are doing their absolute best to kick all Muslims out of the club.

(B) I've lived across the UK there's no homogeneous culture anyway. Which you actually allude to in point 3. Places change - what's concerning really is that when I go home to Dundee it hasn't changed in 20/30 years at all. I'd bet you that places that have minority white population now are least concerned by the changes.

It's very hard to judge how communities feel about rapid change in some ways because so many white people have left London because of what they perceive has happened to the areas they grew up in. I can only go off what I see and hear. Again, rapid change has been poorly managed which is the issue rather than a racial head count.

I appreciate the issues that arise in Leicester where there have been pitched cultural battles and yes I appreciate you have to integrate cultures is important and not happening as well as it could. But integration in London is actually pretty good you'd say, no?

This is an interesting one. London is an integration success story when compared to comparable European cities. I don't think that's quite the same as being a success story. What you see in London is a quiet system of segregation where white people are happy to live in certain areas, Hindus in others, Muslims in others, black people in others, Jews in very differentiated places etc. White people of course also see the capital, enjoy it and when they start to think about having kids make a sharp exit. As JMK rightly said, economic factors are at play here but the simple truth is that people have not forgotten how to be politically incorrect inside their own homes and believe (rightly or wrongly, I have no idea) that their kids will get eaten alive in a diverse London school, even when these schools get better results than those outside of it.

Integration is much easier with slower rates of change and more genuinely mixed communities, that is not what we see in London now.

Both Paddington’s post and your own are just a series of total non sequiturs.

Paddington says that people being different and change coming rapidly is a problem. Why?

People with lots of different opinions and perspectives here have tried to have a proper discussion about this. Pretending that you can't get these points and misrepresenting the ones made so that you can label sections of the public racist compared to your own moral good is fine but a waste of everyone's time. If over the next 20 years the part of Scotland you live in became say 60% English I bet you'd have a thing or two to say about it

I mean, the majority of my neighbours and colleagues are English. The only thing I have to say about it is that it really doesn’t bother me. That’s pretty much my point. I’m still no closer to understanding what the concerns you and slick are saying millions of people have about diversification if the concerns aren’t rooted in xenophobia etc.

True.

[I like neeps]

Ah well. It saddens me when largely English incomers “swamp” villages in North Wales meaning that I rarely hear my mother tongue when I go there. Am I racist? Perhaps I don’t want to know.

I think this is bad faith as I doubt any village of Wales has majority English people anyway other than maybe peak holiday season and your issue there isn't actually the issue we're discussing. And English is the first language in Wales anyway. So much so the Welsh govt have been hugely investing in the Welsh language (which I like).

But, this is a "legitimate concern" I think isn't racist. But only 1% of people in England can't speak English and 91% speak English as a first language. Which is down 1% since the last census so something to monitor.

God forbid I should go off at a tangent. Couple of points - English certainly is the first language of Wales as a whole but not of all of it. And I don’t know where and when you’ve travelled there but I suspect I’m nearer the action than you where this is concerned. Anyway, it’s a legitimate concern so all is well.

Do you ever wonder that maybe the culture of Welsh first speaking towns starts to erode when Welsh first speakers like yourself leave? Did the English immigrants take all the jobs and houses to price you out? Or did you leave for other reasons? Maybe, those other reasons have as much to do with the culture changing? Or should cultures stay the same if members of those culture maybe like yourself leave for elsewhere? Something to consider.

[Slick]

I think this is bad faith as I doubt any village of Wales has majority English people anyway other than maybe peak holiday season and your issue there isn't actually the issue we're discussing. And English is the first language in Wales anyway. So much so the Welsh govt have been hugely investing in the Welsh language (which I like).

But, this is a "legitimate concern" I think isn't racist. But only 1% of people in England can't speak English and 91% speak English as a first language. Which is down 1% since the last census so something to monitor.

God forbid I should go off at a tangent. Couple of points - English certainly is the first language of Wales as a whole but not of all of it. And I don’t know where and when you’ve travelled there but I suspect I’m nearer the action than you where this is concerned. Anyway, it’s a legitimate concern so all is well.

Do you ever wonder that maybe the culture of Welsh first speaking towns starts to erode when Welsh first speakers like yourself leave? Did the English immigrants take all the jobs and houses to price you out? Or did you leave for other reasons? Maybe, those other reasons have as much to do with the culture changing? Or should cultures stay the same if members of those culture maybe like yourself leave for elsewhere? Something to consider.

Your posts on this thread are becoming ever more sanctimonious

[Simian]

Fair cop, you know what they say about assumptions...

Going to try and take the points in turn:

Culture change comes hand in hand with demographic change regardless of skin colour. A poorly managed influx of (white) largely Polish people what? 15 years ago brought this issue and Farage into the mainstream. Almost no one likes rapid change around where they live, I used the example of white ex-North Londoners who despair at the state of say Harrow, but also black South Londoners who despair at the sight of white Yuppies heading for bottomless brunch off Electric Avenue.
As for my locality I live in a London suburb that is very white British, but my experience of demographic change would be:
1) My Mum's family have been North/East Londoners for generations (when I forgot my great aunt's address I looked up her uncle on the Commonwealth War Graves website to find it as she still lives in the same house). The road my great aunt lives on is now 1.5% White British and most of them will be dead by the time of the next census. From being a very middle class suburb 70 years ago it is now a road you need your wits about you to walk down, and an asian colleague of mine who grew up there and never goes back laughed and sent me links to stab proof vests when I mentioned I was going there a while back. Is this purely due to demographic change? No. Is it a factor?

2) My cricket club has made significant efforts to integrate the increasing Indian community in the town with mixed results. We've had an injection of players and passion into the club, we've had young lads join barely speaking English who are now exceptionally well integrated with mixed social groups, but we've also had a massive decline in respect for facilities/officals etc and had multiple committee meetings attempting to navigate such topics as 'my son's coach is from a lower caste than me and it is causing me to lose face' which probably wouldn't arise with a slightly slower pace of change. A side effect we probably should have seen coming but didn't is that the Indians are doing their absolute best to kick all Muslims out of the club.



It's very hard to judge how communities feel about rapid change in some ways because so many white people have left London because of what they perceive has happened to the areas they grew up in. I can only go off what I see and hear. Again, rapid change has been poorly managed which is the issue rather than a racial head count.


This is an interesting one. London is an integration success story when compared to comparable European cities. I don't think that's quite the same as being a success story. What you see in London is a quiet system of segregation where white people are happy to live in certain areas, Hindus in others, Muslims in others, black people in others, Jews in very differentiated places etc. White people of course also see the capital, enjoy it and when they start to think about having kids make a sharp exit. As JMK rightly said, economic factors are at play here but the simple truth is that people have not forgotten how to be politically incorrect inside their own homes and believe (rightly or wrongly, I have no idea) that their kids will get eaten alive in a diverse London school, even when these schools get better results than those outside of it.

Integration is much easier with slower rates of change and more genuinely mixed communities, that is not what we see in London now.


People with lots of different opinions and perspectives here have tried to have a proper discussion about this. Pretending that you can't get these points and misrepresenting the ones made so that you can label sections of the public racist compared to your own moral good is fine but a waste of everyone's time. If over the next 20 years the part of Scotland you live in became say 60% English I bet you'd have a thing or two to say about it

I mean, the majority of my neighbours and colleagues are English. The only thing I have to say about it is that it really doesn’t bother me. That’s pretty much my point. I’m still no closer to understanding what the concerns you and slick are saying millions of people have about diversification if the concerns aren’t rooted in xenophobia etc.

True.

I really don’t think being unable to explain why an opinion you stated isn’t racist is the clever look you seem to think it is…

[Slick]

I mean, the majority of my neighbours and colleagues are English. The only thing I have to say about it is that it really doesn’t bother me. That’s pretty much my point. I’m still no closer to understanding what the concerns you and slick are saying millions of people have about diversification if the concerns aren’t rooted in xenophobia etc.

True.

I really don’t think being unable to explain why an opinion you stated isn’t racist is the clever look you seem to think it is…

It's difficult to explain something, and we have tried, to someone who is so confident of their moral superiority despite have absolutely zero lived experience of the situation. And since you've now decided to call me racist, probably best we move on.

[GogLais]

I think this is bad faith as I doubt any village of Wales has majority English people anyway other than maybe peak holiday season and your issue there isn't actually the issue we're discussing. And English is the first language in Wales anyway. So much so the Welsh govt have been hugely investing in the Welsh language (which I like).

But, this is a "legitimate concern" I think isn't racist. But only 1% of people in England can't speak English and 91% speak English as a first language. Which is down 1% since the last census so something to monitor.

God forbid I should go off at a tangent. Couple of points - English certainly is the first language of Wales as a whole but not of all of it. And I don’t know where and when you’ve travelled there but I suspect I’m nearer the action than you where this is concerned. Anyway, it’s a legitimate concern so all is well.

Do you ever wonder that maybe the culture of Welsh first speaking towns starts to erode when Welsh first speakers like yourself leave? Did the English immigrants take all the jobs and houses to price you out? Or did you leave for other reasons? Maybe, those other reasons have as much to do with the culture changing? Or should cultures stay the same if members of those culture maybe like yourself leave for elsewhere? Something to consider.

I wasn’t trying to analyse the reasons for the change, I was simply wondering if my feelings about it could reasonably be described as racist.

[JM2K6]

It's an interesting question and ultimately the welsh have legitimate reasons to be unhappy about their culture being supplanted, what with the entire history of England and Wales being important context, the nature of celtic relationships with their native languages in the face of colonialism and conquest, etc etc

The point about welsh speakers leaving having some responsibility for the situation is a fair one but can't be viewed in isolation - racism is far from the only reason why people leave an area.


In short I don't know how anyone can confidently declare simple reasons for why large numbers of people move in these cases

[GogLais]

The point about welsh speakers leaving having some responsibility for the situation is a fair one but can't be viewed in isolation - racism is far from the only reason why people leave an area.

For the absence of doubt I didn’t leave the area because of these changes, I left fifty years ago. I’m talking about my feelings about it now.

[JM2K6]

The point about welsh speakers leaving having some responsibility for the situation is a fair one but can't be viewed in isolation - racism is far from the only reason why people leave an area.

For the absence of doubt I didn’t leave the area because of these changes, I left fifty years ago. I’m talking about my feelings about it now.

Sorry, was trying to look at it from a more macro level.

From a simpler perspective, I guess it's easy to say that Welsh culture has been genuinely threatened by the English in a way that English culture hasn't been threatened by, say, Sri Lankan / Jamaican / Pakistani immigration.

[_Os_]

You write something like this then throw your arms up in the air and wonder why something like Brexit happened

This is a weird post, Slick. Are we not allowed to call the racists and scumbags racists and scumbags any more? Should we be giving people like Douglas Murray and Nigel Farage and all the far right / alt right headcases loads of respect for their disingenuous bleating over this?

Brexit happened in part because people like Farage weren't challenged on their absolute bullshit. Murray has been doing the whole "I told you guys this would happen and everyone called me a racist" schtick, conveniently ignoring that he claimed Christians would become a minority thanks to Islam - when in reality all that's happened is people have become less religious full stop.

Farage needs to be told to fuck off, but there's a strand of opinion that suggests that a change in 20 years of London going from c.80% White British to under 40% isn't even worthy of comment. It is, IMHO, because:

1) In of itself it is quite remarkable and unprecedented in this country
2) It has big implications for the kind of country we are going to be going forward
3) As I mentioned kicking this off, it raises a number of questions about how we create/maintain a cohesive society. Not least as because the white population over this time nationally has stagnated rather than materially declined, meaning regardless of people's statements an awful lot of white people vote with their feet when it comes to living in close proximity to black or brown people. We're both in/around London, we both know what 'its for the schools' tends to mean when people leave. Ignoring this as Britain becomes more diverse doesn't make it go away and encourages a situation much like the Americans have.


This thread is pretty thoughtful on it IMHO

Murray is as bad as Farage, as JM says. Maybe worse, because he's more articulate and is taken more seriously.

As I've posted before his "strange death Of Europe" hid the key fact about migration into Europe from outside Europe, it disproportionately comes from former colonised countries to the former colonial power, or to countries that actively want immigrants, or basically doesn't happen because the country wasn't a colonial power and doesn't want immigrants. It's just not the case people moving to Portugal/Spain/France/UK (the big colonial powers) are totally culturally alien "others" coming from a random selection of countries as Murray claims, there's instead a tight correlation between colonial history and the origin/destination countries in those cases.

I haven't read Murray's latest effort, but it's been widely remarked that in it he directly states being white and being Western is the same thing. In other words if you're not white you can never integrate into the UK/Western society. This is an Enoch Powell line of argument.

Murray is now saying most people in the UK aren't Christians because of immigration, in other words he thinks immigrants who are religious but not Christian have reduced the percentage of the UK that is Christian. When the truth is, English people just aren't very religious, and Christianity will not long from now be a strong marker of someone from a recent immigrant background. The UK would be less Christian today without immigrants.

Murray also supported Brexit, which he now says was a vote for less immigrants. When it was always obvious with lower numbers of EU migrants (higher skilled on average, and less likely to create chain migration and instead move back to their origin country because of geographic proximity), there would be considerably higher numbers of Commonwealth migrants (lower skilled on average, more likely to stay in the UK and create chain migration). This was pointed out years ago and rejected by Brexiters. Some Brexiters even made the argument giving migration preference to neighbouring states (something entirely logical) was in fact racist and instead India should have priority (both Farage and Priti Patel stated this).

What's happening now with the census release is a conflation of "foreign born"/"nationality"/"ethnicity". It's not all the same thing, Boris Johnson is in the census data as foreign born. What this is doing is mainstreaming the Murray/Powell view that British people that aren't white are in fact completely foreign.

Murray holds all these positions whilst choosing to live in New York, Murray's revealed preference is the maximum amount of diversity possible. I suspect he's more hypocritical than Farage.

A lot of this comes back to a total failure to really understand what empire was about (the general view in the UK seems to be it was mostly brilliant with a small amount of bad bits, and it all happened far away so can be ignored and has few consequences today). English culture was exported to every corner of the globe, as a result "white British" is a significantly less unique designation than "white Finnish", the white part of "white British" is doing a lot more leg work than in the Finnish example. It's inevitable that Little England will end up looking more like Global England, London is the shape of things to come. Anyone saying something as feeble as a "points based immigration system" (the same exact mechanism that made Australia much more diverse/Asian) can stop this, just doesn't understand the weight of history and the reality it has produced.

Bluntly put the "solution" is those who aren't from an immigrant background will also have to integrate. Many in the UK seem to have an identity which doesn't fit reality that well though, I can't see them being eager to integrate into reality more, and that's where fantasies being sold by the likes of Farage and Murray come in.

[tabascoboy]

I guess we shouldn't be lambasting the government for ineptitude as that's exactly what Putin wants!

[JM2K6]

I guess we shouldn't be lambasting the government for ineptitude as that's exactly what Putin wants!

To be fair to the Tories, they're talking from a position of knowledge; no-one else has been quite as close to the Russian govt as them in the last decade

[SaintK]

Cunt rewriting history even before thge official Covid Enquiry has begun!

Care workers have hit back at claims by the former health secretary Matt Hancock that the Covid virus was brought into homes by infected staff.
In his book, the Pandemic Diaries, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail, Hancock said only a small proportion of cases were caused by his decision to discharge patients from hospital without testing.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ ... re-homes

[C69]

Zahawi lowering Tory politics even more by implying Nurses are doing Putin's bidding.
FFS

[petej]

The point about welsh speakers leaving having some responsibility for the situation is a fair one but can't be viewed in isolation - racism is far from the only reason why people leave an area.

For the absence of doubt I didn’t leave the area because of these changes, I left fifty years ago. I’m talking about my feelings about it now.

Sorry, was trying to look at it from a more macro level.

From a simpler perspective, I guess it's easy to say that Welsh culture has been genuinely threatened by the English in a way that English culture hasn't been threatened by, say, Sri Lankan / Jamaican / Pakistani immigration.

Not like English school kids are being punished for speaking English in England.

[Blackmac]

Zahawi lowering Tory politics even more by implying Nurses are doing Putin's bidding.
FFS

Absolutely beyond belief. What a piece of shit.

[Biffer]

For the absence of doubt I didn’t leave the area because of these changes, I left fifty years ago. I’m talking about my feelings about it now.

Sorry, was trying to look at it from a more macro level.

From a simpler perspective, I guess it's easy to say that Welsh culture has been genuinely threatened by the English in a way that English culture hasn't been threatened by, say, Sri Lankan / Jamaican / Pakistani immigration.

Not like English school kids are being punished for speaking English in England.

Similar thing happened in Scotland. My dad got the cane if he spoke Gaelic on school grounds.

[petej]

Zahawi lowering Tory politics even more by implying Nurses are doing Putin's bidding.
FFS

Absolutely beyond belief. What a piece of shit.

They did putin's bidding with brexit. Blocking investigations and generally accepting russian money. Sell out pricks.

[sefton]

Zahawi lowering Tory politics even more by implying Nurses are doing Putin's bidding.
FFS

Is that right, C69, or should I say Vladamir.

[C69]

Zahawi lowering Tory politics even more by implying Nurses are doing Putin's bidding.
FFS

Is that right, C69, or should I say Vladamir.

Call me Gogo

[tabascoboy]

[Tichtheid]

Labour offered to back the Government to face down these NIMBY fuckers, but once again they've chosen their party over the country.

Spineless bastards.

[tc27]

Labour offered to back the Government to face down these NIMBY fuckers, but once again they've chosen their party over the country.

Spineless bastards.

Awful - this country feels like its being run more and more only for home owning boomers at the expense of everyone else.

A young professional couple should be able to buy a home - but without external cash it's just impossible,