NPR

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... s-johnson/

Open warfare

Just press escape after the page opens to overcome the paywall

Hmm, I'm not sure about this "more people of colour in the Cabinet than the Shadow Cabinet" claim. The entire premise is fucking dodgy no one should be counting or care, and unless someone declares what their race is in an established multi racial country (which the UK is becoming) it can be difficult to tell. That said ...

Cabinet: Zahawi, Patel, Kwarteng, Sharma, Cleverly, Vara, Braverman.
Shadow Cabinet: Lammy, Nandy, Gill, Allin-Khan, Mahmood, Debbonaire.

You're in a deep hole if you're crowing over one person (or frankly even multiple people). A bit ironic that Cleverly claims "The Conservatives diversity has been organic, based on merit and delivered without fanfare", because that's not true, they use it as a weapon in their culture war and mention it often. Meanwhile Nandy and Debbonaire are in the media a lot and I've never seen them mention their background/identity, it's just solid policy and substance with them.

I suspect the Labour Shadow Cabinet don't bang on about their racial backgrounds like Cleverly does, because Labour have somehow ended up being "blamed" (as in it has been portrayed as a negative not a positive) for migration that was happening before they came to power, plateaued once they were power, and accelerated after they left power. All Labour's fault somehow. I suspect also that Labour care a bit more about someone's economic background. Hence why 60%+ of the UK's racial minorities support Labour.

The Tory position is now that Labour is to blame for mass migration which they view as bad, and there needs to be more black people in the Shadow Cabinet which is good. These people are nuts.

_Os_ wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 1:43 pm Hmm, I'm not sure about this "more people of colour in the Cabinet than the Shadow Cabinet" claim. The entire premise is fucking dodgy no one should be counting or care, and unless someone declares what their race is in an established multi racial country (which the UK is becoming) it can be difficult to tell. That said ...

Cabinet: Zahawi, Patel, Kwarteng, Sharma, Cleverly, Vara, Braverman.
Shadow Cabinet: Lammy, Nandy, Gill, Allin-Khan, Mahmood, Debbonaire.

You're in a deep hole if you're crowing over one person (or frankly even multiple people). A bit ironic that Cleverly claims "The Conservatives diversity has been organic, based on merit and delivered without fanfare", because that's not true, they use it as a weapon in their culture war and mention it often. Meanwhile Nandy and Debbonaire are in the media a lot and I've never seen them mention their background/identity, it's just solid policy and substance with them.

I suspect the Labour Shadow Cabinet don't bang on about their racial backgrounds like Cleverly does, because Labour have somehow ended up being "blamed" (as in it has been portrayed as a negative not a positive) for migration that was happening before they came to power, plateaued once they were power, and accelerated after they left power. All Labour's fault somehow. I suspect also that Labour care a bit more about someone's economic background. Hence why 60%+ of the UK's racial minorities support Labour.

The Tory position is now that Labour is to blame for mass migration which they view as bad, and there needs to be more black people in the Shadow Cabinet which is good. These people are nuts.

It's the same as Farage and Boris complaining about Elites.
Cognitive dissonance embodied and personified

_Os_ wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 1:43 pm Hmm, I'm not sure about this "more people of colour in the Cabinet than the Shadow Cabinet" claim. The entire premise is fucking dodgy no one should be counting or care, and unless someone declares what their race is in an established multi racial country (which the UK is becoming) it can be difficult to tell. That said ...

Cabinet: Zahawi, Patel, Kwarteng, Sharma, Cleverly, Vara, Braverman.
Shadow Cabinet: Lammy, Nandy, Gill, Allin-Khan, Mahmood, Debbonaire.

You're in a deep hole if you're crowing over one person (or frankly even multiple people). A bit ironic that Cleverly claims "The Conservatives diversity has been organic, based on merit and delivered without fanfare", because that's not true, they use it as a weapon in their culture war and mention it often. Meanwhile Nandy and Debbonaire are in the media a lot and I've never seen them mention their background/identity, it's just solid policy and substance with them.

I suspect the Labour Shadow Cabinet don't bang on about their racial backgrounds like Cleverly does, because Labour have somehow ended up being "blamed" (as in it has been portrayed as a negative not a positive) for migration that was happening before they came to power, plateaued once they were power, and accelerated after they left power. All Labour's fault somehow. I suspect also that Labour care a bit more about someone's economic background. Hence why 60%+ of the UK's racial minorities support Labour.

The Tory position is now that Labour is to blame for mass migration which they view as bad, and there needs to be more black people in the Shadow Cabinet which is good. These people are nuts.

The real point being missed is that ethnic diversity is more than just about having a brown skin. It's about culture. And none of the Tories' coconuts get beyond the skin deep only.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 7:53 pm

_Os_ wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 1:43 pm Hmm, I'm not sure about this "more people of colour in the Cabinet than the Shadow Cabinet" claim. The entire premise is fucking dodgy no one should be counting or care, and unless someone declares what their race is in an established multi racial country (which the UK is becoming) it can be difficult to tell. That said ...

Cabinet: Zahawi, Patel, Kwarteng, Sharma, Cleverly, Vara, Braverman.
Shadow Cabinet: Lammy, Nandy, Gill, Allin-Khan, Mahmood, Debbonaire.

You're in a deep hole if you're crowing over one person (or frankly even multiple people). A bit ironic that Cleverly claims "The Conservatives diversity has been organic, based on merit and delivered without fanfare", because that's not true, they use it as a weapon in their culture war and mention it often. Meanwhile Nandy and Debbonaire are in the media a lot and I've never seen them mention their background/identity, it's just solid policy and substance with them.

I suspect the Labour Shadow Cabinet don't bang on about their racial backgrounds like Cleverly does, because Labour have somehow ended up being "blamed" (as in it has been portrayed as a negative not a positive) for migration that was happening before they came to power, plateaued once they were power, and accelerated after they left power. All Labour's fault somehow. I suspect also that Labour care a bit more about someone's economic background. Hence why 60%+ of the UK's racial minorities support Labour.

The Tory position is now that Labour is to blame for mass migration which they view as bad, and there needs to be more black people in the Shadow Cabinet which is good. These people are nuts.

The real point being missed is that ethnic diversity is more than just about having a brown skin. It's about culture. And none of the Tories' coconuts get beyond the skin deep only.

in the UK class trumps skin colour

yermum wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 7:57 pm in the UK class trumps skin colour

In the UK (well, Eng esp), class trumps everything. As exemplified by the continued popularity of a sponging monarchy.

Agree with this 100%

https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/ ... ite-leader

"The suggestion that ethnic minority Tories have betrayed their identity is its own form of racism.

The first ethnic minority British prime minister was Benjamin Disraeli – and many Jews, from Leon Brittan to Nigel Lawson and Malcolm Rifkind, have occupied the great offices of state. The first brown chancellor of the exchequer was Sajid Javid in 2019. The second brown chancellor of the exchequer was Rishi Sunak a year later. The third brown chancellor of the exchequer is Nadhim Zahawi this month. The first brown home secretary was Sajid Javid in 2018. The second brown, and current, home secretary is Priti Patel. What they all have in common is they have represented or currently represent the Conservative Party.

When Rishi Sunak launched his campaign to be the next prime minister, the QC and campaigner Jolyon Maugham responded with a pointed question on Twitter: “Do you think the members of your Party are ready to select a brown man, Rishi?” After receiving criticism for this question, Maugham disingenuously explained why he asked it: “My point was, I want, we should all want, greater representation of people of colour leading all political parties.” If that is the case, Maugham should be pleased by the upcoming Tory leadership contest: Sunak, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch have all announced they are standing for the leadership, and Sajid Javid and Nadhim Zahawi might run too. But that is not the case.

There’s a deeper point to Maugham’s statement, which he doesn’t spell out but is clear from the incredulous tone of his tweet: that there is a dissonance between ethnic minority people and the Conservative Party. This point was explicitly articulated by Nadine White, the race correspondent of the Independent, when she tweeted: “Can you imagine a Black or Asian person leading the Conservative Party? Others argue that the very concept is diametrically opposed to the party’s core values.” The implication of White’s tweet is that the Conservative Party is so profoundly racist that any leader of it from an ethnic minority constitutes a deep contradiction that needs to be explained.

The problem with this mindset – framing the relationship between ethnic minority people and conservatism as a remarkable contradiction – is that it justifies the racist hostility directed against many prominent conservative politicians. In aligning themselves with the party, so the argument goes, they have fundamentally betrayed their identity. The nature of the insults that someone like Kemi Badenoch receives reflects this dynamic – she is called a coon, a house negro, and so forth, by many people who strangely also call themselves anti-racist. In reality, political allegiances are more complex: they don’t reflect someone’s identity, but their values, and this cuts across race and ethnicity.

The first woman to be the prime minister of the UK was a Conservative politician, and so was the second. The third female prime minister might also be a Tory. Labour has never even had a female leader. The first Asian leader of Britain will be a politician from the Conservative Party, and so will the first black prime minister of this country. A large part of all of this is explained by the fact that Britain is a small-c conservative country, and so any future prime minister is likelier than not to be a Conservative: there has only been one Labour leader born in the last 100 years to have won a general election, and that was Tony Blair.

A second point worth reflecting on is that Labour does not have a monopoly on virtue when it comes to bigotry. The first Labour leader Keir Hardie viciously campaigned against Lithunian immigrants in Scotland. It was a Labour government that introduced the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which discriminated against Asians trying to come to Britain from Kenya, and which Auberon Waugh, in the Spectator of all places, described as “one of the most immoral pieces of legislation to have emerged from any British Parliament.” Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, became the second party to be investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for racism – after the BNP.

But the third and most pressing point is this: why shouldn’t an ethnic minority person be a Conservative? If we accept that not all ethnic minority people are the same – which should be the first plank of anti-racism – then we have to accept that they do not all share the same political perspective. And nor should they. Political pluralism should be staunchly defended: it is as important an element of diversity as any other."

Is this Maugham person a Labour spokesman?

I'm not sure opening the batting with Disraeli as a shining example of Tory inclusiveness is a great move.

Anyway.

Oh what a shock ... another one

On Saturday night , amid the succession turmoil, fresh allegations emerged that Johnson had lobbied for a job for a young woman who claims she was having a sexual relationship with him during his time as London mayor.

According to the Sunday Times, the appointment was blocked because Kit Malthouse, then a senior figure in City Hall and now a cabinet minister, suggested the pair had an inappropriately close relationship. Johnson is said to have admitted pushing her forward for a job when the woman, who remains anonymous, confronted him in 2017.

Isn't it funny how, yet again, someone knew, & they've know for years, but it's only when the Tories re-ignite their civil war that the public gets to view all the skeletons they keep in the cupboard ?

I wonder how many of these pond scum would get elected if they had to answer a 100 basic questions, while attached to a polygraph ?

I think just the prospect of such questioning would dis-wade 90% of them

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 11:00 pm
Isn't it funny how, yet again, someone knew, & they've know for years, but it's only when the Tories re-ignite their civil war that the public gets to view all the skeletons they keep in the cupboard ?

Expect these to keep coming as
a) Everyone tries to distance himself from Boorish
b) Each essays to character assassinate opponents in a leadership slugfest

Mutterings about the Fat Slug standing in the new leadership contest, but the Tory Party Constitution forbid a leader who has resigned to stand again. The 1922 Committee is expected to decree tomorrow that he has resigned despite the fact that he didn't explicitly use the word in his ramblings, I mean speech.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 08, 2022 4:32 pm Extracted quote from https://fullfact.org/news/did-Boris-Johnson-resign/

Seems to be no special reason why the leadership contest should last as long as "until autumn". Come on Tories, get your asses in gear and get this done

Mr Cameron’s resignation on 24 June 2016 saw him initially commit to staying in post as Prime Minister for the following three months. In actual fact, Mr Cameron was replaced as Prime Minister less than one month later, following a shorter-than-expected Conservative leadership contest which concluded on 11 July with Ms May elected as the sole-remaining candidate.

Neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Johnson explicitly said the word “resign” in their initial announcements, though Ms May did.

Isn't that because iMay's election didn't go to the party membership? Her opponent was persuaded to drop out

So Jeremy Hunt is running with Esther McVey as his deputy, that must be his strategy to attract the morons and loons.

ia801310 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 8:27 pm Agree with this 100%

https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/ ... ite-leader

"The suggestion that ethnic minority Tories have betrayed their identity is its own form of racism.

The first ethnic minority British prime minister was Benjamin Disraeli – and many Jews, from Leon Brittan to Nigel Lawson and Malcolm Rifkind, have occupied the great offices of state. The first brown chancellor of the exchequer was Sajid Javid in 2019. The second brown chancellor of the exchequer was Rishi Sunak a year later. The third brown chancellor of the exchequer is Nadhim Zahawi this month. The first brown home secretary was Sajid Javid in 2018. The second brown, and current, home secretary is Priti Patel. What they all have in common is they have represented or currently represent the Conservative Party.

When Rishi Sunak launched his campaign to be the next prime minister, the QC and campaigner Jolyon Maugham responded with a pointed question on Twitter: “Do you think the members of your Party are ready to select a brown man, Rishi?” After receiving criticism for this question, Maugham disingenuously explained why he asked it: “My point was, I want, we should all want, greater representation of people of colour leading all political parties.” If that is the case, Maugham should be pleased by the upcoming Tory leadership contest: Sunak, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch have all announced they are standing for the leadership, and Sajid Javid and Nadhim Zahawi might run too. But that is not the case.

There’s a deeper point to Maugham’s statement, which he doesn’t spell out but is clear from the incredulous tone of his tweet: that there is a dissonance between ethnic minority people and the Conservative Party. This point was explicitly articulated by Nadine White, the race correspondent of the Independent, when she tweeted: “Can you imagine a Black or Asian person leading the Conservative Party? Others argue that the very concept is diametrically opposed to the party’s core values.” The implication of White’s tweet is that the Conservative Party is so profoundly racist that any leader of it from an ethnic minority constitutes a deep contradiction that needs to be explained.

The problem with this mindset – framing the relationship between ethnic minority people and conservatism as a remarkable contradiction – is that it justifies the racist hostility directed against many prominent conservative politicians. In aligning themselves with the party, so the argument goes, they have fundamentally betrayed their identity. The nature of the insults that someone like Kemi Badenoch receives reflects this dynamic – she is called a coon, a house negro, and so forth, by many people who strangely also call themselves anti-racist. In reality, political allegiances are more complex: they don’t reflect someone’s identity, but their values, and this cuts across race and ethnicity.

The first woman to be the prime minister of the UK was a Conservative politician, and so was the second. The third female prime minister might also be a Tory. Labour has never even had a female leader. The first Asian leader of Britain will be a politician from the Conservative Party, and so will the first black prime minister of this country. A large part of all of this is explained by the fact that Britain is a small-c conservative country, and so any future prime minister is likelier than not to be a Conservative: there has only been one Labour leader born in the last 100 years to have won a general election, and that was Tony Blair.

A second point worth reflecting on is that Labour does not have a monopoly on virtue when it comes to bigotry. The first Labour leader Keir Hardie viciously campaigned against Lithunian immigrants in Scotland. It was a Labour government that introduced the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which discriminated against Asians trying to come to Britain from Kenya, and which Auberon Waugh, in the Spectator of all places, described as “one of the most immoral pieces of legislation to have emerged from any British Parliament.” Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, became the second party to be investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for racism – after the BNP.

But the third and most pressing point is this: why shouldn’t an ethnic minority person be a Conservative? If we accept that not all ethnic minority people are the same – which should be the first plank of anti-racism – then we have to accept that they do not all share the same political perspective. And nor should they. Political pluralism should be staunchly defended: it is as important an element of diversity as any other."

The race correspondent for the independent is called Nadine White? Seems a bit racist

sefton wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:19 am So Jeremy Hunt is running with Esther McVey as his deputy, that must be his strategy to attract the morons and loons.

The CCFC*

Conservative Christian Fundamentalist Cunts

sefton wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:19 am So Jeremy Hunt is running with Esther McVey as his deputy, that must be his strategy to attract the morons and loons.

Liverpool's finest

Line6 HXFX wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:00 am Interesting that half the tory cabinet withheld their Labour to bring about change in their work place...but when the Working Classes and others do it they are considered the enemy within to be eviserated by every right wing dog in the land.

There's a difference between striking and resigning.

That New Statesman article is a bit all over the place.

It argues that various firsts in terms of racial minorities gaining power were under the Tory party, then says this is the case and will continue being the case, because the Tories are more often than not in power. This seems to be the main point of the article? (guessing the copy editor/sub editor wrote the headline as normally happens).

As far as the title goes, who would argue against someone being free to make whatever political choices they wished to make? He's found Nadine White a journalist at the Independent (who is herself black), who doesn't actually say that. Both Maugham and White were clearly claiming that Tory members and/or the party itself are racist, a shit argument but that's what they're saying.

It's odd what isn't mentioned. Like the ongoing case of Tory MP Nusrat Ghani vs Tory MP Mark Spencer. Ghani claims that Spencer told her that her that her "Muslim woman minister status was making colleagues feel uncomfortable" this leading to her being demoted. Spencer is under investigation but has been promoted by Johnson from Chief Whip to Commons Leader. Sayeeda Warsi has said much the same for years, that her party (she's a Tory) doesn't care about being anti-Muslim. Seeing as both Maugham and White were both talking about Tory members, it's also odd that article doesn't reference any polling of Tory members which there's quite a bit of, YouGov polling of Tory members in 2019 found "42% thought having people from a wide variety of racial and cultural backgrounds has damaged British Society" here. It's also odd the racist abuse Dianne Abbott and David Lammy are subjected to isn't mentioned (it seems Tories get all the racist abuse?), Abbott gets so much her staff send it in a bundle to the police every week, for both of them the abuse has become so persistent that harassers have been criminally convicted (serious convictions of suspended jail terms of 1 year, and lengthy community service orders).

"The suggestion that ethnic minority Tories have betrayed their identity is its own form of racism" is a totally correct statement. But I'm not buying that "suggestion" is being made by the people quoted, instead they're crudely claiming that Tory members are racists. It's also not what the article is actually arguing, it's instead arguing for a dick measuring contest where inconvenient facts are ignored.

Everything I've seen about this Maugham outburst is adversarial, and focused on racial bean counting. It basically just mirrors Maugham's own attitude and the intent is to "win" somehow. It all looks incredibly dangerous to me, if this style of politics is entrenched then the best case is America's identity obsession, the worst case is the racial bean counting eventually being hard coded into law.

C69 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:31 am

sefton wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:19 am So Jeremy Hunt is running with Esther McVey as his deputy, that must be his strategy to attract the morons and loons.

Liverpool's finest

You ridiculous boy, you must not be a member of Team Go Nad.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 7:53 pm The real point being missed is that ethnic diversity is more than just about having a brown skin. It's about culture. And none of the Tories' coconuts get beyond the skin deep only.

Race essentialism is poisonous (the view that to be of a certain race you must have certain traits/behave a certain way). It's basically about destroying individual liberty.

In any democratic and multi racial society the top of that society will be the most diverse. Because they all come from the same class background they'll also all be acculturated in the same way. This is the same pool of people all political parties are mostly drawing from. The bottom of the society will be ghettoised, and also disproportionately whatever the dominant racial group is (because among them there's poverty that's generations deep that's basically unsolvable, mostly because they have a wider geographic spread and there's a lot of people that refuse to leave economically unproductive areas).

The Tories play with race essentialism a lot, they're not innocent. The "Red Wall voter" is one they enjoy using, they're using it as a byword for working class, but what they really mean is a white person who is middle aged, angry, probably hates immigrants and supports Brexit. People that aren't white seem to be excluded from their cartoon version of working class. You can see how dominant Tory media is, because you never see this version of race essentialism questioned, what the Tories are saying is that to be white working class and northern, you must vote Tory and anything else is betrayal.

While I support almost any means to get this vacuous waste of space out of Parliament, there must be another way...

Nadine Dorries might be appointed to the House of Lords and now we've seen everything.

It is thought that Boris Johnson will recommend his culture secretary before he leaves No 10, The Sunday Times reports and that once she is there she will go back to her previous career of writing novels.

She has been one of his biggest allies, never afraid to make herself look silly on TV to defend him, and was at his side until the bitter end.

_Os_ wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:12 am

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 7:53 pm The real point being missed is that ethnic diversity is more than just about having a brown skin. It's about culture. And none of the Tories' coconuts get beyond the skin deep only.

Race essentialism is poisonous (the view that to be of a certain race you must have certain traits/behave a certain way). It's basically about destroying individual liberty.

In any democratic and multi racial society the top of that society will be the most diverse. Because they all come from the same class background they'll also all be acculturated in the same way. This is the same pool of people all political parties are mostly drawing from. The bottom of the society will be ghettoised, and also disproportionately whatever the dominant racial group is (because among them there's poverty that's generations deep that's basically unsolvable, mostly because they have a wider geographic spread and there's a lot of people that refuse to leave economically unproductive areas).

The Tories play with race essentialism a lot, they're not innocent. The "Red Wall voter" is one they enjoy using, they're using it as a byword for working class, but what they really mean is a white person who is middle aged, angry, probably hates immigrants and supports Brexit. People that aren't white seem to be excluded from their cartoon version of working class. You can see how dominant Tory media is, because you never see this version of race essentialism questioned, what the Tories are saying is that to be white working class and northern, you must vote Tory and anything else is betrayal.

I hear what you are saying but like any other form of categorisation, there are aspects, which in toto, are essential in determining what falls into a category or not . It's the way it is. It isn't one aspect when it comes to race and everyone's view on which traits carry more gravity will differ. Nowhere is this reality better seen currently than in the gender debates.

By definition, any grouping erodes individualism? That's part of the elective decision making process in many cases (e.g. football fans) where joiners actively seek to diminish their individualities in order to gain the perceived benefits of the herd.

I come from a multi-racial, multi-ethnic background that is so diverse, you'd be pushed to find wider. Consequently, even as a child, I did not accept the label of any nationality. Obviously nationality and ethnicity and/or culture are not necessarily coincident but in the case of the latter 2 facets, I chose to embrace the elements I thought best from each and reject the reverse. Change is possible in many cases (even skin colour: witness Michael Jackson). Best for me personally that is: because, again, all these things are subjective to the individual. And therein lies a rub in getting enough consensus for any nomenclature determination.

Back to the specific issue on this debate. It would be my contention that the Tories' coconuts are exactly that i.e. they have rejected enough key traits of their ethnicities/cultures to warrant exclusion from those groups. And worse, they have done so precisely to join a herd whose ideology is actively against those very same ethnic/cultural values rejected i.e. in classic Tory behaviour (there's a good measurement trait for "am I a Tory?"), anything will be dispensed with (or sold is even better) for personal gain.

PS: I think you meant to say "In any democratic and multi racial society the top of that society will be the LEAST diverse"?

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:47 am While I support almost any means to get this vacuous waste of space out of Parliament, there must be another way...

Nadine Dorries might be appointed to the House of Lords and now we've seen everything.

It is thought that Boris Johnson will recommend his culture secretary before he leaves No 10, The Sunday Times reports and that once she is there she will go back to her previous career of writing novels.

She has been one of his biggest allies, never afraid to make herself look silly on TV to defend him, and was at his side until the bitter end.

Sunday Times saying that the blonde slug will reeccommend anything up to 20 appointments to the Lords with his resignation peerages. Should imagine that will be some of his most vocal supporters and anyone who can support his and Carrie's lifestyle in the post Downing St future

Here's another typical Tory in action

sefton wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:41 am

C69 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:31 am

sefton wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:19 am So Jeremy Hunt is running with Esther McVey as his deputy, that must be his strategy to attract the morons and loons.

Liverpool's finest

You ridiculous boy, you must not be a member of Team Go Nad.

Let's face it picking a Tory Party leader is like asking who you would prefer to look after your kids,.
Fred West, Jimmy Saville or Ian Huntley?

Some relief for the thread. The pm of Finland at a rock festival yesterday.

Jesus made me do it
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62113401

petej wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 1:27 pm Some relief for the thread. The pm of Finland at a rock festival yesterday.

I certainly would even if she did not buy her own Breakfast

Perhaps she should have asked permission to use a clip of him

Update – Penny Mordaunt appears to have uploaded a new version of her leadership campaign video.
This morning, viewers pointed out that the three-minute film featured a clip of convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius, while Paralympian Jonnie Peacock later requested to be removed from the footage.
The new version, free of both clips, features a voice over from Mordaunt herself. “Our leadership has to change. It needs to become a little less about the leader and a lot more about the ship,” she says.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:57 am Here's another typical Tory in action

Could do better!!!

SaintK wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 1:52 pm

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:57 am Here's another typical Tory in action

Could do better!!!

Christ, her 'riting skills' are almost as bad as Eldaniel's, and are pretty shocking for the Education Secretary.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:48 am I hear what you are saying but like any other form of categorisation, there are aspects, which in toto, are essential in determining what falls into a category or not . It's the way it is. It isn't one aspect when it comes to race and everyone's view on which traits carry more gravity will differ. Nowhere is this reality better seen currently than in the gender debates.

By definition, any grouping erodes individualism? That's part of the elective decision making process in many cases (e.g. football fans) where joiners actively seek to diminish their individualities in order to gain the perceived benefits of the herd.

I come from a multi-racial, multi-ethnic background that is so diverse, you'd be pushed to find wider. Consequently, even as a child, I did not accept the label of any nationality. Obviously nationality and ethnicity and/or culture are not necessarily coincident but in the case of the latter 2 facets, I chose to embrace the elements I thought best from each and reject the reverse. Change is possible in many cases (even skin colour: witness Michael Jackson). Best for me personally that is: because, again, all these things are subjective to the individual. And therein lies a rub in getting enough consensus for any nomenclature determination.

Back to the specific issue on this debate. It would be my contention that the Tories' coconuts are exactly that i.e. they have rejected enough key traits of their ethnicities/cultures to warrant exclusion from those groups. And worse, they have done so precisely to join a herd whose ideology is actively against those very same ethnic/cultural values rejected i.e. in classic Tory behaviour (there's a good measurement trait for "am I a Tory?"), anything will be dispensed with (or sold is even better) for personal gain.

We just disagree. You seem to think race is connected to traits beyond immutable physical characteristics (hence your use of coconut), I think race is political and unconnected to anything beyond how it was constructed (which is purely based around looks, not actual biology, the point being to construct a racial hierarchy with whatever dominant group on top). Even if there is a high degree of coincidence or an entire culture constructed with racial exclusivity as its basis, race still remains political, it's something people choose to strengthen or not.

Lets use some real world examples.

East African Asians constructed an identity within the British Empire that placed extreme emphasis on their Britishness, Europeans (meaning whites) were at the top of the racial hierarchy. Immutable Indian physical characteristics (being brown) meant they couldn't reach the top of that hierarchy. So they instead differentiated themselves from blacks basically through racism, to position themselves as middle class. Even Gandhi was a racist whilst living in SA and strongly rejected Indians being treated in same way as blacks. This is Priti Patel's cultural background, so I'm struggling a bit with her being a "coconut", who is she betraying? Quite a lot of East African Asians turned up on the Brexit side of the debate over the last few years. Some were even more extreme than Patel:



The "coconut" thing also doesn't work with black British people. People with a Caribbean background are fully integrated into the UK, sadly the first generation suffered harsh (mostly informal) racial discrimination, meaning educated middle class people from the Caribbean never escaped working class poverty in the UK, remaining in the low paying jobs they had when they arrived. Their children culturally assimilated into the English working classes who don't place any value on education, essentially they swapped a superior culture (West Indian middle classes focused on family/education/religion etc) for one less geared toward achievement (English working class). Given that England (not Britain) was shipping slaves from Africa to the Caribbean to English colonies there, before the Union of England and Scotland, what does "coconut" even mean in this context (they didn't have the firewall someone from Asia/Africa with a separate language and religion has)? Kemi Badenoch has Nigerian parents, being black doesn't mean she'll share a cultural background with some random black person that doesn't have a West African background. She can't betray someone she has nothing in common with other than her race. Your argument would be Badenoch has "rejected enough key traits of their ethnicities/cultures to warrant exclusion from those groups", but the Nigerians I've met have emphasised education/religion/an authoritarian outlook/quite arrogant, Africans tend to be quite conservative whatever their race. Being blunt those I've seen rejecting Badenoch don't have an African background.

The other problem with "coconut" is it claims there's only one white culture, but even just in the UK that isn't true. No one says a black British grime artist that has multiple criminal convictions is a "coconut", even though they're probably highly culturally assimilated into the UK. Because race is a political construct about establishing hierarchies, "coconut" makes the claim that white culture is only ever high culture, but that's not true.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:48 amPS: I think you meant to say "In any democratic and multi racial society the top of that society will be the LEAST diverse"?

I meant what I said, I use "diversity" in the way it's always used as a racial bean counting exercise (eg the diversity of the UK Cabinet, is established by counting how many people aren't white). Immigrants always move to areas where there's the most economic success, which in modern times means cities where they climb the ladder quickly if they're given a fair chance. Those at the top will disproportionately have non-native backgrounds, Johnson/Iain Duncan Donuts/George Osborne/Cameron they all have non-British Isles ancestry. It's a marker of the "metropolitan elite", ironically.

_Os_ wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 3:15 pm We just disagree. You seem to think race is connected to traits beyond immutable physical characteristics (hence your use of coconut), I think race is political and unconnected to anything beyond how it was constructed (which is purely based around looks, not actual biology, the point being to construct a racial hierarchy with whatever dominant group on top). Even if there is a high degree of coincidence or an entire culture constructed with racial exclusivity as its basis, race still remains political, it's something people choose to strengthen or not.

Lets use some real world examples.

East African Asians constructed an identity within the British Empire that placed extreme emphasis on their Britishness, Europeans (meaning whites) were at the top of the racial hierarchy. Immutable Indian physical characteristics (being brown) meant they couldn't reach the top of that hierarchy. So they instead differentiated themselves from blacks basically through racism, to position themselves as middle class. Even Gandhi was a racist whilst living in SA and strongly rejected Indians being treated in same way as blacks. This is Priti Patel's cultural background, so I'm struggling a bit with her being a "coconut", who is she betraying? Quite a lot of East African Asians turned up on the Brexit side of the debate over the last few years. Some were even more extreme than Patel:

The "coconut" thing also doesn't work with black British people. People with a Caribbean background are fully integrated into the UK, sadly the first generation suffered harsh (mostly informal) racial discrimination, meaning educated middle class people from the Caribbean never escaped working class poverty in the UK, remaining in the low paying jobs they had when they arrived. Their children culturally assimilated into the English working classes who don't place any value on education, essentially they swapped a superior culture (West Indian middle classes focused on family/education/religion etc) for one less geared toward achievement (English working class). Given that England (not Britain) was shipping slaves from Africa to the Caribbean to English colonies there, before the Union of England and Scotland, what does "coconut" even mean in this context (they didn't have the firewall someone from Asia/Africa with a separate language and religion has)? Kemi Badenoch has Nigerian parents, being black doesn't mean she'll share a cultural background with some random black person that doesn't have a West African background. She can't betray someone she has nothing in common with other than her race. Your argument would be Badenoch has "rejected enough key traits of their ethnicities/cultures to warrant exclusion from those groups", but the Nigerians I've met have emphasised education/religion/an authoritarian outlook/quite arrogant, Africans tend to be quite conservative whatever their race. Being blunt those I've seen rejecting Badenoch don't have an African background.

The other problem with "coconut" is it claims there's only one white culture, but even just in the UK that isn't true. No one says a black British grime artist that has multiple criminal convictions is a "coconut", even though they're probably highly culturally assimilated into the UK. Because race is a political construct about establishing hierarchies, "coconut" makes the claim that white culture is only ever high culture, but that's not true.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:48 amPS: I think you meant to say "In any democratic and multi racial society the top of that society will be the LEAST diverse"?

I meant what I said, I use "diversity" in the way it's always used as a racial bean counting exercise (eg the diversity of the UK Cabinet, is established by counting how many people aren't white). Immigrants always move to areas where there's the most economic success, which in modern times means cities where they climb the ladder quickly if they're given a fair chance. Those at the top will disproportionately have non-native backgrounds, Johnson/Iain Duncan Donuts/George Osborne/Cameron they all have non-British Isles ancestry. It's a marker of the "metropolitan elite", ironically.

You used the term "race". I specifically talked in terms of ethnicity and culture. But you are still wrong. Race is or can be based on biology. The Persians?

Don't really need a lecture on East Africa. It was where I was brought up! You are wrong about your depiction (although I may have misread it). The East African Asians couldn't reach the political top because whilst Uganda, Kenya and, to a lesser extent Tanzania, were still British colonies, the Brits occupied all those slots. When the Brits left, early doors they maintained that control with varying degrees of puppet leader blacks: Obote and Amin being one extreme whereas Nyerere largely told the Brits to bugger off. What the Asians did was to take control of most businesses. The reasons for how and why they were able to pretty much monopolise this are not relevant to this debate e.g. the Madhvanis. You are correct that they saw themselves as superior to the blacks (just as the hypocrite Gandhi did to both blacks and Muslims) which was a considerable contributor to their subsequent expulsion from Uganda.

Anyway, racially, culturally and ethnically, you could differentiate Brits, Africans and the Asians. These were real world attributes and not artificial constructs. The class separation, of course, is a construct but entirely separate to these things.

You think people from a Carribean background are fully integrated into the UK? Really? There is no racial/ethnic/cultural group in the UK that feels (and I mean this is what they feel) so deprived and isolated from main society. Yes, that is driven by economic hardship forced upon then but the impact is for them to isolate further socially/culturally. Don't believe me? Then how is it that the gang culture is strongest of all amongst the newest generation of young black men? Clearly you recognise all of that in the remainder of your description.

Not relevant to the discussion but I think your assertion that the English working classes place(d) no value upon education is absolutely wrong. I'd argue that until the whole education system was devalued anyway (late 80s onwards), getting an education was a huge driver for offering the chance to have a different (I won't use the word escape because that demeans perfectly respectable blue collar occupations) amongst working classes. The grammar school system served exactly that.

The term "coconut" is not limited to blacks wanting to be whites. It has become much more generalised than that. Asians ripped the p*ss out of this in Goodness Gracious Me with the the Coopers (Kapoors) and Robinsons (Rabindranaths). And there is a reverse i.e. most Asians in Britain will refer to newbies coming from India as "homies" which are characterised by call centre speak and the absence of body hygiene products.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 12:35 pm

Jaysus. I really thought that was the day today until some non entity came on at the end.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 4:03 pm You used the term "race". I specifically talked in terms of ethnicity and culture. But you are still wrong. Race is or can be based on biology. The Persians?

You're too intelligent to think racial categories as broad as "white", "black", "Indian" have any biological basis. There's as much variations inside those groups as there is between them, the variation inside the black group is especially extreme. They're purely political categories constructed based on appearance. I'm unfamiliar with Persian genetics.

I mostly just focused on you thinking "coconut" is a legitimate categorisation, and replied in good faith.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 4:03 pm Don't really need a lecture on East Africa. It was where I was brought up! You are wrong about your depiction (although I may have misread it). The East African Asians couldn't reach the political top because whilst Uganda, Kenya and, to a lesser extent Tanzania, were still British colonies, the Brits occupied all those slots. When the Brits left, early doors they maintained that control with varying degrees of puppet leader blacks: Obote and Amin being one extreme whereas Nyerere largely told the Brits to bugger off. What the Asians did was to take control of most businesses. The reasons for how and why they were able to pretty much monopolise this are not relevant to this debate e.g. the Madhvanis. You are correct that they saw themselves as superior to the blacks (just as the hypocrite Gandhi did to both blacks and Muslims) which was a considerable contributor to their subsequent expulsion from Uganda.

It's a good example of how race functions politically. Indians started out as indentured labourers (although many of these returned to India), then some Indian traders also migrated there. The British favoured them (more money spent on their education etc), this is how they ended up dominating white collar professions (finance), and how much of the economy was basically dominated by Indians (were business licences given preferentially by the British? I can't remember). The entire basis for this was political and Indians positioning themselves as an intermediary between blacks and whites, it wasn't some self evident natural thing it was made that way. Back to people from an East African Asian background today, people like Patel aren't really betraying anyone ("coconuts") when they're behaving much like those before them did. But it seems you knew all this ...

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 4:03 pm Anyway, racially, culturally and ethnically, you could differentiate Brits, Africans and the Asians. These were real world attributes and not artificial constructs.

Obviously if racial segregation was maintained and the amount of migrants was small and recent, all these migrants coming from distinct cultures. Which was basically East Africa around independence. Then as you say it's easy to differentiate people based on their immutable physical differences. Race as a political construct then precisely overlaps with reality, the people who look different also have a separate culture etc. That's not the case if there's been mass migration and you're 10+ generations deep. One of the many reasons apartheid failed, was because it proved impossible to categorise all people into black/white/coloured/Indian. The pencil test is probably a good indication of something fake being imposed on the world.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 4:03 pm You think people from a Carribean background are fully integrated into the UK? Really? There is no racial/ethnic/cultural group in the UK that feels (and I mean this is what they feel) so deprived and isolated from main society. Yes, that is driven by economic hardship forced upon then but the impact is for them to isolate further socially/culturally. Don't believe me? Then how is it that the gang culture is strongest of all amongst the newest generation of young black men? Clearly you recognise all of that in the remainder of your description.

It was Sowell who described black American gang culture (or what later became that) as being something appropriated from rebellious migrants from Celtic parts of the British Isles who settled in the American South, who they would've been living in close proximity with. I'm really struggling with the idea that people who have had English/British culture imposed on them for half a millennia are not assimilated. I think they are, just not into the part of the culture you would like them to be. Of course they value a black political identity, it was Marcus Garvey who said it was oppression that made black people black. A bit rough imposing a black identity on people for centuries as the basis for their oppression and exclusion, then saying they're not integrated because they now value a black identity.

And I think this is where the "coconut" thing comes in really. Someone from Africa or with African parents (whatever identity they have, Africa is highly heterogenous), just doesn't have the same identity as someone from a Caribbean background. But if you've constructed the core of your identity around a race, and see a group of people sharing that racial category but less invested in it politically, it's going to be upsetting for some. If you look at the names, most of the people being called "coconuts" have an African background, and most doing the name calling do not.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 4:03 pm Not relevant to the discussion but I think your assertion that the English working classes place(d) no value upon education is absolutely wrong. I'd argue that until the whole education system was devalued anyway (late 80s onwards), getting an education was a huge driver for offering the chance to have a different (I won't use the word escape because that demeans perfectly respectable blue collar occupations) amongst working classes. The grammar school system served exactly that.

English cultural generally but especially working class culture isn't intellectual and doesn't favour education. Orwell was saying it long before any of us were around. There's a lot of accounts of the first waves of West Indian migrants being completely shocked about the working class conditions they found themselves in.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 4:03 pm The term "coconut" is not limited to blacks wanting to be whites. It has become much more generalised than that. Asians ripped the p*ss out of this in Goodness Gracious Me with the the Coopers (Kapoors) and Robinsons (Rabindranaths). And there is a reverse i.e. most Asians in Britain will refer to newbies coming from India as "homies" which are characterised by call centre speak and the absence of body hygiene products.

But, black and white are just political constructs. You have to define what "black" and "white" is culturally for what you're saying to make sense. The first migrants from the West Indies that arrived in the UK could already speak English and already considered themselves British in some form. This is not about "wanting to be whites", this was literally the identity imposed on their ancestors and so them too. Being culturally distinct isn't about "body hygiene products" (you can't seriously be claiming "coconut" is a legitimate category on this basis?), it's about speaking a different language and worshipping a completely different god etc.

Without reference to race, you can't actually explain to me how a working class black British person from a Caribbean background is any different to a working class white British person. There is a cigarette paper of cultural difference between them. Which is why mixed race working class people often come from these two groups.

Interesting points.

I'd definitely tend to agree that there has always been a fair degree of solidarity between (politically left wing) white working class people and black British people with roots in the Caribbean. That's what Two Tone music was all about.

There is a long list of Caribbean thinkers, writers and activists (Garvey, Stokely Carmichael, CLR James, Fanon, Peter Tosh, Lilian Thuram) who have challenged white supremacy and the economic structures that have sustained it that there is a natural kinship between the two groups.