Diane! Abbot!

Anyone?

Tory minister minimising a real nasty attack on a woman by a privileged gammon.

he has 10 million reasons 😕

Yes she's been torn apart by many in the media - and made fun of just because she's made the odd cock-up like everyone else.

It's disgusting. Seems to me some forms of racism are palatable because you can link it with poor judgement from the said person. And that poor judgement is often hugely exacerbated for the same reasons.

(Low priority comment but do all thread titles about political figures have to have exclamation marks the days?)

all politics aside, how on earth does that woman ( and all the others!) keep going in the face of this constant shit?

TBH that is a question that I have repeatedly asked myself about Diane Abbot.

The racist and misogynist abuse which we hear about on the news concerning Diane Abbott will only be the tip of the iceberg.

The only reason the latest example has made the headlines is because the perpetrator was the Tory Party's most generous donor last year, otherwise we would not have heard about it.

Tories=evil is anyone still suprised?

Tories=evil is anyone still surprised?

The whole of the Sunak thread.

Every 15 mins.

But in their defence I guess they keep doing ridiculous things.

I’ve just been reading the Guardian article about this”man” who is being defended who has donated ten million to the tories in the last year. His firm is responsible for looking after all our medical information amongst other things, I wouldn’t trust him and we’ll probably have another horizon type scandal in years to come when we find he’s been selling off our confidential information. As for the hate that’s spreading, it’s the same tactic of divide and rule that has been used for hundreds of years, whilst we’re arguing amongst ourselves we’re not scrutinising what is really going on. The “take our country back” that 30p talks about is just a hollow concept that people can rally round as a slogan with our any meaning apart from the underlying message of hatred - take it back from “them”. In reality the Government has had very little control of  “our” country since the Thatcher years when state operated companies were sold off to the highest bidders. This was followed by major investment (often accompanied by British passports) by lots of foreign powers. Liverpool - Isle of Man, Sheffield - Chinese, London - Russia/Saudi and many football clubs to dodgy middle east regimes - just a few examples. Our country, what is it?

Perhaps as a way to counter the hate whenever and wherever you encounter it in life, perhaps start with the principle “be nice say hi!”?

This gives more info

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/11/biggest-tory-donor-looking-diane-abbott-hate-all-black-women

I really hope there's some sort of "bringing the government into disrepute" clause* in those £400million NHS IT contracts.

*there probably isn't

Cant say I have much sympathy for an antisemite and racist

Wonder if the "should be shot" comment should get his collar felt.

Hasn't he got the sort of face you would just love to punch.

It's about time Starmer and the Labour Party got a spine and stopped beingdragged relentlessly to the right as the Tories get more and more extreem. Basicaly I view the Tory party as a racist and facist party now, opposed by a bunch of privileged tossers who are shortly going to be dumped with sorting out the mess and then get blamed when it goes pear shaped.

I am quite glad I am old and have no children.

This gives more info

Thanks.

Is it that hard to put a link in the OP?

Wonder if the “should be shot” comment should get his collar felt.

That was my immediate thought too. The stuff about black women was horrible, but with a couple of MPs having been murdered already...

This Hester t0sspot sounds like a nightmare to work for....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/11/strict-rules-at-tory-donor-frank-hester-firm-tpp

"When asked questions in meetings, hands should be raised “clearly and not in a half-hearted manner”, with this straight arm raising known informally within the company as “Phoenix hands”."

The right wing version of "jazz hands?"

(Low priority comment but do all thread titles about political figures have to have exclamation marks the days?)

Pretty sure it was originated by the poster of the Trump thread to take the pee out of his constant use of caps and exclamation marks.

Rather childishly, it sort of amuses me, it also acts as a handy warning that a thread that follows this convention might be a bit politically heavy.

Yeah! it's a MrWoppit! legacy!

It's a non story, he can't possibly be racist as he's been to Jamaica

tenburnerFull Member
Cant say I have much sympathy for an antisemite and racist

Classy comment

actually, cba

It’s a non story, he can’t possibly be racist as he’s been to Jamaica.

that's the one you use when you've got no friends !

hands should be raised “clearly and not in a half-hearted manner”, with this straight arm raising

Now it makes sense....

And Bangladesh.

Please keep up.

Also Sunak is brown so the Tory Party can't be racist.

Deleted in response to the deletion of another post.

ernielynch
Full Member
Yeah! it’s a MrWoppit! legacy!

I just hope he is still out there, bringing hope and a bit off levity to niche MTB forums! 🫡

It’s a non story, he can’t possibly be racist as he’s been to Jamaica

Of his own accord ?

Yeah but he made his wife go.

 His firm is responsible for looking after all our medical information amongst other things,

Not all of it. Mostly what TPP does is provide a management system for patent information and data for GPs, it's one of  a couple of major providers that GPs in this country use, the other being  EmisWeb, and there's a couple of others. But I don't suppose for a minute that he has personal access to your medical record.

“When asked questions in meetings, hands should be raised “clearly and not in a half-hearted manner”, with this straight arm raising known informally within the company as “Phoenix hands”

For special points of order, the raised arm should be the right one, and at 45 degrees forward.

Cant say I have much sympathy for an antisemite and racist

While you don't have sympathy for Abbott's views on other matters (and also aware that you have contributed to derailment of other threads into Israel vs Palestine already) surely you can't stand by this man's comments?

Hasn’t he got the sort of face you would just love to punch.

While I agree he doesn't sound like a particularly great person, isn't this just a variation of what he's said about Diane Abbott? I think we could all reflect on the words we choose to use about people who political views don't align with our own?

Imagine he didn’t like a white acquaintance of his and commented that this person made him want to hate all white people. Clearly a racist comment and it’s ridiculous trying to dress it up as anything else.

EDIT: I've deleted that. He's racist. Full stop.

On Diane Abbot... in her prime she was a formidable politician. I really wish she'd had the chance to play a role in frontline politics, preferably in government, when she was younger. The stuff she has had to deal with in her life, and is still thrown at her, is utterly depressing. That it's still coming from people who have everything they need in life, such as this millionaire businessmen, reflects poorly on the UK as a whole, and the Conservative party in particular... especially as Tory politicians come forward to excuse him, or choose to keep quiet about him.

According to Tory minister Mel Stride: "I don't think what he was saying was a gender-based or a race-based comment, but it was clearly inappropriate"

So saying that Diane Abbott makes him want to hate all black women is "inappropriate" but not, apparently, a gender based or race based comment.

Sometimes you have to admire senior politicians ability to talk complete bollocks and still maintain a straight face, it can't be easy.

Dianne Abbott, voted in as MP for 40 years in same constituency who had whip suspended last year after echoing Whoopi Goldberg's assertion that Jewish people can't experience racism, only prejudice, because they're just a variety of white person? That Dianne Abbott?

EDIT: I’ve deleted that. He’s racist. Full stop.

I don't doubt that he is, But his closing remark; "I just want to shoot her", or "I think she should be shot" or whatever abhorrent variation it was, is the sort of remark (like; a face you just want to punch) that has got our public political discourse to the point it is now.  You only have to look at the US were Democrat has become a by-word for child-blood drinking paedophile in some people's minds and at that point you don't have to listen to them or agree anything with them, becasue why would you? They're obviously monsters and should be... Shot? punched in the face?

I genuinely admire Diane Abbot, I've met her and she's bloody smart and funny, and we should have more politician like her, but all politicians will be put off if we talk about punching them or shooting them, or any of that shit.

Wise words from Keir Starmer:

"And Diane has been a trailblazer, she has paved the way for others, she's probably faced more abuse than any other politician over the years on a sustained basis.

"And I'm sorry, this apology this morning that is pretending that what was said wasn't racist or anything to do with the fact she's a woman, I don't buy that I'm afraid, and I think that it's time the Tory Party called it out and returned the money."

I genuinely admire Diane Abbot, I’ve met her and she’s bloody smart and funny,

think I must have seen a different Dianne Abbott on TV, the one that adopts the constantly condescending tone and attitude when talking to people and makes a fair number of rascist comments herself.

Is it some sort of virtue signalling to admire her ?

Apparently, he can't be racist because his parents were Irish.

I think if he wasn't the sole shareholder of TPP he'd be having an uncomfortable discussion with the board this morning about whether it was the sort of attention they wanted.

Interesting questions on criminality with the "should be shot" reference.  Certainly, others have at least been interviewed for making those sort of comments in public.  In the context of a private meeting where nobody believes they were being encouraged to shoot her it might not be illegal (just as Bruce's comment about him having a face you would like to punch is probably not criminal), but it doesn't say much for the company if those comments were made 4 years ago across multiple meetings and its only coming out now.  Either everyone there thought it was OK, were too scared to speak up, or enjoy their trips on his yacht (all declared to the tax man I am sure!) as little bribes for tolerating him.

What confuses me, is I have done some gov work in the past (orders of magnitude less in value than this) and had to jump through a million screening hoops to show that nobody in the entire organisation could be accused of bribing the government and then make ongoing commitments to declare any conflict of interest but he's able to pay £10M to the politicians in power.

It doesn't really matter what you think about Dianne Abbot, after what happened to Jo Cox and David Amess you shouldn't be taking money off the kind of person who flippantly refers to wanting to shoot an MP, full stop.

I genuinely admire Diane Abbot, I’ve met her...

One incident long ago particularly won my respect for Diane Abbott. It was in the run-up to the war in Iraq, about the time that Robin Cook resigned as Foreign Secretary and huge anti-war protests were taking place.

As we approached the assembly point in Central London for a particularly big demo I saw Dianne Abbott walking in front of me totally alone among the crowd and in deep conversation with someone on her mobile phone.

At that time she would not have been quite as recognisable as she probably is today. What impressed me was that she wasn't there because she was a speaker at the rally it was simply because she was just another ordinary concerned citizen opposed to a senseless and bloody war.

I didn't notice any other politicians walking with the crowds on that day, and it was a sober reminder that not all politicians are the same.

secondly, all politics aside, how on earth does that woman ( and all the others!) keep going in the face of this constant shit?

It's insane.  I can't find the link now, but there was a study of online abuse directed at MPs, and in the end they had to exclude Diane Abbott because she got so much abuse, she distorted the figures.

Here's a different one by Amnesty which found in 2017 she got pretty much the same amount of abuse online as every other female MP put together.

It's a shame she comes out with so much bollocks these days because she really did blaze a trail.  MrsDoris went to secondary in mid-80s Hackney.  It was pretty crappy. They were only entered for about 6 or 7 O-levels because they weren't really expected to succeed in life. But one day they had a visit from Diane Abbott, a newly elected black female MP (the school was about 70% ppl of colour) and walking proof that black women really could do well. It was hugely inspirational to the kids at the time, many of whose aspirations didn't stretch much further than getting pregnant and getting a council flat.

I always try to think of that, instead of dismissing her as a bell, when I hear the latest dubious comment she's come out with.

While you don’t have sympathy for Abbott’s views on other matters (and also aware that you have contributed to derailment of other threads into Israel vs Palestine already) surely you can’t stand by this man’s comments?

I don't stand by his comments, but I also don't really care for Diane Abbot, someone who stirs up hatred well enough herself.

If you see the contribution of people who don't share your point of view to a discussion as 'derailment', perhaps a chat forum isn't the place for you

Luckily, the governents Minister for Women and Equalities, Kemi Badenoch, is also a woman of colour so I'm sure she'll be very vocal in the defence of Dianne Abbot and lead the way in the condemnation of Frank Hestor and advocate the money being returned, no?

She must have done so already, surely?

So can we just clarify, are some of you saying that his comments are acceptable because DA has made some problematic remarks herself?

Abbot is an enigma, she was a genuine trailblazer but in recent years has almost turned into a Spitting Image style caricature of her former self

She's had so much abuse over the years I fear for her mental state. Nobody should ever have to deal with the crap she's had to endure