I think that, from time to time – how far we’ve fallen in little more than a decade
It truly is a tragic waste of a decade.
I think that, from time to time – how far we’ve fallen in little more than a decade. 🙁
I don't think we even live in the same country any more.
Its difficult to think of any nation who's public face to the world and political culture has changed in such an extreme manner in such a short space of time.
When we were all watching the 2012 Olympics could you imagine that only ten years later we'd be seeing our own government openly, proudly even, break international law so they could deport refugees to Rwanda?
It really is utterly depressing and people like Sunak and Braverman are driving us further and further down this far right road
"it wasn’t meant as a serious remark 😉"
No worries, I didn't take it as such.
Let's just say Andy Burnhams words were unfortunate, the very real problem of where people are placed is a problem imposed on him largely by the government and as you say, it puts him somewhat between a rock and a hard place.
Wether Manchester is more or less racist than anywhere else is hard to say, though I think the overwhelming support for Labour may mask what lies beneath the surface and as I said, lead to complacency.
It's easy taking the government and the knuckle draggers to task but the more they move to the right, the easier it is for us not to examine ourselves and maybe look a bit closer to home.
I work in Manchester's very middle class, right on and virtue signalling Arts sector these days and when I look around me, do I think the sector is Racist?... Hell yes. More so than in other cities? Well from experience I'd have to say yes and could cite examples that satisfy me that it is the case. It doesn't think it is but I put that down to complacency, well meaning but nevertheless, somewhat ignorant.
I don’t think we even live in the same country any more.
Its difficult to think of any nation who’s public face to the world and political culture has changed in such an extreme manner in such a short space of time.
You maybe do not. I do. My nation has not followed that path.. Scotland has remained in more or less the same place as can be seen by the way this right wing and racist rhetoric gains no traction. The big difference being that we have political leadership both prepared to call it out and refusing to play the game. Even the Tories here so not try playing the race card
Its mainly the Tories fault of course but timidity and inaction from labour has not helped
The likes of Braverman should be being laughed at, ridiculed and kept away from high office at all costs. Nowadays it seems the more sensible voices come from the backbenches whilst the nutters are in the ascendancy.
absolutely!
The lunatics took over the asylum on June 24th 2016 and its been downhill at a rate of knots ever since
I have no issue with elitist culture like opera losing subsidy.
Arts Council England gave the ENO (English National Opera) £11.5M for this year, and I think a £18M funding package over the next 3 years, but it must relocate I think. I agree that the folks that normally go and see opera are affluent, but the people that perform it often aren't, and that's what the subsidy is for. I don't think setting one art against another in a a competition to see which has more worth does anyone any good.
I'd rather be in an environment where all arts are funded properly and available to as wide a group as they can be.
I have no issue with elitist culture like opera losing subsidy.
Who gets to decide where the line is that tips something into your elitist category?
Bleedin'ell, even another right-wing bigoted MP now feels that Braverman has gone too far with her bigotry!
The more Braverman opens her mouth the more I believe that she is consumed by the same mentality as the "Coopers" in Goodness Gracious Me.
Who gets to decide where the line is that tips something into your elitist category?
TJ of course! 🙂
I agree that the folks that normally go and see opera are affluent, but the people that perform it often aren’t, and that’s what the subsidy is for
Not sure that works as an argument. Shouldnt those people watching it cover the costs rather than have it subsidised?
Now having it set up to appeal to a wider population which, in fairness, some of the companies have tried to do has a stronger case for it.
Bleedin’ell, even another right-wing bigoted MP now feels that Braverman has gone too far with her bigotry!
Christ on a bendybus! Its coming to something when that knuckle-dragging Neanderthal thinks you've probably gone a bit far. She'll be losing 30p Lee next 😳
Jonathan Gulĺis?... That Jonathan Gullis?..well f*** me sideways (on a bendy bus for good measure)
I wonder if he's been given 'permission'. Is Suella about to have her very own 'Night of the Long Knives's' moment? (apologies for the 1930's Germany reference).
Gullis seems to have deleted his twitter account, which is a great shame because I did quite enjoy tagging Whipsnade in the replies with comments like "One of your apes has escaped again, please bring bananas and tranquiliser darts".
That's about the nicest thing that I can say about him.
With the Arts funding thing, more outdoor stuff (like they do in Italy) would help with opera's elitist tag but you know,, the weather...
If it lost its funding however then we'd probably lose opera, which wouldn't be a good thing.
If the contempory arts were to lose funding then it might not be such a bad thing. Remember Grayson Perry getting into a bit of bother when he suggested similar? (hastily retracted as the mob came after him). He was right first time you know.
I say this as someone who works in the contemporary arts. There's too much funding and not enough competition. Remove the funding and 90% of visual artists would drop out, leaving the 10% of people for whom art is a real passion to have a go rather than those who are good at filling out forms or instrumentalising art for political agendas, (where artistic ability is not necessarily a requirement).
My studio complex is having an exhibition this month (funded of course). The theme is 'sustainabillity', where a group of artist make a lot of artworks preaching to us about sustainability, seemingly oblivious to the fact that what they are making will end up as land fill next month. Either that or it will hang around for a few months or years, occupying space (taking up resources) until it finally goes to the tip (in a petrol guzzling van no doubt).
Being an artist is a most indulgent and unsustainable activity and thats fine but too much of it is meaningless and inconsequential propaganda and it's funded. Contrary to taking it to the government, it's doing exactly what the government wants, acting like a self entitled snowflake that can singled out for ridicule. Talk about putting a target on your own back.
Its coming to something when that knuckle-dragging Neanderthal thinks you’ve probably gone a bit far.
I seriously wonder whether she appears to be getting away with it because of her ethnicity.
Would a white, multi-generational British MP, get away with claiming that foreigners don't share 'British values'?
Not that there is such a thing as uniquely British values.
Ironically as an alledged Buddhist Braverman is supposed to live her life under the guidance of values which are central to a far-eastern philosophy.
It would actually be more appropriate for Braverman to claim that many foreigners don't share Buddhist values.
I seriously wonder whether she appears to be getting away with it because of her ethnicity.
Would a white, multi-generational British MP, get away with claiming that foreigners don’t share ‘British values’?
‘Honest Bob’ Jenrick fits that description and he’s been echoing her word-for-word.
I don’t think it really matters about your skin colour, background, culture or religion in the present Tory party, just proudly display a cold-hearted, calculating inhumanity and a complete absence of compassion and empathy and you’re on the fast track to a cabinet post
There’s some perverse equality about a party that embraces, then elevates, both Kemi Badenoch and Lee Anderson, but then they have a more in common than separates them. Both equally vile human beings
That actually happened. (Allegedly).
😆
Scotland has remained in more or less the same place as can be seen by the way this right wing and racist rhetoric gains no traction.
Racist talking points don't really resonate in a place where the population is 96% white and there are practically no asylum seekers (11,000 in a region of 5.5 million - which by the way is one third of "racist" Manchester and NW England). If you want to shit stir and aggravate racial tension, you need to make people feel threatened by "outsider" groups that they can see every day. That's part of the reason the far right have been so successful in Luton and not in Scotland.
https://populationdata.org.uk/population-of-scotland/
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/where-do-migrants-live-in-the-uk/
Why not send all these boat chaps straight through to Scotland. Everyone's happy.
Would a white, multi-generational British MP, get away with claiming that foreigners don’t share ‘British values’?
What do you mean by “get away with”?
Stay in government?
Keep their seat?
Win a referendum?
I mean an avalanche of criticism.
I feel that the level of criticism which she has faced is less than I would have expected. I get the impression that a white, multi-generational British MP, would have been criticized even more harshly.
That's my opinion anyway, you might have a different one, you usually do.
alledged Buddhist
This guy was a Buddhist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_von_Ungern-Sternberg
Apparently it's not all stopping traffic to carry grasshoppers to safety on the verge.
Why not send all these boat chaps straight through to Scotland. Everyone’s happy.
They don't want to go there. People generally want to move where there are other people like them, because that's where the jobs, social support, friends, family, food, religious groups etc are. Chain migration.
But what you suggest will certainly be the solution the Tories will pursue if and when Scotland goes independent...free nonstop buses from Dover to Gretna Green. It's what Texas, France and all the central european EU states were doing. Illegal entry is apparently a lot less worrying when the entrants are en route to being someone else's problem!
Utterly crazy, I got a ban/warning for saying cruella should be dealt with in a certain way.
The massive irony is that these people are not not just evil, that would be giving them too much credit, they are simply stupid.
And they know it.
And they don't care.
And pepole vote for them...
So I guess we go back to the old trope of 'you get the government you deserve'.
Utterly crazy, I got a ban/warning for saying cruella should be dealt with in a certain way.
Well you don't seem to have been gone long, how long was your ban?
And did that "certain way" involve homicide, which is generally frowned upon?
I don't think the fact that Suella Braverman is an obnoxious arsehole gives a free pass to others.
Utterly crazy, I got a ban/warning for saying cruella should be dealt with in a certain way
It looks like you and Mrs Braverman are both concerned that snowflakes are stifling robust debate. But to be fair you did call for her to be murdered.
Well if cruella wants to send desperate migrants away, maybe she should have a taste of her own pie.
What's good for the Goose is good for the gander.
Anyway, she's decided she needs further restrictions on our right to protest. Presumably to help all those people fleeing persecution feel more at home and in touch with British values.
Go get your slow walks in while you still can!
BBC News - New police powers to tackle slow-walking protests
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65410634
Actually given Rwanda seems to be having a little strife and UK gov does send refugees there (let's not forget the £120,000,000 puts a max of 500 there) what happens if local Rwandans oppose incomers with violence?
Nobody will ever be deported to Rwanda. They know it will never happen and always have. They’re just saying it because the Brexity gammons love all this shit
All this is all just state-funded electioneering for the nasty party and setting up Labour as being ‘soft on immigrants’. I mean… how much is this charade costing? We must be well into billions by now? And there’s mountains of (expensive taxpayer funded) legal challenges ahead…
Multiple government defeats are likely when the illegal immigration bill heads to the Lords
Meanwhile, the reality is that if they plan to deem everyone as illegal immigrants once they enter the country then they’re going to have to build enough detention centres to house tens of thousands of people on an indefinite basis
The whole thing is utterly ludicrous and will never happen, but post-you-know-what it’s safe to assume that a majority of the electorate in this country are so credulous and gullible, they’ll buy into any old anti-immigrant bollocks
In other news, the latest namby pamby, bleeding-heart, liberal snowflake to express reservations about Cruella having gone too far this time is…
Priti Patel
How many looking glasses are we through now? 😳
I don’t think it really matters about your skin colour, background, culture or religion in the present Tory party
Not within the party itself - other than if it makes you feel the need to over-compensate.
The target demographic however...
In other news, the latest namby pamby, bleeding-heart, liberal snowflake to express reservations about Cruella having gone too far this time is…
Priti Patel
How many looking glasses are we through now?
Putting some distance between the two of them, knowing that to your average Tory party member "they" all look alike.
Have you got a link to Pritti's comments. I fancy a laugh.
@MoreCashThanDash - its in that article above I linked to.
And despite calls to remove all separated children from the provisions of the bill by the children’s commissioner and senior Tories such as the former justice secretary, Robert Buckland, the government adamantly insists they need to be included to ensure what it believes will be a sufficient deterrent effect.
It’s worth remembering that when she was home secretary, Priti Patel chose to exempt children from new legal provisions she introduced that mean any asylum claim by a person who has travelled through a so-called safe third country is inadmissible. The word in Westminster is that she is very uncomfortable with imposing an asylum ban on unaccompanied children, which speaks volumes about the extremity of the government’s approach.
Thanks, was going to come back later to check the link.
There seems to be a sense that even "last year's" nutters are wanting to get off the roller coaster they unleashed.
It does seem like some gentler, kinder, much more innocent by-gone era where we all thought Theresa Mays 'Hostile Environment' seemed harsh
Those 'nasty' vans feel quaint and almost strangely welcoming in todays Brexit Britain...
What would they say nowadays?
In the UK illegally? Go home or face being catapulted into a big fiery pit
they’re going to have to build enough detention centres to house tens of thousands of people on an indefinite basis
Agreed.
The whole thing is utterly ludicrous and will never happen
Not agreed. Australia spent a huuuuuuuge amount on processing centres in Papua New Guinea, Nauru and Christmas Islands (and it reduced irregular boat arrivals to almost zero). The US has just said it will build processing centres in Guatemala (I think?)
What would they say nowadays?
In the UK illegally? Go home or face being catapulted into a big fiery pit
Actually - deleted.
I can't be arsed going down the rabbit hole of supposed equivalence etc.
I know that in the minds of the gammons, egged on by the Daily Heil, they have a dream of huge open air concentration camps, but the whole Rwanda scheme is presently to house a maximum of 250 people.
Thats now just a busy summer day on the Kent coastline, so offers no solution whatsoever. So where are they going to put all these thousands of people who are now automatically deemed 'illegal' immigrants
One thing I'm pretty sure of is that Rishi's wife will have recently invested in lots of shares in ' Detention Centre Construction UK Ltd.' (based in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes) and that Serco and Capita have recently set up 'Detention Centre Logistics' wings of their present operations
And to think we had a reciprocal returns agreement in place before we had a tantrum and quit the EU...
They’re just saying it because the Brexity gammons love all this shit
......it’s safe to assume that a majority of the electorate in this country are so credulous and gullible, they’ll buy into any old anti-immigrant bollocks
Your hatred of the "majority" of people in Britain is impressive binners!
But why the reference to "Brexity gammons"? All this "anti-immigrant bollocks" was around long before the EU Referendum was even a twinkle in David Cameron's eye.
Twenty years ago exactly a Labour government was enthusiastically engaging in anti-immigrant bollocks.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/feb/11/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices
He disclosed that a draft Home Office leaflet recommended that asylum seekers reduced to living in telephone boxes or car parks should register with their nearest post office to receive official letters about their case.
Choose a car park to live in near a post office so that you can receive official letters about your case?? Suella Braverman wasn't even an MP at that time!!
Tony Blair met Ruud Lubbers, the UN high commissioner for refugees, to discuss creating "safe havens" for asylum seekers near their home countries which would deny most of them access to Britain.
"Safe havens" for asylum seekers near their home countries which would deny most of them access to Britain?? Priti Patel wasn't even an MP at that time!!
The test case under article three of the European convention on human rights covers six asylum seekers fleeing regimes around the world including Iraq, Angola, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Iran. None has had a claim for asylum determined; one had spent the night in a telephone box and a tunnel and others had been forced to sleep rough. The court earlier granted injunctions providing them with emergency shelter and food during the hearing.
During the time of a Labour government a court had to grant an injunction to desperate people fleeing persecution so that they could have emergency shelter and food during a hearing?? And Rishi Sunak wasn't even an MP at that time!!
So what did all that have to do with Brexit?
Btw did you notice the name of the barrister who took the Labour government/Home Secretary to court twenty years ago? Obviously an anti-Labour lefty revolutionary!
Ernie, what's your point? That this shit was going on well before this bunch of turbo-charged thunder-****s?
We know.
I was only in my teens and I remember Blair talking about a referendum regarding our status in the EU.
I remember all the shite about asylum seekers getting so many benefits and being housed in mansions.
The only thing that's different is the rhetoric has been ramped right up. So again, what's your point?
Oh, Starmer? Well, we all know how he's stuck to his principles so far don't we? Or have we just found out it was always in the name of self service?
As binners says, billions spent (probably) to send a days worth of arrivals from Calais to Rwanda.
This has nothing to do with solving a problem and the government actually admit this, it's all about it being a 'deterrent'
A deterrent based on playing up to people's prejudices about Rwanda, a place most people only know about in relation to genocide. It's the equivalent of saying 'send them to hell.'
Alternatively, Pritti Patel could either have been reading 'Heart of Darkness' and had a lightbulb moment, or remembered the 1930's Nazi plan to make the jews of europe stateless and deport them to Africa.
It's 100% optics.
Ernie, what’s your point?
Really? You are asking what point I am making?? I didn't think I could have been any clearer!
But why the reference to “Brexity gammons”? All this “anti-immigrant bollocks” was around long before the EU Referendum was even a twinkle in David Cameron’s eye.
Binners keeps tediously banging on about all this being the result of brexit. All this bollocks was going on long before brexit. It's not even uniquely Tory bollocks!
But try telling that to binners. It doesn't fit comfortably within his narrative. So I kept reminding him. Or do you think that his false premise should go unchallenged?
