UK Election!

Pretty much any thread involving the Travelling Community shows this racism is accepted even on a liberal place like STW.

Yup, definitely. Anti-Romany prejudice is the only form of racism which is widely considered acceptable by the liberal middle-classes, no doubt about it.

Yup, definitely. Anti-Romany prejudice is the only form of racism which is widely considered acceptable by the liberal middle-classes, no doubt about it.

Agree, but it applies to all travellers, not just the Romany subset.

This evenings tory policy plan is to shut down underperforming uni courses & boost apprenticeships

if they did get re-elected,which the won’t, how on earth do they propose doing that?

They’re already doing it. The fees universities get from home students are worth 40% less in real terms than they were ten years ago. Starmer has pretty much ruled out increasing grants too. ‘Poor performing’ courses are easy to identify for potential students due to student outcomes surveying – if low enrolments make a course unviable, then it goes.

40% of UK universities are forecasting an unsustainable loss this year (ending 31st July). And that includes more than a few Russell Group unis.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/29/britain-universities-freefall-saving-them-funding-international-students

The Tories do not want a highly educated, mobile workforce with prospects. They want a largely captive, low rights, low paid service class to service them, their families and pensioners.

If I was a recent graduate these days, I’d have **** off overseas about a week after graduation.

@matt_outandabout It’s disappointing, but depends whether it’s part of a review of all roads offences or not. Also could do with seeing what their plan for active travel is (LDs have said they will restore ATE’s funding, presume Greens have too) but on past form there’s a worry they’ll focus on the Hard Working Motorist.

Decent (IMO ETC) article by a Conservative writer in the Guardian today:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/29/tory-party?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

touches on the difference between the message and the messenger amongst other topics

Agree, but it applies to all travellers, not just the Romany subset.

New age travellers, for example, can definitely be the victims of prejudice but it isn’t racism. There is specific racism against the Romany community, even those who are settled and live in houses.

Everyone has a right to choose their lifestyle, everyone has the right to be different, but it is unhelpful imo to lump all prejudice as racism.

I used the example of Rachel Riley precisely because she is a white woman

Yup. As well as throwing travellers under the bus, you chose a blonde half Jewish woman as your example precisely because her appearance suited your purpose of minimising the racism experienced by Jews in general.

What would you call someone who tried to minimise the racism experienced by black people by using Zendaya as their example?

New age travellers, for example, can definitely be the victims of prejudice but it isn’t racism. There is specific racism against the Romany community, even those who are settled and live in houses.

Yes and it also applies to Irish travellers who are genetically distinct from the rest of the Irish population and legally an ethnic minority in Ireland (North and South I believe). I don’t think they have that legal status in UK (apart from NI) where they are grouped together with Roma and others as GRT – Gypsies, Romany and Travellers.

When you become a landowner, travellers become a worry – nothing to do with racism, just glad it’s not 1991 right now.  Therefore obvious Tory hate targets.

The most ferocious racism I have ever encountered was in Romania just after Ceausescu was deposed, aimed at Roma. After that, Hungary aimed at Romanians, I get the impression they have moved on to other targets.  Funnily enough in Erdely/Transylvania did not hear much Romanian – Hungarian stuff even though it was close to war at times.

New age travellers

No one was refereeing to New Age Travellers.  But I suspect you knew that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itinerant_groups_in_Europe

As for the Diane Abbott thing, it seems she had a mutually beneficial agreement with Starmer to have the whip restored and then stand down as an MP

But someone briefed the Times ahead of her announcement, either to humiliate her or to undermine Starmer

It’s a sign that something has gone very wrong with the country when a discussion about the general election descends into a weird, Guardian -reader identity politics discrimination point scoring exercise between a TV game show hostess and a far left Labour MP who despite her many many flaws has been returned to the house of commons continually for 37 years

What would you call someone who tried to minimise the racism experienced by black people by using Zendaya as their example?

I’d probably point them to the interview linked below where she said this;

“Unfortunately, I have a bit of a privilege compared to my darker sisters and brothers,” she said.

“Can I honestly say that I’ve had to face the same racism and struggles as a woman with darker skin? No, I cannot.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-43879480

No one was refereeing to New Age Travellers. But I suspect you knew that.

No I referred to new age travellers, I specifically said that I was using them as an example. You suspect that I knew that?

you chose a blonde half Jewish woman as your example precisely because her appearance suited your purpose of minimising the racism experienced by Jews in general.

I chose a blonde half Jewish woman precisely because it makes my point. You think that I should have chosen an example which doesn’t make my point?

a blonde half Jewish woman

With an Irish surname!!!! Her life must be a living hell.

I think it’s probably a measure of how beige and uninspiring it all is, along with the result being pretty much a foregone conclusion.

The press have jumped on the Diane Abbot thing because it makes a change from Sunaks latest gaffe, standing in front of a road sign pointing to Nob End, or something similar

The thing I find it illustrates more than anything is just how parochial and insular London politics is

No I referred to new age travellers, I specifically said that I was using them as an example. You suspect that I knew that?

You seemed to be saying that Romani were the only Travellers entitled to describe the abuse the receive as racism while all the other Travelling Communities are a lifestyle choice that can be grouped in with New Age Travellers.

You are the one who is referring to the term “travelling”, which is a lifestyle, not me.

But someone briefed the Times ahead of her announcement, either to humiliate her or to undermine Starmer

More I think about it, makes no sense for starmers team to have negotiated a deal and then blow it up in the middle of a GE

Smacks more of someone just trying to undermine Starmer, whoever briefed the Times will be in trouble if found out!

You are the one who is referring to the term “travelling”, which is a lifestyle, not me.

All these groups are random individuals who decided to pursue the same lifestyle?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itinerant_groups_in_Europe

I think your comment was specifically made to undermine the legitimacy of these ethnic groups.

Either that or you mis-spoke and instead of acknowledging it you’ve decided to double down.

There you have it.

All these groups are random individuals who decided to pursue the same lifestyle?

I specifically said that the Romany community suffers racism even when they are settled, it is not necessarily connected to their lifestyle.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make but the point I am making is that prejudice based on racism and prejudice based on lifestyle is not exactly the same thing.

OK, let’s try this.

Irish Travellers and New Age Travellers are both groups that have made a lifestyle choice rather than being a distinct ethnic group.

Do you agree or disagree?

“So yes, not all racism is the same but you have to be very careful when you start talking about hierarchies.”

I agree 100% with this. Abbott was silly to say what she did in the way that she did, even though there was an underlying truth in it. As for using it as an excuse to end her career, that’s shameful. I know she’s said a number of silly things but no-one’s perfect and she’s been an inspirational figure for many years.

The truth is that Abbot has suffered a decline as an individual over many years. She has always been provocative and outspoken and disliked for it – and that is a good quality for a radical politician to have. She has been the subject of awful racist and sexist and every other form of abuse. But now her behaviour is erratic. She should have stepped back as an MP years agoThe problem about the racism minimising letter to the newspaper isn’t that it’s wrong or insulting to her constituents – it’s that she is firing off batshit emails in the middle of the night. She should have stepped back as an MP years ago.

The thing I find it illustrates more than anything is just how parochial and insular London politics is

Yes, but you also draw that conclusion from the number of chocolate chips in your tea break biscuits tbf. Anyway, back to discussing Sunak, Truss, Reeves, Cleverly and various other non-London MPs.

PS if “the provinces” of England voted like London, we wouldn’t have had a Tory government for donkeys years. Maybe you lot outside the metropolis could sort your shit out?

It’s a sign that something has gone very wrong with the country when a discussion about the general election descends into a weird, Guardian -reader identity politics discrimination point scoring exercise between a TV game show hostess and a far left Labour MP who despite her many many flaws has been returned to the house of commons continually for 37 years

Your statement leads me to think that you think this place represents ‘the country’. Are you high or hysterical?

It certainly sums up STW perfectly.

You are the one who is referring to the term “travelling”, which is a lifestyle, not me.

All itinerant travellers, apart from Roma are just pursuing a ‘lifestyle’ wow!  That makes it sound like the Irish travelling community and others are just #vanlifers doing it for shits and giggles and instagram likes. Their community is centuries old and they are considered a distinct ethnic group.

Irish Travellers … have made a lifestyle choice rather than being a distinct ethnic group.

Traditionally, Irish Travellers are a nomadic group of people from Ireland but have a separate identity, heritage and culture to the community in general. An Irish Traveller presence can be traced back to 12th century Ireland, with migrations to Great Britain in the early 19th century. The Irish Traveller community is categorised as an ethnic minority group under the Race Relations Act, 1976 (amended 2000); the Human Rights Act 1998; and the Equality Act 2010.

https://travellermovement.org.uk/gypsy-roma-and-traveller-history-and-culture

I think you lot are guilty of prejudice. You treat being a Tory MP as some kind of lifestyle choice that should be condemned. But the truth is that many of these people have never known anything else. They’re born into it, and whole families are affected – look at the Johnsons. Researchers have actually identified three generations of Tory living in the same estates, like the Churchill. Often they marry within their same insular community – like the Hamiltons or Elphickes. They use jargon that outsiders don’t understand. People judge them by their accent and clothes and schools. Some of them go through a libertarian phase in their 20s when they use cocaine (“I’m socially liberal and economically conservative!”) but many of them end up falling back into their communities, repeating the cycle with their own children.

@ernielynch

I arrived to the UK on a boat at the age of 6 unable to speak any English, do you think I have experienced racism throughout my life?

Honest answer?  Yes I do, and I also suspect Diane Abbott has. And probably Rachel Riley too.

Now as a 6 foot rugby playing university educated middle class white male Scot arriving in Yorkshire in 1992, do you think I experienced a bit of racism?

Of course I did, though I’m willing to bet not as often as Diane Abbott.  Still doesn’t make what I experienced right

And not just me. Carrying my three year old home from nursery about 10 years ago when he had a Saltire on one cheek and a George Cross on the other (my wife is English) some folk start shouting abuse at him. Not at me. At a three year old.  (For amusement I literally turned the other cheek which actually shut them up very fast.)

Most folk everywhere are lovely, there’s gits everywhere too.

All racism is wrong, not just big racism.

Born and brought up in deep Tory, family party members, social fabric of village is The Party, Party coach trip highlight of the Summer.  There were these dodgy liberal types often from Chapel families, they were tolerated.

Ironically I rejected it all after a stint in a boarding school.  Was lucky to meet some of the bus tour lot after 40 years and tell them that I had never voted for their damn party and never will.

Minds of our own.

no true gipsy fallacy

The travellers ( sorry I presume they are travellers they could be the caravan club) have moved onto the football pitch behind our house.
I’m sure they will pick up all their rubbish and restore the pitch so that the school can have their sports day.
They might even provide some prizes.

@pictonroad what’s interesting to me, is that he’s saying that more realism is needed, which is exactly what Starmer and his team are being criticised for?

‘Race’ is a social construction, not a term used by anthropologists. Race and racism are variously employed when it suits and we have examples of ‘race’ being synonymous with lifestyle, religion, consanguineous parentage, nationality, skin colour etc. However, if we look at where different groups are more likely to find themselves in the class system then it does lend evidence to the idea of a hierarchy of racism.

The travellers ( sorry I presume they are travellers they could be the caravan club) have moved onto the football pitch behind our house.
I’m sure they will pick up all their rubbish and restore the pitch so that the school can have their sports day.
They might even provide some prizes.

Just to keep this vaguely on topic, who is in charge of your local council as they are the ones who are required to provide adequate stopping places for Travelling communities?

I can’t see many Tory run councils (or, for that matter, many Labour run ones) putting too much effort into fulfilling their obligations to ensure there is as little friction between Travelling communities and the local community as possible.

She should have stepped back as an MP years ago

Years ago? She is massively popular with the people that she represents in Parliament.

 75% of them voted for her in 2017.

“Just to keep this vaguely on topic, who is in charge of your local council as they are the ones who are required to provide adequate stopping places for Travelling communities?”
The council is run by a residents association.
As a motorcyclist in the 80s I probably wouldn’t be allowed in a pub.
So us nasty bikers would do you runs for hospitals and show that we were nice people.
If the travellers cleared up after themselves and maybe tried to better their reputation I’m sure they wouldn’t have such a bad rep.

The council is run by a residents association.

And has the residents association fulfilled it’s obligation to provide stopping places?

If the travellers cleared up after themselves and maybe tried to better their reputation I’m sure they wouldn’t have such a bad rep.

And the thread sets off in the predicted direction…