British Politics

As you said calling a taxi to your target has all the hallmarks of a schoolboy error

 

*Cobh

 

Bit of a leap there. Approximately 1 year ago Unilever did much the same, what was its reasoning?

 

Wasn't called that at the time was it? Well not by us, who ruled it.

 

When the nurse changes your dressing are you naked from the waist down excluding flip flops?

 

Technically no, as I don't take my clothes fully off, just put them down to my ankles.

 

I don't sit on the board of Unilever tbh.

 

Lefty spastics

Brexit will cause a mass exodus as EUROPEAN global multinational companies will want to move to Europe.

Also Lefty spastics

We don't want those EUROPEAN global multinational companies here taking advantage of our superior conditions of trade.

 

Nae mare oil wells:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-59312510
Thoughts? @A.L.D.O 4.1

 

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Azeem Rafiq, the voice of the voiceless, is finally heard – now cricket must listen

Mike Atherton, Chief Cricket Correspondent
Tuesday November 16 2021, 5.00pm, The Times
Cricket



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The select committee hearing began a few minutes late. Dressed in a plain blue shirt and readying himself to give some of the most powerful, devastating and troubling testimony the game has heard, Azeem Rafiq may have allowed himself a moment to consider that a few more minutes were inconsequential at this point. He had been waiting long enough to be heard.

By the time Rafiq had finished his testimony a little under two hours later, few areas of cricket — from the club scene to the national team, from the most formidable county in the land to a governing body supposed to protect and nurture the game, from unnamed dressing-room bystanders to some of the country’s most notable players — had been left untouched.

Rather like the effects of Michael Holding’s magnificent monologue about Black Lives Matter during the summer of 2020, Rafiq’s testimony forced everyone who has been involved in the game to stop and think. After the select committee hearing, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport released Rafiq’s witness statement in full. It included far more detail and was far more specific and damning in its accusations, but it did not carry the powerful emotional resonance of watching someone struggling to articulate his experiences. It is Rafiq’s testimony and the sense of it in the round, rather than the details set out in black and white, that will stay in the memory.

This was a profoundly consequential moment for cricket, a “watershed moment” according to the embattled chief executive of the ECB, Tom Harrison. He said that the claims that even England players used the name “Kevin” to refer to people of colour would be investigated, and that he would not want anyone in the national team who had used the term.

What is clear — after the testimony of a number of black cricketers last summer and more recently, and following those former first-class cricketers who have taken their cue from Rafiq in the past few days — is that there has been an acute failure of leadership at club and national level.

Rafiq’s testimony concerned a period lasting a decade and a half, from his earliest days as a 15-year-old in club cricket in Barnsley when, he said, he had alcohol forced down his throat by a first-class cricketer during a car journey, to his most recent isolating experiences as a Yorkshire player, a club he left three years ago and has been battling against since. Throughout, he detailed specific instances of overt racism and much that appeared to be insidious and subtle in what Rafiq characterised as a toxic dressing-room environment.

In particular, he said the temperature changed at Yorkshire when Jason Gillespie, the head coach, left the club in 2016 and Andrew Gale took over, with Gary Ballance as captain and Tim Bresnan a senior player, resulting in his eventual release from the club.Ultimately, Rafiq said he felt that his career had been cut short through racism, the most devastating accusation that could be levelled at any club and one that will hang around Yorkshire’s neck for a long time in the absence of anyone to counter it.

The picture painted was also of a deeply uncaring club with a dressing-room culture removed from the norm, even by the standards of professional sport. The dressing-down that Rafiq recollected after he returned to the club following the loss of his child moved matters away from the sphere of race and into realms just as fundamental and troubling. Rafiq said that he appreciated an apology given by Matthew Hoggard recently and there was one forthcoming from Bresnan yesterday. Whether other players reach out or speak out remains to be seen.

It was clearly difficult testimony to give — he had to stop once and his voice broke on numerous occasions — and it was also difficult testimony to hear, especially for those of us for whom a lifetime’s involvement in the sport has been a blessing. Yet, no matter how difficult, the conversation must be had and it would have been better if it had been even more painful by dint of hearing from those to whom this testimony was pointed. At the outset, the chairman of the inquiry, Julian Knight, noted the widespread refusals to attend and said it was “deeply disappointing that YCCC [Yorkshire County Cricket Club] was unable to provide anyone with executive authority to give evidence to the committee”.

With nobody prepared to give testimony on behalf of Yorkshire, given the late withdrawal of Mark Arthur after his resignation as chief executive, the reputation of the club, their staff, coaches and a generation of players was shredded. Those who do formidable work on inclusion and diversity on behalf of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation in the deprived areas of Bradford and Leeds will feel let down. If the early statement and decisions made by Lord Patel of Bradford, the club’s new chairman, last week were the first tentative steps to rejuvenation, then the reputation of the county will take a long time to recover.

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Rafiq said the mood changed at Yorkshire when Gale took over as coach

Instead from Yorkshire there was only the past chairman Roger Hutton, whose testimony concluded that his former club was institutionally racist — a conclusion he did not feel able to make in an interview to this newspaper less than two weeks ago — and Lord Patel, who has been parachuted in to sort out the mess. The controlling role of the Graves family trust, to whom the club are in debt to the tune of almost £20 million, was repeatedly questioned as a potential conflict of interest and obstacle to reform.

Just as much under the spotlight was the ECB, a governing body that is in crisis. In a line of four, to conclude the three-hour session, sat Harrison flanked by two of his executive team and a board member. At least they turned up, but under questioning that was not always well informed and that bordered on hectoring, it was not pretty viewing. While insisting that the ECB was fit for purpose, Harrison admitted that it had a lot of work to do to make the game more welcoming for all.

It was nearly 25 years ago that the ECB was formed as a new national governing body in place of the old Test and County Cricket Board, bringing together under one umbrella the professional and recreational games. It was Damian Green, the MP for Ashford, who got to the heart of the matter when he asked whether the ECB’s role as a regulator and promoter of the game was a potential conflict.

 

Lefty loony spastics are ****ing thick as ****

They haven't got a clue what they're moaning about!!

 

Bore off ya murdering ****ing bin dipping ****.

 

Money talks as usual.

 

"Aye but we've always advocated wind farms so we have, by ra way, but, but"

"It's Scotland's Oil"

Utter spasticated ****wits the SNP/Tree Hugging ****tahs and Lezzers Alliance!!

 

Nae, Shuie, ay canea.

 

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When I was a bond trader in London, most people called me, "Jock", I suppose that counts as racism and I could get a bit of money from the rascals.