Thanks no7, you expressed it better than I could ever hope to, and I agree with every word. As the words of the late Jo Cox in my signature say, there is far more that unites us than divides us. Every human being on earth shares 99.9% of the same DNA, and we all have the same basic needs, and similar hopes and fears.
Some people need to remember that during the riots last year, troglodytes in Middlesbrough literally set up a race checkpoint on the road. Some people on this forum defended/minimised the rioting and tried to pass the concerns as legitimate. My Filipina fiance is a nurse at the General and she has been told to go back to China more than once at work, her cousin who also lives here and is a nurse at the General too has a four year old daughter and someone did a 'slitty eyes' gesture at his child in Southampton. Racism is not a bygone issue, even if it might not be as bad here as it once was. We should remain on guard for it and call it out when it occurs, intentional or not.
I think this sums up the position of Farage and Reform quite well. Despite having been told by a certain poster that “lefties” don’t understand per capita, in response to my having posted the table of offences referred to below, my post was accurate. It also seems that white sexual offenders have been batting above the average whilst South Asian offenders have been batting below the average in regards to their representation in the general population. by Jason Beattie please log in to view this image Fri Jan 10, 2025 Fear in the community “What we need, and are calling for, is a rifle-shot inquiry that looks specifically at the question: to what extent were gangs of Pakistani men raping young white girls?” These were Nigel Farage’s words in the Commons on Wednesday. This was not a dog whistle. There was no insinuation here. The Reform leader was explicit about what he was calling for: a public inquiry on the sexual abuse of white women by brown-skinned men. If Farage were genuinely concerned about the victims of child grooming he would also want an inquiry into how black women and girls were abused by white men. He could have called for it to look at the convictions of a group of white men, and one woman, who abused 30 children in the Camborne area of Cornwall. Or he could have read this LSE report which notes that 88% of defendants prosecuted for child sexual abuse offences in England and Wales in 2022 were white, slightly higher than their representation in the general population (83%)while South Asian defendants accounted for 7% of those proceeded against, slightly lower than their 9% representation in the general population. And he could have looked at the 2021 Home Office study which found that most of the perpetrators of child grooming were white men. This is not to deny that gangs of men predominantly of Pakistani origin were responsible for abuse in a number of towns and cities. Nor is it to deny that, as in the case of Telford, victims were failed because a nervousness about race meant the crimes were not properly investigated. But it is to point out that Farage’s aim is to exploit the issue of child grooming for political gain. He and his fellow Reform MPs will claim they are motivated by a desire to find the truth and prevent further abuse but if that were genuinely the case they would demand any inquiry looked at all victims not just those abused by men of Pakistani origin. The most common racist trope is to play on fears that a minority is someone a threat to your culture and way of life but the most effective racist trope is to play on male fears they are a threat to women and children. Farage knows what he is doing. He knows that Reform picks up support from those who feel most threatened by multiculturalism, who worry their communities are no longer the same and who believe that immigration is the main reason why they can’t get a doctor’s appointment, a school place or a decent home. Farage thrives from sowing division. He doesn’t care if this damages community cohesion or inspires further race hate. He just wants the votes, regardless of the consequences.
A great analysis. Somehow we need to counter the loudmouth populists and start to think outside our own narrow everyday lives. The unfortunate reality is that the whole world is on the move for one reason or another. Wars and tyrannical governments, are historically constant reasons for migration, but, ever increasingly, climate change is forcing people to abandon their homes. 3 million Americans have left California in the last 20 years because of wildfires, a consequence of climate change. 23,000 of them arrived in North Carolina last year, just in time to be met by Hurricane Helene in September, a consequence of climate change. A few years ago some 30 million Pakistanis were forced to leave their homes because of catastrophic flooding caused by melting glaciers, a consequence of climate change. These are not isolated events, and they are occurring with ever-increasing frequency all over the planet. By 2030 there could be hundreds of millions of people fleeing areas which are no longer habitable as a consequence of climate change, and most of them will be heading towards Europe. Musk, Trump, Farage, Waxy-Lemon and the other gobshites have no answer to this other than hatred of their fellow humans. Racism and outright denial of climate change is an easy, almost comfortable cloak to put on to ignore what is actually happening to our planet, our home, the only one we have, the only one we will ever have. We have to somehow learn to live with each other and work together to mitigate the fallout. Climate change is probably irreversible now, but we can attempt to stop it getting ever worse, but we have to actually talk to each other as equals to achieve this.
Excellent post along with others above which show the posturing of Musk, Farage and his reform Ltd cohorts plus the tories and their antics in parliament to be a disgrace, shameful.
Excuse me, there's too much refreshing logic being posted on this thread today. I'm leaving this page with a sense of hope and positivity. How dare you?!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cgq1qxlev4vo The UKs first drugs consumption room is finally* set to open on Monday in Scotland do we think this is enabling sick individuals to continue to harm themselves or protecting our most vulnerable and preventing death? *finally in the sense of it being long debated as opposed to giddy excitement.
Having seen the benefits of safe rooms, drugs testing in cities at raves and festivals and progressive moves toward decriminalisation I'm all in favour. There's a drop in deaths and need for emergency treatment, a reduction in crime and more successful rehabilitation programs.
Good post. Personal experiences like yours are a good way to understand how you feel about this country and informative for those of us who haven't faced those kind of prejudices. I'm sure you realise that the post that we were discussing wasn't the same as the one that Chilco decided to delete. Chilco is more concerned with trying to find ways to ban me than whether it was actually racist or not, I defy anyone to find something racist in the post he removed. On the one that we were discussing however, it will be interesting to hear why you saw it the way you did. I hope that discussions about race, colour, integration and so on can be had in a sensitive, respectful and open manner without someone waving a spurious racist flag. That I don't think it can be is why I will send you a PM rather than put it on here.
As you insist on raising this again I will explain the reasons for my action yesterday. 1. You posted a tweet showing an image of a number of people with brown faces and the caption “Why Labour doesn’t want a national inquiry into the Islamic rape gangs”. 2. I considered this to be an example of exactly the kind of casual racism no.7 was talking about in his post as the implication is that Moslems in general somehow support the grooming gangs and that Labour want to find favour with the Islamic population by not pursuing the prosecutions of the gangs. Neither of these things is true by the way. 3. While Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer changed the guidelines on child sex abuse to allow more prosecutions than had previously been possible. By the time he left office the highest number of prosecutions on record were under way. This isn’t a man shying away from pursuing criminals because of their ethnicity. 4. The government are prioritising the implementation of the IICSA Report recommendations in order to pursue historic sex offenders and protect potential future victims. The report covers all forms of child sex abuse, of which the grooming gangs form a tiny part. The report estimates that 15% of all girls and 5% of all boys are sexually abused before the age of 16. Sexual abuse by grooming gangs was estimated by a senior police officer recently as making up about 3% of all child sexual abuse cases. 5. The IICSA report was published in October 2022. None of the recommendations in the report were implemented by the Conservative government. The current Leader of the Conservative Party Kemi Badenoch has never raised the subject of grooming gangs or child sexual abuse in Parliament until Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, despite having previously held office as Undersecretary of State for Children and Families, and as Secretary of State for Women and Equalities. 6. The Bill being debated on Wednesday isn’t connected to the grooming gangs in any way, but seeks to tighten up protection of children at school and at home. If the Tory amendment wrecking the Bill and as an afterthought calling for a new national inquiry had passed, there would not have been a national inquiry. All that would have happened is that the Bill to improve protection of vulnerable children would have fallen. 7. Labour have not ruled out holding a further national inquiry but are prioritising action at this stage.
I was today years old when I found out, watching a short speech from a Labour MP in the House, about the Reform MP James McMurdock, that MPs don’t have to submit to being checked by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). In some of my work life, in the later years, I had to have mandatory enhanced DBS checks, because I was working with vulnerable people. I fully understand the reasons for having them and had no fears about being checked. When you see the areas in which MPs have power to control and affect the lives of the population, surely DBS checks should be mandatory. A different Labour MP, Jo White, has suggested that a DBS check should form part of the “Welcome to parliament” introduction new MPs go through, but I would suggest every last one of them should be subjected to the checks.
Reposted: An apology and retraction from IOAG would be appropriate. I don't know if he's read Why We Kneel How We Rise, unlikely given some of his posts, highly recommended.
I don’t expect or need an apology by the way, but I wholeheartedly agree about Michael Holding’s brilliant book.
The thing is, I may be misguided, but I don't see IOAG him(her?)self as an outright racist. It is just the casual, accepted racism that I used to hear that some people (eg Trump) are trying to make ok again in society. Trust me, I can spot a true racist a mile off. As I said Mrs No7 is sometimes guilty of saying things without thinking that I call her out on. I know she isn't racist, but it needs to be pointed out how some things can be considered by a non white. I reiterate it isn't the 'loony left' or 'political correctness gone mad'. It is we have moved on as a society and some things are no longer acceptable. In the past many comments or things would have been ignored, but in 2025 we are now a more multi racial society and some things are not acceptable. Probably need to move on from this as I hold no beef with anyone (who is still allowed to post ) on here. I also don't feel anyone left is outright racist.
