My nearest town could be back in some measures in a matter of days
Hopefully they don’t take the sledgehammer approach to crack a nut…I feel the people of Leicester and the mayor were treated in a very shoddy manner by Hancock…
Aside from racism, there is another issue here that we have to beware of: the concerted effort in the right-wing media to create the illusion that the right is being ‘no-platformed’ or ‘cancelled’.
There are many good analyses around of how and why this myth is being created - one in today’s Guardian - exposing a typical piece of bogus ‘research’ by a ‘think tank’ (in reality some made-up nonsense by a right-wing lobby group - that has been found to have fabricated ‘evidence’ several times before).
The truth is that, as in 1950s America, the real McCarthyism here is the invented ‘scare’ being propagated again by the extreme right.
The mistreatment of women should be highlighted and campaigned against in any culture. Sometimes however what is in plain sight is barely acknowledged. If you go to the Mail Online you can scroll through an endless sidebar of posts objectifying and demeaning women. How can women have any real power if they see themselves as existing for others’ enjoyment and approval?
Increasingly young men are also subjected to the same pressures to conform to physical perfection. This is less apparent on the tabloid sites but a very real phenomenon none the less. Maybe the obsession with appearance is one way of not dealing with many of the profound challenges we face.
There is a curious kind of confusion here in relation to political correctness. On the one hand we should be able to just say whatever we think and not worry about causing offence but on the other hand if you hate the Daily Mail you are effectively ‘hating’ your fellow citizens.
I do think the Daily Mail is essentially propaganda and ingesting its contents serves as a kind of displacement activity for a darker undercurrent in British life. As the founder of the paper is purported to have claimed on his deathbed “I gave my readers a daily hate.”
As essentially a campaigning paper i.e for Brexit or against immigration, there has been a slow poisoning of the discourse around these issues. On the other hand they have also launched campaigns for the good: justice for Stephen Lawrence or dignity for residents of care homes and also against the massively destructive consumption of plastic.
Taken as a whole though the paper propagates mistrust of our institutions such as the judiciary (“enemies of the people” ) and (sorry to mention the B word) by playing on fear and emotion for decades is responsible for the ill informed Brexit vote amongst a large percentage of the older population. It is the younger generations that will pay the price for this.
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The Daily Mail is ,along with a lot of MSM , pushing an anti police agenda. Don’t get me wrong I will admit that the police aren’t all perfect,no one is,no occupation is .but there is a concerted effort in the media to promote distrust
Edward - thank you so much for daring to write what I have felt.
We’ve seen the ‘good riddance’ comments, among other comments - and the rather harsh treatment of newbies.
I have always felt that trying to put a ‘different’ viewpoint on here seems to arouse the wrath of a small clique who give the impression (probably wrongly but I did feel it) of banding together to howl down the newbie, or the ‘other’ viewpoint.
Thank you for confirming what I felt.
This forum, when I started here, did feel very much as though I was elbowing my way in, where my views were not wanted, or appreciated - not in the main - but there were noticeable posters who seemed to want to shout down anything I said, and to belittle me because I wasn’t clever enough to use all the high flown latin and greek and other foreign stuff.
If this forum is to continue, and to attract newbies of various ages - then there needs to be more tolerance of different views; and less hair-splitting, nit-picking and pendantry going on.
We all make typing mistakes; we’re not all perfect spellers; we don’t all have uni education; we don’t all have a ‘profession’ we’ve retired from - some of us are just ordinary, 'umble, middle of the road people who want to enjoy their life in France, and to enjoy debating, in not too high flown language, different views, different outlooks, different feelings about today’s world.
And sometimes I feel that doesn’t happen on here because often it seems the ‘clique’ is in full cry… - and I can’t get a word in edge ways.
Keep frightening off the newbies - the number of posters will drop - and there won’t be a forum for anyone, any of you, at all.
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G Cox - interesting Guardian article - and which I HAD read, believe it or not.
But, and you know this, it was not the point I was making at all.
In real life there are people, notably in the USA at the moment, who until 2 weeks ago, were regarded as liberal, left-of-centre, respected journalists, professors etc.
Who because of the ‘woke’ and ‘cancel’ and the subtle McCarthysim that is going on - have now found themselves losing their jobs.
Even Salman Rushdie today has said that he is worried about this trend… Salman Rushdie - Rushdie of all people - is worried about this.
It’s as though the fatwah he experienced is now being experienced by other people - from their own kind.
That is what I was trying to point out; not the lefty righty balance in unis - that’s another topic entirely (and you know so).
MJ - I agree with you on many of your points, believe it not !!
But just try talking about fgm - and get a debate going - and it soon becomes clear that for some the ‘cultural/religion’ side over-rules the rights of young girls and women.
As for the side strips on the DM - yes, totally hate them. And the KK rubbish, and all the other useless z-list celebs - shouldn’t be there, and I worry that so many young people do seem to care - as though their lives don’t count unless they can post selfies every day, and aspire to trashy life styles. Awful.
Most people who read the DM know the political bias, as with the Guard and the DT and the Xpress. The DM, as a campaigning newspaper does extremely well - probably because it has such a wide readership to tap into for help and support.
As for ‘distrust’ of our institutions - come on. Just look at the UK ‘institutions’. The HoL - needs to be banished. The judiciary - look at some of the judgements and sentences passed on criminals and you tell me the ordinary person isn’t right to distrust the judicial system - it’s a joke - it is beyond belief.
In a free and democratic society there MUST be distrust of the ‘establishment’ - and criticism of the establishment. Mostly because the wretched establishment have made stupid mistakes and it’s the ordinary Joe Bloggs who has to pick up the pieces, and suffer the consequences of the establishments’ stupidity.
‘Lions led by Donkeys’ comes to mind - and that hasn’t changed over the last 100 years.
So sorry - totally disagree with you on that point.
And yes, I’m a lovely, loyal, sloppy little mongrel; you can kick me down, but I’ll always come back wagging my tail.
Geof, I read that article and came to a quite different conclusion, mainly because it was full of unsupported assertions and sneers.
There were many instances of what you might call “we all know that …” in the article: statements put forward with no justification, apparently because it’s obvious. The first was
" a YouGov poll of 820 academics, which found that 32% of those who identify their political views as “right” or “fairly right” have “stopped openly airing opinions in teaching and research”. On the surface, these numbers sound legitimate – but simple statistical detective work tells us that this equates to no more than about 10 academics currently employed at UK universities."
Now the writer posted - you can see it if you follow the “basic statistical errors” highlight at the end of the para - the information that, of the 820 polled, 484 were currently employed. And we know 32% were right-wing. 32% of 484 is about 160.
Yet Portas reckons “this equates to no more than about 10 academics currently employed at UK universities”.
This seems such a serious error as to make his conclusions wholly invalid.
As some fuckwit once said, “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good (or bad) story”
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Or lies, damn lies and statistics
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I found this experiment interesting.
Too much here to catch up on but one comment caught my eye:
Humans, especially Indo-Europeans are incredibly similar genetically - it is because we are all descended from a very small group that migrated out of Africa. Even prior to that humans did not have a lot of genetic diversity - black Africans have a bit more than whites and Asians but not much.
In fact the average Chimpanzee troupe has more genetic diversity than the whole human species.
So there is no biological basis for race at all
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Mitochondrial Eve
You need to read that again more carefully Stevie - I’m afraid it’s you, not the article, that has misinterpreted it. The subsequent points about letting the truth get in the way of a good story, etc, fit well with my point then, don’t they? - the truth is precisely that ‘McCarthyism’ is of the right, not the left.
Incidentally, this is only one of a number of articles I read on this - academic freedom is an interest of mine - there is much more detail elsewhere - such as that the average age of the survey respondents was over 70! - I can post or message more links on this, or on the Policy Exchange’s previous fabrication of evidence, if you’d like to get to the bottom of it.
Perhaps you could you explain the figures, then, @Geof, because I can’t see it in the article.
In particular, no explanation of how 32% of 484 becomes, through “simple statistical detective work”, 10 rather than 161.
I appreciate you may not know - and obviously you are not Prof Portas’s spokesman!
I do hope you don’t mean me here, with reference to this - (no Latin or Greek but the language of the country we live in). Apologies if this is indeed the case and you don’t read French, it didn’t occur to me anyone wouldn’t.
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Vero - oh no, no, no - please - I didn’t mean you, not at all.
Please - it was a general, sweeping statement - if I had meant it for you especially - I’d have said so…Anyway - it couldn’t have been you - no latin or greek by your own admission !!
It’s hot - I only came in to top up my drinkies and then I’m going back to the pool; wanted to know if daughter had sent e-mail about something important - and I got distracted by you !!
Anne, it might be advisable to not expect people here to be any different from elsewhere. We are all ‘creatures of our own experience’ as Brian Milne used to say so correctly. That means we have some things in common and some not so much. we also cover a few decades which also makes a difference to our points of view.
Some like Peter G have a wealth of experience in health spheres, and others in many others. Peter also has a specific set of very personal race experiences which he has openly described. Most of us have never had that, so we should listen more and learn what we can from others.
Of course we will rarely be able to share the real emotional experiences of others but we must keep open minds as far as possible and try to learn.
I understand your educational concerns, but in fairness I really haven’t found this too derogatory, although I also get irritated by the ‘grammar police’ invariably missing the point of a posting. I think you might b e surprised t how little education many of us here have actually had -especially some of us old farts! All we have to offer is ‘living experience’ and hopefully a little ‘acquired wisdom’ on the way;
However to think that any of us suffer from some sort of superiority complex over others would be completely wrong in my opinion. That we have often forged strong opinions over time is undeniable, but surely excusable and acceptable?
Don’t be too susceptible to disagreements and argument. That’s what makes this site a bit different - at least we don’t hide behind on-screen names and anonymity, and that has to be a good thing?
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Goody Goody! New word écluser = knocking back (the odd 3L box of rosé or two) 
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