The whole anti “woke”* thing seems to be nothing more than a desire to return to the old days when you could call a spade a spade, so to speak, without caring about the offence caused, typically to those already disadvantaged by race, sexuality, etc.
*And I suspect many who use the term woke as a criticism would struggle to define it other than as stuff in modern society that I don’t like.
Never.
Do you really think this would have hit the headlines if Hester hadn’t been a major Tory donor?
Yes I do.
Then why has it taken so long to come out?
The party is, I think, irrelevant. I’m under no doubt whatsoever that the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph, GBNews, Guido Fawkes, the Spectator, etc… would have been all over this if it was a Labour, SNP, LibDems or Plaid Cymru donor.
Just look at what those newspapers and media outlets did when Starmer had a curry and a beer after work during lockdown. Or look at what they tried to do to smear Sturgeon over the years.
The fact they’ve not published something equivalent is indicative of there not being anything rather than the UK mainstream media favouring anybody but the Tories and burying bad news.
In a way, Frank Hester is also irrelevant. I imagine none of us had heard of him before this scandal broke. In my opinion he’s a racist and a misogynist, but he’s not alone in that. There are sadly plenty who think like him.
The fact he’s the Tory party’s biggest donor, that they refuse to distance themselves from his racist comments - although I saw that Badenoch forced Sunak’s hand yesterday (which I think is telling of how ambitious she is) - and have not only refused to return the donations but also said they’d gladly accept future ones… That is extremely relevant.
As Stephen Flynn said in PMQs earlier today, the government has put money before morals. Without wanting to be overdramatic, it’s a sad day for British politics. Within the life of this government we’ve seen 2 MPs from different parties be murdered. Regardless of my opinion of Diane Abbott (and trust me I’m no fan of hers), someone stating she should be killed should have no place in any political party.
It’s the number of employment tribunals that is really shocking. A total of 2,917 to date. Don’t know how many were ruled for or against the employee as I have a life.
Just been found out I would think!
I wonder what the reaction would have been taking “black” out of it, replacing it with Irish and replace Abbott with Mary Lou McDonald? Hell to pay I suspect.
And their donations would not be acceptable to a respectable political party.
When I asked this I thought to myself “obviously this can’t be about that hateful pr*ck who’s just been caught out as a nasty racist” hence the question… 
Now now… Apparently he was just being blunt. After all, he’s from Yorkshire!
Is this also 30p Lee’s excuse? Anyone north of Watford can get away with being hateful by blaming their northernness 
I’m in!
So, you behave in a way that is perceived as stereotypical for your character & that makes being racist OK?
Bloody hell - this is straight out of the Third Reich play book.
I’m not from Yorkshire, but I have no trouble calling a racist a racist…
But some could possibly find that quite patronizing, so how would you deal with their feelings. See what I did there. And I think that highlights perfectly how social media can interpret and ramp up particular views and opinions to the point of controversy. I very often wonder what would happen if all that energy and focus was channeled into something worthwhile.
No, I really don’t.
Now that I’ve slept on it, I think (and happy to be corrected) that you’re trying to equate criticising someone for their behaviour (e.g. using woke as a lazy insult) with criticising someone for an intrinsic characteristic, and that we should consider that the former might cause offence and both should be considered on an equal footing. Is that right?
If so, then I would fundamentally disagree as one’s behaviour is a choice and if someone doesn’t want to be called out then they could easily make a different choice.
For me the most important thing today was the leader of the Government and the Leader of the opposition facing off against one another like two ten year olds in a playground. I felt and posted the same last week… Today’s agenda was; is/was labour more anti-semitic than the Tories are Islamophobic? Is a raciest Tory donor insulting an anti-semitic defrocked labour MP racism?
Meanwhile back in the real world…
I may be wrong, but I doubt that the gentleman(?) being discussed is a university graduate - more likely a graduate of the School of Gammon…
Does anyone get the impression he actually doesn’t like Diane Abbot?
I’m not a fan of her myself. And he may be someone that expresses many things this kind of way. I’ve come across a few (though tended to be longer ago). Some can even have a heart of gold, and simply not be aware of the reaction of other people
Though Jane is right , if the Tories are going to take his money then needs to be house trained