The Political Thread

[Hawkmumbler]

Campbell's Scottish isn't it?

A more important political point - when are they going to stop selling fireworks to the general public in the middle of October?
Some twat is setting them off right outside and my cat is freaking out.

People will set off a firework for any old reason these days. The charm has vanished with commercialisation of the novelty.

[Tiplodocus]

Tankie you seem to have definitely  come to the wrong conclusion but Jim, surely  a simple "No, you appear to have misinterprretted what I wrote." without the insult about grown-ups helping would have sufficed?

[Old Tankie]

Fair enough, Tips.

[Eric Plumrose]

Richmond, obviously, I'm not as educated as you and Jim, but why couldn't one read that as saying that no one stacking shelves at Tesco's is getting paid by Tesco's?

I have absolutely no idea how or why you could read it the way you did, because I doubt anyone else did.

Or, to put it another way, why would Tesco fork out a minimum of £130.20 a week to employ someone to stack shelves when the UK Government will pay someone a maximum of £71.70 to do it for them.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Just saw this, and it reminded me of the Ayn rand discussion we had a while back:

[Dandontdare]

the blonde child abducted by police & social services from the Dublin Roma family is confirmed to be their daughter. Can you imagine a nice middle class family having their child taken away for three days because it has different coloured hair?

[Old Tankie]

No.

[von Boom]

the blonde child abducted by police & social services from the Dublin Roma family is confirmed to be their daughter. Can you imagine a nice middle class family having their child taken away for three days because it has different coloured hair?

I would have been snatched in a flash. My parents have black and brunette hair, and I'm ginger. Come to think of it, my sister is blonde. Hmmm. I think I need to speak to my mum.

[TordelBack]

the blonde child abducted by police & social services from the Dublin Roma family is confirmed to be their daughter. Can you imagine a nice middle class family having their child taken away for three days because it has different coloured hair?

I hate to say this about something so unimaginably awful, but the backlash looks like it may actually do some good here.  I suspect it never occurred to a lot of Irish people that the Roma might actually be human instead of some annoying variety of parasite.

Last week my wife had to caution colleagues to control their lunchtime speculations into the Maddy-snatching ways of the evil gypsy last week, as they were (unknowingly) conducting them in front a Roma work-experience kid.  She was initially informed she must be talking crap, since the boy in question also happened to be blond.  This week it's a different story.

[Professor Bear]

I was more or less waiting for some kind of backlash coming out of the Greek story, but it was good to see it resolved so quickly as I could see the Guards dragging that out for years rather than admit wrongdoing.  I blame Enid Blyton for making gypsies the perennial arch-nemeses of the western middle classes, though it's heartening to see the BBC keeping up the gypo-bashing these days in shows like Wolfblood.

[JamesC]

I'm sure I had a Rupert Bear annual in which Rupert and his mates were given mushrooms by some gypsies which made them float off to another land.

Rupert was blond too (apart from on the front cover - he was always brunette on those for some reason). 

[judda fett]

I'm sure I had a Rupert Bear annual in which Rupert and his mates were given mushrooms by some gypsies which made them float off to another land.

Rupert was blond too (apart from on the front cover - he was always brunette on those for some reason).

I went on a substance awareness training course as part of my job and that Rupert story was used as reference. Can't remember if they were gypsies though or mountain pixies (is there much to distinguish between them)?

[JayzusB.Christ]

I hate to say this about something so unimaginably awful, but the backlash looks like it may actually do some good here.  I suspect it never occurred to a lot of Irish people that the Roma might actually be human instead of some annoying variety of parasite.

I hear you.  There sometimes seems to be a view in Ireland that racism 'doesn't apply' to the Roma people; and to my great shame I've been somewhat guilty of it myself in the past.

Fortunately for me, I've got to know a Roma girl who sells the Big Issue beside a shop window I regularly paint, and found out she is a really pleasant person with an enjoyably wicked sense of humour;  in fact I look forward to the banter when I get commissions from the shop in question.  (I did initially have to dissuade her from asking me for large sums of money; she hasn't done since the day I met her.  To be fair, she really doesn't have any, but I tend not to have much either.)

In any case, thankfully I have overcome that particular dose of nasty, ill-informed bigotry.  At least I never believed that Roma mothers 'leave their baby-buggies at the bus stops, because the government gives them free ones whenever they want'. 

[TordelBack]

At least I never believed that Roma mothers 'leave their baby-buggies at the bus stops, because the government gives them free ones whenever they want'.

How could anyone think that?  Everyone knows they government gives them all new-reg people-carriers as soon as they step off the boat, so why would they be on the bus at all. You're thinking of Nigerians.

[JOE SOAP]

Before Blacks, Muslims and Eastern Europeans arrived in Ireland the two despised minority groups were knackers and Italians. We've come a long way.