I don’t read The Sun (is “read” the right verb?) and I stopped reading the Daily Mail when I realised it was either lies, exaggerations or designed to anger.
So I don’t often trip over columns of Richard Littlejohn’s. I recommend anyone who is interested in gay and black rights read his column. He captures what is entirely wrong with today’s left-wing-led ‘rights’ agenda.
Black people are no more or less able than white people to be police officers, nurses, teachers or priests. The very existence of the Black Police Association is a daft nonsense. As is the GPA.
It is important that there is no bullying of any sort in any part of life and most responsible companies and organisations have established ways of avoiding it. But to have an association which is aimed at a section of the population for superficial reasons which could not be reciprocated (the White Police Association and the Straight Police Association would make as much sense — none), is daft.
And I meant to use the word “daft” twice. It is.
On bullying, I was reading a poster in Adur District Council on Friday and the poster used an ingenious method of rooting out bullying. People throughout the Council have put their names down to be contacts for people who are the victims of bullying. Anyone who feels they are a victim can approach any one of the people who’s names are on the poster and have a sympathetic ear who won’t necessarily be part of their management hierarchy. I was struck by what a good idea this is.
A procedure like this ensures that a victim of bullying (whether, as in this post’s subject, it is about homophobia, racism or the size of their nose) can have their torment dealt with. There is absolutely no need to threaten a clearly sensible columnist with thought-crime punishments. Let’s make the next Conservative government the one which puts an end to this nonsense.
The debacle of Section 28 places us in an uncomfortable position on this subject, but it must be obvious to people by now that the majority of Britons do not think that homosexuality is a consort with the devil. The Conservatives are not the purveyors of hate of the 1980s and they can deal, if Cameron chooses, with this steady slip towards a gagged populace.
May 16th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
Where I work we’ve had a bullying and harrassment support “team” with just that sort of poster and so on for the best part of a decade now. It was a union iniative IIRC - the very vanguard of the “left-wing led ‘rights’ agenda” I’d have thought…:) Indeed, I led on it as branch equal opportunities officer at the time I think.
May 17th, 2006 at 12:17 am
Bugger me, I am struggling a bit with this post.
“Black people are no more or less able than white people to be police officers, nurses, teachers or priests.”
What do you mean by this? If you are saying that a black person who is as qualified and as competent as a white person at being a police officer, nurse, teacher or priest, then that’s fine by me, but where does positive discrimination fit into this?
“It is important that there is no bullying of any sort in any part of life and most responsible companies and organisations have established ways of avoiding it.”
Have you ever worked in the real world? Bullying in schools is worse than ever, and in business it is rampant. Yes, companies now have a “procedure”, a “policy”, and a “mission statement”, but it is all PC bollocks. You play by the rules, or you have no career, that is the name of the game.
“Anyone who feels they are a victim can approach any one of the people who’s names are on the poster and have a sympathetic ear…”
As I said, join the real world.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Positive discrimination is a nonsense.
If you play by the rules and have no career then you have a rubbish employer. I am depressed by your take on life — there’s really no hope unless these processes can achieve something.
On bullying in schools, that’s a whole different kettle of fish. The majority of headmasters are incompetent and the lack of a modern grammar school/secondary modern system is hurting our children.
Discipline of children is completely different to discipline of adults and bullying of adults by adults should be erradicable without employing teaching methods of discipline.
May 17th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Like you, I don’t read The Sun, but I have to admit Littlejohn has hit the nail on the head.
Finally people are now starting to talk common sense. I think as a society when we start talking this way, we are ready to approach real, level equality.
I have always felt that positive discrimination of any one race is to the detriment of all other races.
Positive Discrimination is one of the biggest sanctimonies of the 21st Century. It is a non-solution to the problem, no-one would say “Since my clothes get dirty after I wash them, I shall positively disciminate against dirt. Dirty therefore becomes the new clean”.
Or to bring my point closer to the debate, it is like using ‘Positive Bullying’ to end bullying, by bullying the kids who fit the ‘bully-profile’.
Racism and Sexual discrimination will only cease when these factors cease to be taken into consideration with regards to politics, career, education, demographic and statistical analysis.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Secton 28 was not homophobic, it was about stopping “brainwashing our children” which is something you agree with when it comes to ‘Britishness’ education, but you have no problem with gayness education?
Whats going on?
Teachers shouldn’t have the freedom to teach any old shit they want, there has to be some standards.
If I found that my children were having gayness promoted to them by the schools I would take them out of school, not because I am homophobic but because I don’t think its appropriate for children.
re: bullying, I have a disability, I have found that those who are over sensitive get bullied, and those who take it in their stride generally do not, I’ve had bad comments made to me before but I don’t react and they soon give up. I think bullying is getting worse because people are being encouraged to make a fuss and getting bullied more because of it.
May 17th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
Purveyors of hate in the 1980s? How demonised can one decade be? The Tories and Section 28 were wrong, in my opinion, but it was a contrasting era of “Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin” and the emergence (and naming of) AIDS, initially tagged a “gay plague”.
The 1980s Tories - purveyors of hate? No. Part of a very different (and not as “enlightened”) era? Yes.
May 18th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Politics is the means by which people obtain and maintain power. If you, while working in politics, give the impression that you have no time for a particular part of society for superficial reasons you should expect your image to be damaged.
There is no equity between actively teaching ‘Britishness’ and the ‘encouraging’ of homosexuality. Section 28 effectively banned the teaching that homosexuality was not someone’s fault or that it was not something to be frowned-upon. It caused massive repurcussions including, I suggest, an increased use of “gay” as a threat and bully ammunition. If that is not purveying hate then nothing is.
The teaching of “Britishness” is a from-the-centre ruling. The not teaching that Section 28 introduced was also a central ruling. The GLA unforgiveably put Thatcher into a corner, but she needn’t have responded with so little care.
Dave, you’re right that there should be some standards, but I think those standards should be decided by jury-like processes… The GLA, Thatcher, and now Blair, interfered in nasty ways. My thoughts, when you make these concerns, swing straight to the hateful teachings of Islamic miltants who are probably the most concerning lobby-group today — I don’t know what the answers are, but I do know that Section 28 was wrong and more so than just “unenlightened”.
May 18th, 2006 at 10:56 am
I absolutely agree that it was wrong, Gavin, but as someone who was brought up in the 1970s with the knowledge that I was gay, and on the gay scene in the 1980s (I’m now engaged to be married - how things change!) I experienced first hand horribly anti-gay attitudes as a 70s child/teenager and an 80s teenager/twenty-something and all I can say is that Section 28 seemed a symptom of a much wider anti-gay attitude.
That said, openly gay pop stars like Boy George and Pet Shop Boys advanced the gay cause no end in the 1980s.
I do not believe that Clause 28 was seen as an act of outstanding evil by your average man or woman on the street.
The 1970s have been totally rewritten as a caring, sharing era and the 1980s as greed and unkindness unlimited. The truth is rather different.
May 18th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Interesting facts and opinion on Section 28 and attitudes to homosexuality in 60s/70s/80s here: http://80sactual.blogspot.com/2005/05/stop-clause.html
May 18th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Gav, Section 28 was hardly the evil you make it out to be, only a few years before that gays used to be locked up!
I’ve no problem with gays, what I have a problem with is certain special interest groups trying to alter the education system to encourage children to accept their ideas. School is not for brain washing, let parents have the guiding influence and let school be mostly about Math and English etc.
Your idea of jury-like processes sounds good in a way, but since you mentioned Islamics miltants, what do you think they would decide? sometimes we do need some kind of national standard.
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Chris, hope you not offended by my asking but when you say you are getting married, do you mean to a man or woman?, you said things change, I wasn’t sure in which way you meant
May 18th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Not offended at all, mate - to a woman.
May 18th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about its evil-ness.
But I bet we can agree that it came across as illiberal and effected, and effects, the Conservatives’ reputation.
This sort of history (including the fact that being gay was criminal) must take some blame for the police’s current use of positive discrimination.
May 19th, 2006 at 10:15 am
Yep, homosexual acts were illegal in England and Wales until 1967!
I absolutely agree that Section 28 was a very bad thing indeed, but the 1980s were an era of contrasts - polarisation, with the liberal forces which had come to the forefront in the 1950s and 1960s (and were continuing to evolve) clashing with the Thatcher administration (if memory serves me well, the 1981 book, Jenny Lives With Eric & Martin, aimed at primary school children, was published here in 1983) and the emergence of AIDS, which hysterical tabloids were proclaiming as a “Gay Plague”!
The 1980s were turmoil writ large in many ways, the “smug, yuppy” image given to them by the likes of the BBC and others does not do justice to the tremendous upheaval the decade actually was. But I certainly agree that Section 28 was a bad thing.