Waaay OT: Brown - what am I missing?

asprilla

TailWindHome wrote:

Surely the context was the opportunity to talk face to face with the Prime Minister on whatever was important to her.

That's what I was thinking. I'm fairly sure it was just a stream of consiousness spounting out of her mouth rather than wanting to stick to the issues like the TV debates and their 76 rules.

It's not every day you get to talk to the outgoing PM so she probably wanted to talk about what she thought was important.

W1

Transcript here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ ... 649448.stm

The Brown "facepalm" will live on in internet land for a long while I would think.

rolf_f

This is so wierd. Brown is called a hypocrite for being nice to the woman to her face but not behind her back. Now, unless you lot are all lovely and fluffy (and, Cafewanda aside, I don't think you are), then like me you are all the time acting differently to peoples faces than behind their backs. It's how we are and all Brown has done is expose this. Yet no-one in the media seems to be prepared to own up and admit that they are, like Brown, human. And in Browns case he is a politician so he is paid to be like that.

If anyone can stand up and say that they always say exactly what they think to people then I will a) congratulate them and b) ask them to count the number of friends they have on the fingers of one heavily amputated hand......

will3

tomb353 wrote:

context is important, if you go to Rochdale or any former mill town in yorkshire you are going to be asked about immigration. Race relations are not good in these towns, this does not make everyone who lives there and wants to discuss immigration or race a bigot.

Absolutely.
I got told to go away and never come back in Lancashire once.
And I'd only cycled there from Derbyshire.

Besides not discussing or addressing these people's concerns is leaving the back door open to the BNKIP

CiB

Bigot - A prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his or her own; one who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; one who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion ...

Hardly describes a woman who asks a prefectly reasonable question when she gets what some us would kill for - the chance to harangue brown for a minute or two, with or without the media in tow.

Here's what was said in the context of the 'ignorant bigot' 'appearing to blame pretty much all of the woes of the nation on Eastern Europeans' - the full transcript is readily available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7646088/General-Election-2010-Gordon-Brown-versus-Gillian-Duffy-transcript-in-full.html

First up, Brown called her a bigot. He didn't refer to her as an ignorant bigot. No-one has, and most of the media reports that I saw (and really enjoyed) yesterday and this morning seemed to be at pains to point out that what Mrs Duffey had raised was perfectly reasonable, and is exactly the sort of thing that hasn't been discussed at all either during this election or throughout the whole of the later part of the 20th century right up to today. Anyone who questions immigration is immediately branded a bigot, a racist, someone who's views can be readily dismissed as worthless. AT welcome that club, that section of society that instantly wants to shovel any discussion of immigration under the carpet by calling Mrs Dufffey and her ilk 'an ignorant bigot'. Don't mention Johny Foreigner eh? Perhaps they'll all go away if we don't mention them eh what? Ar$e. :roll:

Anyway, here's what was said:

GD: There’s too many people now who aren’t vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable who can’t claim, can’t get it.

GB: But, they shouldn’t be doing that. There’s no life on the dole for people anymore. If you are unemployed you’ve got to go back to work. In six months…

GD: You can't say anything about the immigrants. All these eastern Europeans what [sic] are coming in - where are they flocking from?

GB: A million people come from Europe but a million have gone into Europe. You do know that there’s a lot of British people staying in Europe as well. Look, come back to you’re initial principles. Helping people; that’s what we’re in the business of doing. A decent health service; that’s really important. And education. Now, these are the things that we have tried to do. We are going to maintain the schools so that we can make sure that people have that chance to go on. We are going to maintain the health service so that…

GD: What are you going to do about students who are coming in now and all this that you’ve had to pay? You’ve scrapped that, Gordon.

GB: Which one?

GD: To help students who want to go to university.


What's the problem? She asked why the vulnerable can't claim [benefits] when there are in her opinion so many that aren't vulnerable that do claim. That's a valid question to raise isn't it, that with massive cuts on the way whoever wins next week, there will in all probability be a serious reduction in the amount available.

This ignorant bigot, who worked with the disabled, worked with children, and watched her husband die of cancer, knows what vulnerable is. Strikes me that asking one question to do with the scale of immigration in between a load of other questions that related to tax, national debt, tuition fees, the education system, is perfectly valid. I find it hard to accept that she can be described as 'an ignorant bigot' just because she raised the question.


Obviously I'm completley biased towards the woman - her opening line included the words 'And now I’m absolutely ashamed of saying I’m Labour'. Let's hope that there are few more million next week who are prepapred to say and do the same thing.

always_tyred

zanes wrote:

My daughter has high tuition fees and my town is full of foreigners and I don't like them.

Is that bigoted?

I'd probably say "no".* That doesn't imply a direct blame between the high tuition fees and foreigners. The last part is someone's opinion. What we need to do is either say;

How doesn't it imply a link? Of course it implies a link.

I doubt the woman thought it through. She was just having a chat about something and it just popped in there, like any good prejudice.

zanes

Always Tyred wrote:

zanes wrote:

My daughter has high tuition fees and my town is full of foreigners and I don't like them.

Is that bigoted?

I'd probably say "no".* That doesn't imply a direct blame between the high tuition fees and foreigners. The last part is someone's opinion. What we need to do is either say;

How doesn't it imply a link? Of course it implies a link.

I doubt the woman thought it through. She was just having a chat about something and it just popped in there, like any good prejudice.

Like any implication, your interpretation of it depends on your viewpoint on the subject. I feel immigration should be freely and openly discussed at all levels in this country. Does that make me a bigot? Is there some "approved" method of acceptable debate on this *


*Aside from the government approved silence/racist stance, of course.

jonny_trousers

Rolf F wrote:

This is so wierd. Brown is called a hypocrite for being nice to the woman to her face but not behind her back. Now, unless you lot are all lovely and fluffy (and, Cafewanda aside, I don't think you are), then like me you are all the time acting differently to peoples faces than behind their backs. It's how we are and all Brown has done is expose this. Yet no-one in the media seems to be prepared to own up and admit that they are, like Brown, human. And in Browns case he is a politician so he is paid to be like that.

If anyone can stand up and say that they always say exactly what they think to people then I will a) congratulate them and b) ask them to count the number of friends they have on the fingers of one heavily amputated hand......

Exactly!

I don't really care about the politics in this case (as I said before, I will not be voting for Labour anyway) or whether the old bint is a bigot or not. It is the fact that we are making a song and a dance because one man said something slightly offence about someone else behind their back when we all do the same thing day in day out. There are a lot of pots calling the kettle black. By all means roast Brown, but at least do it over Labour policy and not this one silly gaff.

always_tyred

CiB wrote:

GD: You can't say anything about the immigrants. All these eastern Europeans what [sic] are coming in - where are they flocking from?

This ignorant bigot, who worked with the disabled, worked with children, and watched her husband die of cancer, knows what vulnerable is. Strikes me that asking one question to do with the scale of immigration in between a load of other questions that related to tax, national debt, tuition fees, the education system, is perfectly valid. I find it hard to accept that she can be described as 'an ignorant bigot' just because she raised the question.

I see. So if you do something good, you gain bigotry credits to use elsewhere? And if you are on a low income, you get a bigotry allowance up to £6000, which labour will raise to £7500 after the election.

NB: I suspect the Eastern Europeans are flocking from Eastern Europe.

Finbar Saunders

will3 wrote:

Precisiely.
To add to my previous post

Possibly the:
to her face: nice to meet you etc etc
behind her back: awfull bigot etc etc
to her face/on radio etc: I didn't mean it really

Why would you believe anything he ever says?

I can't think of any politician from one of the parties with a chance doing anything different.

tailwindhome

Always Tyred wrote:

CiB wrote:

GD: You can't say anything about the immigrants. All these eastern Europeans what [sic] are coming in - where are they flocking from?

This ignorant bigot, who worked with the disabled, worked with children, and watched her husband die of cancer, knows what vulnerable is. Strikes me that asking one question to do with the scale of immigration in between a load of other questions that related to tax, national debt, tuition fees, the education system, is perfectly valid. I find it hard to accept that she can be described as 'an ignorant bigot' just because she raised the question.

I see. So if you do something good, you gain bigotry credits to use elsewhere? And if you are on a low income, you get a bigotry allowance up to £6000, which labour will raise to £7500 after the election.

NB: I suspect the Eastern Europeans are flocking from Eastern Europe.

Thrust into the same situation, an unscripted, unprepared meeting with the PM would any one of us honestly have been any more articulate?

will3

TailWindHome wrote:

Always Tyred wrote:

CiB wrote:

GD: You can't say anything about the immigrants. All these eastern Europeans what [sic] are coming in - where are they flocking from?

This ignorant bigot, who worked with the disabled, worked with children, and watched her husband die of cancer, knows what vulnerable is. Strikes me that asking one question to do with the scale of immigration in between a load of other questions that related to tax, national debt, tuition fees, the education system, is perfectly valid. I find it hard to accept that she can be described as 'an ignorant bigot' just because she raised the question.

I see. So if you do something good, you gain bigotry credits to use elsewhere? And if you are on a low income, you get a bigotry allowance up to £6000, which labour will raise to £7500 after the election.

NB: I suspect the Eastern Europeans are flocking from Eastern Europe.

Thrust into the same situation, an unscripted, unprepared meeting with the PM would any one of us honestly have been any more articulate?

I might have been more succinct and to the point

rjsterry

Well, he did say in the previous debate that he didn't do presentation very well (or words to that effect). He's hardly unusual in saying one thing in public and another in private. Anyone on here claim to have never muttered under their breath about their boss/important client?

Polish immigrants are nigh on essential to my industry, but even I (as bleeding-hearted a liberal muesli-eating Guardian reader as you will find) can see that if the population in a particular area increases sharply (by immigration or other mechanism), without a corresponding increase in provision of public services, there are going to be problems. It's obviously not because 'they are foreign', it's just because the public infrastructure doesn't have the capacity to cope with sudden increases in population.

suzyb

Not getting involved suffice to say, finally I've found someone (AT) who shares the same opinion as me.

zanes

suzyb wrote:

Not getting involved suffice to say, finally I've found someone (AT) who shares the same opinion as me.

What, someone asking the PM difficult questions about immigration is automatically a racist bigot?

el_presidente

Off topic even further but here's the first exchange from that transcript of the Brown-Duffy conversations:


1141 BST: While on a walkabout in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, Mr Brown speaks to Mrs Duffy.

Gillian Duffy: How are you going to get us out of all this debt, Gordon?

PM: Well, deficit reduction plan, cut the debt by half over the next four years, we've got the plans, they've been set out to do it. Look, I was the person who came in...


Brown's reply say's he's going to "cut the DEBT by half over the next four years". This is a blatant lie. What they actually plan to do is cut the annual deficit by half, by which time UK debt will have doubled from approx 690Bn to 1.4 Tn.

Either Brown is deliberately confusing the two, or he doesn't know the difference (!), or he;s been spinning for so long he just can't give a straight answer. the whole thing stinks

will3

el_presidente wrote:

Off topic even further but here's the first exchange from that transcript of the Brown-Duffy conversations:


1141 BST: While on a walkabout in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, Mr Brown speaks to Mrs Duffy.

Gillian Duffy: How are you going to get us out of all this debt, Gordon?

PM: Well, deficit reduction plan, cut the debt by half over the next four years, we've got the plans, they've been set out to do it. Look, I was the person who came in...


Brown's reply say's he's going to cut the DEBT by half over the next four years. What they actually plan to do is cut the annual deficit by half, by which time UK debt will have doubled from approx 690Bn to 1.4 Tn.

Either Brown is deliberately confusing the two, or he doesn't know the difference (!), or he;s been spinning for so long he just can't give a straight answer. the whole thing stinks

Look, he know how he got us into this mess so he knows how to get us out of it
k?

always_tyred

TailWindHome wrote:

Thrust into the same situation, an unscripted, unprepared meeting with the PM would any one of us honestly have been any more articulate?

I would have paniced and blurted, "Burma!"

(Python reference)

greg66_tri_v2.0

Does it not tend to display, rather too vividly, his view of those whose views differ from his? He could have gone with "outdated generalisations" or some such. Instead he chose the more tendentious "bigot".

Listen to the Jeremy Vine interview. He tries to slip in a couple of moderating fibs there.

And the spin machine is ludicrous: Mandy yesterday said "we all say things we don't believe. The measure of a person is how they respond". Err, so: "we all lie; the measure of us is what we do when caught". The Postman this morning on R4: "Gordo would have gone back to apologise against the advice of his media advisers". Really? They'd be Terry Fuckwit and his stupid mate-media advisers then, would they? And "would have"? That's what's called a guess, Postie.

always_tyred

zanes wrote:

suzyb wrote:

Not getting involved suffice to say, finally I've found someone (AT) who shares the same opinion as me.

What, someone asking the PM difficult questions about immigration is automatically a racist bigot?

Its not automatic. You have to blame immingrants for something they haven't got anything to do with, such as pensions credits, in order to qualify as a bigot.

That's my point. Immigration is an important issue, so lets not mess it up by confusing it with bigotry (for example by appending "and assylum" every time, as the Tories do, because obviously they are the same..... :? )

DonDaddyD

The news report I saw was heavily edited. She did seem just to only mention Eastern Europeans.

So the question has to asked....

Are 'we' blaming Eastern Europeans for the fact that 'we' can't get jobs now? I must be out of touch, I'm still blaming Blacks and Irish. LIT you're usually up with all this?

will3

Greg66 wrote:

Mandy yesterday said "we all say things we don't believe.

That's right. We all say things we don't belive in private when we think noone's listening, and tell the truth in public. :roll:

always_tyred

Greg66 wrote:

Does it not tend to display, rather too vividly, his view of those whose views differ from his? He could have gone with "outdated generalisations" or some such. Instead he chose the more tendentious "bigot".

Listen to the Jeremy Vine interview. He tries to slip in a couple of moderating fibs there.

And the spin machine is ludicrous: Mandy yesterday said "we all say things we don't believe. The measure of a person is how they respond". Err, so: "we all lie; the measure of us is what we do when caught". The Postman this morning on R4: "Gordo would have gone back to apologise against the advice of his media advisers". Really? They'd be Terry Fuckwit and his stupid mate-media advisers then, would they? And "would have"? That's what's called a guess, Postie.

If you hate spin, how do you tolerate the tosh that biased media reporting feeds you?

In this case, the fact that he was rude, blunt, grumpy but ultimately correct, appears to have gone entirely unnoticed by everyone except his political oponents who are virtually falling over themselves not to comment.

Gullible doesn't come close to describing the British public, sometimes.

TheStone

el_presidente wrote:

Off topic even further but here's the first exchange from that transcript of the Brown-Duffy conversations:


1141 BST: While on a walkabout in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, Mr Brown speaks to Mrs Duffy.

Gillian Duffy: How are you going to get us out of all this debt, Gordon?

PM: Well, deficit reduction plan, cut the debt by half over the next four years, we've got the plans, they've been set out to do it. Look, I was the person who came in...


Brown's reply say's he's going to "cut the DEBT by half over the next four years". This is a blatant lie. What they actually plan to do is cut the annual deficit by half, by which time UK debt will have doubled from approx 690Bn to 1.4 Tn.

Either Brown is deliberately confusing the two, or he doesn't know the difference (!), or he;s been spinning for so long he just can't give a straight answer. the whole thing stinks

Spot on. Apparently he also lied about her tax allowance for next year, but I haven't had
a chance to check this for myself.

I'm not in anyway against immigration (tends to be a big plus for the middle class as they
get cheaper labour), but there's something very wrong when she mentions it by focusing
on quite a general set of people that have come to her area and is branded a bigot.

As for the privacy of his rant - 'Nothing to hide, nothing to fear'

always_tyred

DonDaddyD wrote:

The news report I saw was heavily edited. She did seem just to only mention Eastern Europeans.

So the question has to asked....

Are 'we' blaming Eastern Europeans for the fact that 'we' can't get jobs now? I must be out of touch, I'm still blaming Blacks and Irish. LIT you're usually up with all this?

No, no, the Irish are responsible for the falls in the stock markets. Keep up now.

zanes

Always Tyred wrote:

That's my point. Immigration is an important issue, so lets not mess it up by confusing it ..... by appending "and asylum" every time, as the Tories do, because obviously they are the same..... :? )

Something I totally agree with.

I still say people are too quick to cry "racist" or "bigot" everytime someone mentions immigration, but meh.

always_tyred

zanes wrote:

Always Tyred wrote:

That's my point. Immigration is an important issue, so lets not mess it up by confusing it ..... by appending "and asylum" every time, as the Tories do, because obviously they are the same..... :? )

Something I totally agree with.

I still say people are too quick to cry "racist" or "bigot" everytime someone mentions immigration, but meh.

Its true, but I feel that we are on the brink of it swinging badly the other way, as a backlash. Trust me, I've been called bigoted myself by pointing out that increasing the population by 10% on an already crowded small island in 20 years is unsustainable. So I appreciate the irony.

suzyb

zanes wrote:

suzyb wrote:

Not getting involved suffice to say, finally I've found someone (AT) who shares the same opinion as me.

What, someone asking the PM difficult questions about immigration is automatically a racist bigot?

No that it's a rare piece of honesty from a politician which imho is nice to hear.

bails87

zanes
Have a read.


The 'bigotted woman' statement could have actually referred to the nonsense she was spouting about out of work benefits. She seemed to have formed an uninformed view in her head and wasn't going to change it, about people being on the dole for life, and others not being able to claim anything. Just a thought.

TommyEss

I thought the main problem was that yeah, she did sound quite bigoted - she demonstrated a similar attitude to many people of her generation (many - not all!) and he's intelligent enough to have spotted this, and then was pissed off that his staff had seen fit to let her approach him and leave him to have to smile and tell her "What a pleasure it is to meet you" when inside he's thinking "What a horrible person - why are so many of my Labour heartland voters like this!?"

Only he can't very well come out and say that to her, can he?

She does look very upset at the comment - but then, the truth hurts sometimes, doesn't it?!

As for Brown - I still think he's a gobshite, I've never been a fan of Labour, but my political allegiance is besides the point here - I'm actually chuffed at Brown for saying what he did. He's right. She was bigoted. In an ideal world, he wouldn't have had to apologise, but he's a politician, which is 99% PR these days, so he's had to.

The other parties are quiet because they know she's a bigot too, but it won't do either of them any good to jump up and shout about it, will it?