I think the issue is Lineker is a sports presenter with a huge following and therefore his followers pick up on every remark he says, he works indirectly for an organisation funded by the government therefore any extremism view outside of his sports specialty is not welcome by the BBC or government (if it’s anti- government)!
The logical end point of this line of reasoning is that anyone working for the BBC can only express viewpoints if they are welcome to the government....effectively creating a pro-government mouthpiece.
We’d all be having a good old chuckle if this were Russia and Gary Linekevski was slagging the war in Ukraine.
I'm sure you meant to say "as well as being extremely stupid, this caller to Lbc shows breathtaking levels of historical illiteracy". Bloody keyboard, eh? As for the 'make the fascists squirm' comment... Word fail me. Some people really don't get it, do they?
Very, very eye-opening doc on R4 yesterday that mainly focussed on Tory candidates/MPs, effectively, campaigning for Mohdri and the BJP in their constituencies: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001k0mr I'm assuming that this is going on in the, fairly 'brown'(South Asian descent), constituencies of Watford - and must be quite divisive as Watford's community is mainly Muslim and Sikh?
Jews weren’t trying to illegally migrate to Germany! They were German citizens. Braverman’s remarks are absolutely incomparable to the language used to introduce racial laws, organize pogroms etc etc etc in the 1930s. To attempt to equate the two is downplaying the crimes of the last century to such an extent that it is bordering on holocaust denial. That’s it on this from me.
You're 'superficially correct' - the allusion to to 30's style language was more about the Nazis wanting the Jews to emigrate from Germany (and the Nazis were beginning to introduce exceptionally petty bureaucratic and expensive processes to 'aid' this: a certificate from the post office to prove you didn't owe them for any insufficient postage to items sent to, and from, your home address?) and it was the start of the process that would strip Jews of their German citizenship.
By the mid-30's the Nazi were working with anyone to 'aid' Jewish emigration: https://www.kedem-auctions.com/en/c...a-and-star-david–-nazi-travels-palestine-1934
You miss the point that the core Nazi message was that Jews had originally settled in Das Reich illegally and that their ‘citizenship’ was always illegal.
Singling out any group as being the cause of so many problems is always dodgy. When the Government has deliberately declined real solutions such as safe routes, post Brexit agreements and processing on the continent, it’s as dodgy as ****. Thankfully, under this smokescreen, at least some of that is emerging. The smokescreen is to keep its more boneheaded supporters inside. We, therefore, have a Government tailoring its communications to the extreme right. Everyone else just wants rational, fair immigration policy.
Which minority is going to be targeted this week? I have heard rumblings of them swinging back round to attacking benefit claimants on the 15th. Dangerous times we live in and with a financial collapse imminent things will only get worse as the elite try to turn our attentions elsewhere instead of looking at them. Same as it ever was......
They're going to target the work-shy early retirement bunch, if the weekend's Daily Mail interview with Jeremy Hunt is anything to go by. Headline: '50 is no time to put your feet up. You've got 20 more years of graft in you': Chancellor Jeremy Hunt speaks to GLEN OWEN in an exclusive interview on the eve of his Budget to lure millions of the UK's middle-aged back to work' Risky strategy going after their core voters like this. The acceptable pitch for Toryism is that it's about making a success of yourself, being self-sufficient, not being a drain on the state, saving for your retirement, spending etc. Now the reward for that is to get back to work, you lazy layabouts. Get out of Cafe Nero and the garden centre. Stop pootling about town in your gas guzzling car, browsing the internet for your next holiday. So what if you've earned it and can afford it, there's work to be done. You're not a valid economic unit if you're sitting in the garden reading the Mail on your iPad, you know. With any luck it'll backfire on them spectacularly. Retirement age rising to 68 for those born after April 1978. It'll go up again to 70 in the coming years, I'm sure. Meanwhile, our friends over the channel are striking because the French Govt wants to increase the retirement age from 62! Ha ha ha. Yeah, it's as bad as Britain everywhere else, folks. Now that's enough for now. Back to work with you!
Thinking more broadly about the Lineker thing, why is it such a big deal that ANYBODY is 'impartial'. They have politicians on all the time. What is the difference? "Oh" they will say, "with politicians you know where they stand politically". Surely anybody who speaks out on a moral/political issue is making their stance clear. I don't get it. If the BBC wants its contributors to reflect all sides with balance - employ contributors from the other side. Get Allardyce, Warnock and Holloway to present MotD2. Try to find some right wing comics - Lee Hurst and Jim Davidson, say - to go on panel shows. Get some right wing actors to star in prime dramas - "Laurence Fox IS Sgt Catherine Cawood!" Get "The Rev" Calvin Robinson to host Songs of Praise. The awkward fact for the BBC, and the reason that they are in such a hole, is that 95% of creatives, of their talent, the presenters, actors, comedians, musicians are decent and left-leaning; a right wing board of Tory placemen is having to pretend this is not so.
I've seen this ridiculous argument being bandied about. "The Jews weren't trying to get in, they were trying to get out!" I wonder why. Maybe it was about the language used by the government to demonise them, swallowed by a gullible population impoverished and humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles??
Funded by licence payers the same way the tax payer funds the Government and Parliament. At least the BBC appears to be with us if you steer clear of the news. About time the Government were shown who they work for and it is for the betterment of everyone no matter which side of the political divide you are on or whether you arent interested in politics.
Exactly this. The BBC impartiality argument falls down immediately because it's absolute nonsense. Being impartial means not being biased, treating everyone equally. If you want true impartiality on the BBC then start by forcing everyone to declare all their interests. When a politician is on, scrutinise the list of members' interests and their past and present business dealings. Don't just say "Conservative MP for Watford." Tell us who they also work for, which directorships they hold, what shares they own etc. When a talking head is on, or a host, there should be full disclosure of who they are and what they stand for and who is paying them. BBC Radio 4s Today programme is hosted by Nick Robinson, founder member of the Macclesfield Young Conservative. The BBC trusts him to host their flagship political show and one could say that his coverage is decidedly partial at times.
Dunno about that. I mean, I was truly surprised when I first learnt about Tory 'roots' as I never ever inferred that from any of his 'work'.
As is a lot of the stuff put about by Kuenssberg & Fiona Bruce, under the pretence of 'even-handedness'. Last week's QT saw the latter allow Jenrick to dominate over 50% of the allocated time for him to parrot his misunderstanding of what Lineker actually said. And did little to prevent him from talking over almost every other panelist.
Is that why Lineker has been receiving ban after ban for the last ten years? I am not convinced you are on to something there, but if you applied it to certain things, such as COVID response and dissemination of official information, I would think you have a point. I think it suggests that the BBC have some leeway, but must toe the line on 'serious' issues. Lineker's comments were pretty strong. If he cannot back them up with anything other than virtue signalling (that is, make an actual link to the nazis) then it is right he should be censured. Not to stop him talking, but to make him think before making cheep unsubstantiated and inflamatory comments. The left would have us all believe that anyone right of centre left is keen to march down White Hall in their jackboots. But whilst they have no desire to explain their love of CRT, a genuinely racist ideology, I think they are standing in a pretty ugly place for making mainstream concerns out to be extremism. The BBC, Lineker included, could justifiably be compared to the nazis for their attitude to race, segregation of job applications and over-representation of minority groups; if you applied their own ideologies to their own behaviour. As it goes, the BBC lost me as a viewer and a listener many years ago. I find them inconsequential and of zero interest. Not because of politics, but because they are shallow, vacuous and tediously uninteresting. Nothing to do with Lineker, who I find quite charming on the whole. I hear he took in a refugee. All a bit stupid, but he put his money where his mouth is, so good on him. That doesn't make it OK when he says something silly though. That said, if making illegal immigrants illegal is fascism? What on earth is opening up the borders to all comers and handing them out tax payer money? I would describe that as fascism (no one wants it, except the extreme left) plus stupidity that would cripple this country. N.B. it is also only the extreme left that consider their political enemies to be nazis.
I would consider myself 'extreme left' and I would certainly open up the borders to all comers. Having been born into this world, I think you ought to be able to go wherever you want in it, without silly passports and visas and bits of paper with stamps on. However I would not be in favour of "handing out tax payers' money" to those people coming here. There would be no money. I am in favour of abolishing money as well as borders between countries, as I've explained previously. We can then sort out the human race's problems and future in an organised way. Make sure everyone's provided for. A doctor, a school, decent accommodation, sewerage, clean water, enough to eat. Internet too I suppose these days. It'd be easy enough to do if we planned it and put our minds to it. And of course that is the ONLY solution to the migrant 'crisis'. It doesn't matter how high you build the walls and fences and barricades. While things are like they are and getting worse all the time under this silly capitalism and nationalism, people will still keep heading for the Norte, without transporte and without pasaporte....and they'll crawl close to the ground so yer guards don't see 'em and yer dogs don't smell 'em...
As frequently occurs, I very much sympathise with your intentions and desired outcomes. You are a beautiful dreamer! And if I thought removing money from the equation would have the effect you describe, I would be marching with you. But you have seen the Brexit arguments on this very forum, which predominantly consist of 'what was in it for me?" And 'how am I supposed to make money out of this?" And that is coming from posters who consider themselves hard line left wingers. Greed will taint your world just as it does this one. Personally, I like capitalism. I don't like greed. I like equality, but despise equity, outside of the resolution of lawful issues. I do not believe that human nature will ever (except in very few individual circumstances) become selfless enough to achieve the excellent dream you have. Money is not the problem, greed for power is the problem. And the accumulation of wealth is seen as the path to that, no matter what form that wealth takes. That is why I believe in socially conscious capitalism that is well regulated. Some people want an easy life with a fair wage (I believe a work ethic is important within a society), others want to work hard and accumulate wealth. I am happy for that to be rewarded appropriately, provided it is constructive. Also, some people wish to opt out, in the sense of fending for themselves (an opportunity for communism in a pretty pure sense, that does not require enforcement upon unwilling participants) and they should be able to do that -without reliance (subsidy) on anyone else, except mutually beneficial interactions and good will in crises. We may never agree on the method, but I think we are very close on the ideal.
This is only the beginning of the 'migrant' crisis. As climate change makes more of the world close to uninhabitable, causing increasing problems for food and water supply, more and more people are going to be displaced. And they are going to head to Europe. Britian's solution – 'keep 'em out' – is going to be exposed fairly soon, in a matter of years, possibly, as being unworkable and unpopular. There is a middle way between Clive's idealism and those who think that they are entitled – by dint of nothing more than freak of birth – to decide who goes where and divide up the planet with their lines and borders and their 'this is mine, keep out' attitude. The migration debate is such a weird one for me. I mean, where do we end it? Do we end up at a point where people in the nice, rich, wealthy Shires start saying 'no' to economic migrants from the north or the inner cities? I mean, I'm sure there's people who hold those views, but the extension of all this thinking is to tell people to stay where they're born. And take it to the nth degree. 'Sorry, pal, you were born in north Watford. You're not welcome in St Albans." That's not to say the country should have an open door policy but the Daily Mail style hardline just isn't going to work in the medium term. I don't know what will, but the people in charge really should start working on better solutions than the ones they're currently proposing.
This made me think about "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner. I read the book back in the 70's, I have just ordered a copy, it will be fascinating to re-read it in 2023.
I think you may be wrong in some of that. A long standing prediction is that the gulf stream will at some point fail, leading to the UK becoming much colder. We are in an interglacial period now, and only fifteen thousand years ago in the midst of an Ice Age. I know that, for some, to mention natural climate change is interpreted as being a climate change denier (not sure how that works out - it must be the laziest and ignorant of missunderstandings). I do strongly suspect that the climate doom mongers are as wrong now as they were forty years ago. But I wouldn't count on climate being a particular driver, especially if it is from warm climates that may become more verdant, to cool climates that may become decidedly colder. In the UK we all pay tax to the government and local authorities. Taking it to the nth degree is not a strong argument, and invites a mirrored response. No matter how much you would like to avoid it. I think, if I said I did not to hear your extreme argument, you woild think I was trying to dodge the matter. So, taking the extreme left wing argument to the nth degree (one that has actually been made on here several times) do we say "All welcome" and guarantee them a subsidised wage of around 24K? That was mooted, by a poster on here I shall not name (I am not referring to Clive), as a resolution to not only the issue of illegal immigration, but also poorly paid jobs. The collapse of this country under such a generous act would be no good to anyone seeking a safe haven. But I suppose no one would want to come here anyway, by that point.
I'm amazed anyone wants to move to Britain now that it's become such an intolerant hate-filled island with a broken economy that's run by a bunch of fascists who are saying exactly the same things as the Nazis did in Germany in the 1930s
And that's before we even get to their likely reaction when they find out they can't take a thermos into a football stadium.
