UK General Election, 12th December 2019 | Forum poll | Opinion polling | Manifestos & campaigns | Tactical voting

[caseinpoint]

Article full of dogwhistle terms and demeaning comments? Check
400% rise in violence in following weeks? Check

"a pretty moderate and carefully thought out position"? Jesus. I mean you don't have to keep proving you're thick and reprehensible. We got that pages ago. People here are a lot quicker than you.

This is why you shouldn't argue with die hard Tories. You CAN NOT break through their self delusion. It's a core part of their broken, unsaleable 'personalities'.

They don't just want to have alternative opinions, they want to have alternative facts to justify them. And when presented with reality they either shut down or ignore it.

We have a disagreement, you'll just have to deal with that. I think to launch an attack on oppressive clothing is a perfectly valid thing to do. I have deep sympathy with those who wear it, for it is they who get the worse deal of all. Of course, Islam is also not a race, so there's that too.

Again, your core point is this: I'm right and you're wrong. If you don't agree with me you're stupid/selfish/deluded. It really is just weird, and it makes you seem extremely shallow and, if I'm honest, dull. You're only intelligent in as far as knowing how much you don't know. On that measure, you don't come out so hot.

There's no way of doing this without sounding conceited but since you won't drop it - there is almost no chance I am not both more intelligent and better educated/qualified than you, so it'd be nice if you stopped calling me thick.

[Tomous]

That said, I don't think the main example cited against him is an example of racism. If you read his 'letterboxes' piece in full you'll actually find a pretty moderate and carefully thought out position, which I fully agree with.

Can you post the full article for those of us who haven't seen it?

Ah Denmark, what a country. If any society breathes the spirit of liberty, this is it. It was only a few weeks ago that I was in Copenhagen for some international conference, and as ever I rose early and went for a run. As I passed through some yuppie zone of warehouse conversions and posh restaurants I saw to my amazement that the Danes had also got up early for exercise – and they were diving stark naked into the bracing waters of the harbour. And I thought to myself – that’s the Danes for you; that’s the spirit of Viking individualism. I mean, we have a climate warmer than Denmark; but even so, would you expect to see Brits disrobing and plunging into the waters of Canary Wharf, or even Greenwich? We are pretty easy-going, but not that easy-going.

If you wanted to visit a country that seemed on the face of it to embody the principles of JS Mill – that you should be able to do what you want provided you do no harm to others – I would advise you to head for wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

Denmark is the only country in Europe, as far as I know, that still devotes a large proportion of its capital city to an anarchist commune, called Christiania, where I remember spending a happy afternoon 25 years ago inhaling the sweet air of freedom. It is the Danes who still hold out against all sorts of EU tyrannies, large and small.

They still chew their lethal carcinogenic tobacco; they still eat their red-dyed frankfurters; they still use the krone rather than the euro; they still refuse to let foreigners buy holiday homes in Jutland; and of course it was the heroic population of Denmark that on that magnificent day in June 1992 stuck two fingers up to the elites of Europe and voted down the Maastricht treaty – and though that revolt was eventually crushed by the European establishment (as indeed, note, they will try to crush all such revolts), that great nej to Maastricht expressed something about the Danish spirit: a genial and happy cussedness and independence. It is a spirit you see everywhere on the streets of Copenhagen in the veneration for that supreme embodiment of vehicular autonomy, the bicycle. The Danes don’t cycle with their heads down, grimly, in Lycra, swearing at people who get in their way. They wander and weave helmetless down the beautiful boulevards on clapped-out granny bikes, with a culture of cycling in which everyone is treated with courtesy and respect. Yes, if you wanted to visit a country that seemed on the face of it to embody the principles of JS Mill – that you should be able to do what you want provided you do no harm to others – I would advise you to head for wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen.

If you tell me that the burqa is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree

So I was a bit surprised to see that on August 1 the Danes joined several other European countries – France, Germany, Austria, Belgium – in imposing a ban on the niqab and the burka – those items of Muslim head-gear that obscure the female face. Already a fine of 1000 kroner – about £120 – has been imposed on a 28-year-old woman seen wearing a niqab in a shopping centre in the north eastern town of Horsholm. A scuffle broke out as someone tried to rip it off her head. There have been demonstrations, on both sides of the argument. What has happened, you may ask, to the Danish spirit of live and let live?

If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree – and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran. I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes; and I thoroughly dislike any attempt by any – invariably male – government to encourage such demonstrations of “modesty”, notably the extraordinary exhortations of President Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya, who has told the men of his country to splat their women with paintballs if they fail to cover their heads.

I am against a total ban because it is inevitably construed – rightly or wrongly – as being intended to make some point about Islam

If a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured, I should feel fully entitled – like Jack Straw – to ask her to remove it so that I could talk to her properly. If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then ditto: those in authority should be allowed to converse openly with those that they are being asked to instruct. As for individual businesses or branches of government – they should of course be able to enforce a dress code that enables their employees to interact with customers; and that means human beings must be able to see each other’s faces and read their expressions. It’s how we work.

All that seems to me to be sensible. But such restrictions are not quite the same as telling a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business.

[KK]

twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/1204346992958140416

Obligatory...

[Banjo]

Sadly it's one of Johnson's Telegraph columns, meaning it's behind a paywall. Trying to find a copy of it in full.

[Hexx]

I wonder if the Tory voters here can confirm whether they think Johnson is a racist. If so, then why vote for him, and if not, strawberry float off seriously.

Anyone?

It's pretty hard to know what he thinks - he is often happy to say pretty much anything when it suits him and seemingly lacks any proper principles.

That said, I don't think the main example cited against him is an example of racism. If you read his 'letterboxes' piece in full you'll actually find a pretty moderate and carefully thought out position, which I fully agree with.

The absolute state of this

I can't actually believe you're arguing the article where he said "Muslim women wearing burkas look like letter boxes" was a carefully thought out piece.

Or where girls turn up to lectures "looking like a bank robber". Last time this came up there was 2 examples of that that could be found after much scrambling around. So let's double it since time as past. Ooooohhh 4 robberies in a Burka. How many do you think they've been white guys in tracksuits? But name let's demean and sinisterise the different/other. I mean it's textbook

Jesus

Go an read it, then tell me, in detail, what you disagree with. I can only assume you haven't read it, which is why you've picked a specific line out and equated it to something it is not.

Why?
You've already ignored two people to remain in your delusional bubble? (I mean picking up the problem sections and explaining why? How very dare we? Bringing facts to a feelings discussion? It's beyond the pale)
Why should anyone waste anymore time on the likes of you?

You're ok supporting a racist. We all get it. And no one is surprised

[Hexx]

Again, your core point is this: I'm right and you're wrong. If you don't agree with me you're stupid/selfish/deluded.

Regardless of the overall message of the article might be you're hand waving away a series of unpleasant and necessary terms (mixtures of demeaning, incendiary and antagonistic)

You think the article contain those words, is "moderate and carefully thought out" Fact.

Those words and phrases are racist. Fact
After that article there was a spike of 400% incease Fact.

So yeah. We're right. You're wong. And you're stupid and delusional. Fact.

There's no way of doing this without sounding conceited but since you won't drop it - there is almost no chance I am not both more intelligent and better educated/qualified than you, so it'd be nice if you stopped calling me thick.

We can whip em out and compare if you want. Might be fun. But if you keep acting like the thickest thicko that ever thicked. People are going to think you a big dumb dumb.

[That]

I'll highlight the parts I think are relevant. (I cut some fluff about Denmark from the beginning and end.)

If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree – and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran. I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes; and I thoroughly dislike any attempt by any – invariably male – government to encourage such demonstrations of “modesty”, notably the extraordinary exhortations of President Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya, who has told the men of his country to splat their women with paintballs if they fail to cover their heads.

If a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured, I should feel fully entitled – like Jack Straw – to ask her to remove it so that I could talk to her properly. If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then ditto: those in authority should be allowed to converse openly with those that they are being asked to instruct. As for individual businesses or branches of government – they should of course be able to enforce a dress code that enables their employees to interact with customers; and that means human beings must be able to see each other’s faces and read their expressions. It’s how we work.

All that seems to me to be sensible. But such restrictions are not quite the same as telling a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business.

I am against a total ban because it is inevitably construed – rightly or wrongly – as being intended to make some point about Islam. If you go for a total ban, you play into the hands of those who want to politicise and dramatise the so-called clash of civilisations; and you fan the flames of grievance. You risk turning people into martyrs, and you risk a general crackdown on any public symbols of religious affiliation, and you may simply make the problem worse. Like a parent confronted by a rebellious teenager determined to wear a spike through her tongue, or a bolt through her nose, you run the risk that by your heavy-handed attempt to ban what you see as a bizarre and unattractive adornment you simply stiffen resistance.

The burka and the niqab were certainly not always part of Islam. In Britain today there is only a tiny, tiny minority of women who wear these odd bits of headgear. One day, I am sure, they will go.

The article came at a time of particular tension for the Muslim community in this country, being around the introduction of the "Burkha ban" in other European countries, and Islamophobic hate crime spiked by nearly 4x after the article was published.

[Hexx]

I can't believe we're back to spending pages of trying to rationalise with and educate that piece of shite

Unsalvageable

[caseinpoint]

Again, your core point is this: I'm right and you're wrong. If you don't agree with me you're stupid/selfish/deluded.

Regardless of the overall message of the article might be you're hand waving away a series of unpleasant and necessary terms (mixtures of demeaning, incendiary and antagonistic)

You think the article contain those words, is "moderate and carefully thought out" Fact.

Those words and phrases are racist. Fact
After that article there was a spike of 400% incease Fact.

So yeah. We're right. You're wong. And you're stupid and delusional. Fact.

I think you genuinely don't understand what a fact is.

They are not racist. Slightly up for debate, granted, but I maintain that they are not. However, he was cleared of any wrongdoing after the comments were investigated. Fact. You need to be really careful throwing false accusations of racism around - you'll lower it's currency and when the real racists come noone will believe you.

Was there a spike in racism afterwards? Maybe, it's hard to measure. Was it attributible to the article? Impossible to say.

Now you've read it, you're on very shaky ground and boy doesn't it show.

[caseinpoint]

I can't believe we're back to spending pages of trying to rationalise with and educate that piece of shite

Unsalvageable

Oop, there goes the mask. Underneath is a nasty nasty person.

[Hexx]

Again, your core point is this: I'm right and you're wrong. If you don't agree with me you're stupid/selfish/deluded.

Regardless of the overall message of the article might be you're hand waving away a series of unpleasant and necessary terms (mixtures of demeaning, incendiary and antagonistic)

You think the article contain those words, is "moderate and carefully thought out" Fact.

Those words and phrases are racist. Fact
After that article there was a spike of 400% incease Fact.

So yeah. We're right. You're wong. And you're stupid and delusional. Fact.

I think you genuinely don't understand what a fact is.

They are not racist. Slightly up for debate, granted, but I maintain that they are not. However, he was cleared of any wrongdoing after the comments were investigated. Fact. You need to be really careful throwing false accusations of racism around - you'll lower it's currency and when the real racists come noone will believe you.

Was there a spike in racism afterwards? Maybe, it's hard to measure. Was it attributible to the article? Impossible to say.

Now you've read it, you're on very shaky ground and boy doesn't it show.

They absolutely are. As I've already shown to you - and you ignore. There is no reason to compare the Burka to what a bank robber wears. There's no trend or evidence to make that link. It's entire use is to inspire/reinforce fear. To provoke agitation and apprehension around those that wear it. It's designed to inflame or raise fear. It's absolutely dog whistle racism.

You can maintain they its (or the other examples) not - but then to no one's surprise you're a rather simple mind.

And yes there was a spike. That's a fact. I know because I went a check the details before saying it (imagine that) and Karl's since linked it.

[Banjo]

Is there a term for the act of accusing your opponents of doing what you are doing yourselves?

Oop, there goes the mask. Underneath is a nasty nasty person.

[caseinpoint]

I'll highlight the parts I think are relevant. (I cut some fluff about Denmark from the beginning and end.)

If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree – and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran. I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes; and I thoroughly dislike any attempt by any – invariably male – government to encourage such demonstrations of “modesty”, notably the extraordinary exhortations of President Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya, who has told the men of his country to splat their women with paintballs if they fail to cover their heads.

If a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured, I should feel fully entitled – like Jack Straw – to ask her to remove it so that I could talk to her properly. If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then ditto: those in authority should be allowed to converse openly with those that they are being asked to instruct. As for individual businesses or branches of government – they should of course be able to enforce a dress code that enables their employees to interact with customers; and that means human beings must be able to see each other’s faces and read their expressions. It’s how we work.

All that seems to me to be sensible. But such restrictions are not quite the same as telling a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business.

I am against a total ban because it is inevitably construed – rightly or wrongly – as being intended to make some point about Islam. If you go for a total ban, you play into the hands of those who want to politicise and dramatise the so-called clash of civilisations; and you fan the flames of grievance. You risk turning people into martyrs, and you risk a general crackdown on any public symbols of religious affiliation, and you may simply make the problem worse. Like a parent confronted by a rebellious teenager determined to wear a spike through her tongue, or a bolt through her nose, you run the risk that by your heavy-handed attempt to ban what you see as a bizarre and unattractive adornment you simply stiffen resistance.

The burka and the niqab were certainly not always part of Islam. In Britain today there is only a tiny, tiny minority of women who wear these odd bits of headgear. One day, I am sure, they will go.

The article came at a time of particular tension for the Muslim community in this country, being around the introduction of the "Burkha ban" in other European countries, and Islamophobic hate crime spiked by nearly 4x after the article was published.

Thabks. What do you mean to say by the bolded bits? Do you think they're racist? Merely insensitive? Just wrong?

Is it possible they can be 'correct' whilst simultaneously having a negative effect? If so, should you not say things which are true so as not to cause harm?

[Hexx]

I can't believe we're back to spending pages of trying to rationalise with and educate that piece of shite

Unsalvageable

Oop, there goes the mask. Underneath is a nasty nasty person.

I know you're not that smart - but did you really think this was a clever gotcha? Trying to "smartly" parrot back what I said when Denster's "compassionate conservative" front slipped [again]? Are you really that dim?.

I've been openly and loudly calling people like you and Denster unsalvageable for weeks (and more generic individuals for years). It's not so much "the mask slipping" as "His public persona continues".

[caseinpoint]

Is there a term for the act of accusing your opponents of doing what you are doing yourselves?

Oop, there goes the mask. Underneath is a nasty nasty person.

It didn't really work last time, but let's have another pop eh.

I concede that people have grounds for their argument in opposition. I do not believe you think it because you are stupid or selfish, merely making a different value judgement. Why will you not extend the same courtesy to me?

[Hexx]

But Caseinpoint has managed his objective again.

We've now spent pages trying to get him to acknowledge rather basic reality (which we all knew would never happen) rather than discussing the actual election

[caseinpoint]

I can't believe we're back to spending pages of trying to rationalise with and educate that piece of shite

Unsalvageable

Oop, there goes the mask. Underneath is a nasty nasty person.

I know you're not that smart - but did you really think this was a clever gotcha? Are you really that dim?. I've been openly and loudly calling people like you and Denster unsalvageable for weeks (and more generic individually for years). It's not so much "the mask slipping" as "His public persona continues".

I don't think it's a gotcha at all. Just pointing out that you're much happier not debating the points, rather just being nasty to people. You're just proving my point.

[coldspice]

Shouting at people revelling in the misery and oppression of society's most vulnerable people on an internet forum - bad
Amplifying ignorant and racist stereotypes as a member of the ruling class - moderate and carefully thought out

Anyone want to play gutless centerist bingo with me?

[Corazon de Leon]

That said, I don't think the main example cited against him is an example of racism. If you read his 'letterboxes' piece in full you'll actually find a pretty moderate and carefully thought out position, which I fully agree with.

Can you post the full article for those of us who haven't seen it?

Ah Denmark, what a country. If any society breathes the spirit of liberty, this is it. It was only a few weeks ago that I was in Copenhagen for some international conference, and as ever I rose early and went for a run. As I passed through some yuppie zone of warehouse conversions and posh restaurants I saw to my amazement that the Danes had also got up early for exercise – and they were diving stark naked into the bracing waters of the harbour. And I thought to myself – that’s the Danes for you; that’s the spirit of Viking individualism. I mean, we have a climate warmer than Denmark; but even so, would you expect to see Brits disrobing and plunging into the waters of Canary Wharf, or even Greenwich? We are pretty easy-going, but not that easy-going.

If you wanted to visit a country that seemed on the face of it to embody the principles of JS Mill – that you should be able to do what you want provided you do no harm to others – I would advise you to head for wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

Denmark is the only country in Europe, as far as I know, that still devotes a large proportion of its capital city to an anarchist commune, called Christiania, where I remember spending a happy afternoon 25 years ago inhaling the sweet air of freedom. It is the Danes who still hold out against all sorts of EU tyrannies, large and small.

They still chew their lethal carcinogenic tobacco; they still eat their red-dyed frankfurters; they still use the krone rather than the euro; they still refuse to let foreigners buy holiday homes in Jutland; and of course it was the heroic population of Denmark that on that magnificent day in June 1992 stuck two fingers up to the elites of Europe and voted down the Maastricht treaty – and though that revolt was eventually crushed by the European establishment (as indeed, note, they will try to crush all such revolts), that great nej to Maastricht expressed something about the Danish spirit: a genial and happy cussedness and independence. It is a spirit you see everywhere on the streets of Copenhagen in the veneration for that supreme embodiment of vehicular autonomy, the bicycle. The Danes don’t cycle with their heads down, grimly, in Lycra, swearing at people who get in their way. They wander and weave helmetless down the beautiful boulevards on clapped-out granny bikes, with a culture of cycling in which everyone is treated with courtesy and respect. Yes, if you wanted to visit a country that seemed on the face of it to embody the principles of JS Mill – that you should be able to do what you want provided you do no harm to others – I would advise you to head for wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen.

If you tell me that the burqa is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree

So I was a bit surprised to see that on August 1 the Danes joined several other European countries – France, Germany, Austria, Belgium – in imposing a ban on the niqab and the burka – those items of Muslim head-gear that obscure the female face. Already a fine of 1000 kroner – about £120 – has been imposed on a 28-year-old woman seen wearing a niqab in a shopping centre in the north eastern town of Horsholm. A scuffle broke out as someone tried to rip it off her head. There have been demonstrations, on both sides of the argument. What has happened, you may ask, to the Danish spirit of live and let live?

If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree – and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran. I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes; and I thoroughly dislike any attempt by any – invariably male – government to encourage such demonstrations of “modesty”, notably the extraordinary exhortations of President Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya, who has told the men of his country to splat their women with paintballs if they fail to cover their heads.

I am against a total ban because it is inevitably construed – rightly or wrongly – as being intended to make some point about Islam

If a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured, I should feel fully entitled – like Jack Straw – to ask her to remove it so that I could talk to her properly. If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then ditto: those in authority should be allowed to converse openly with those that they are being asked to instruct. As for individual businesses or branches of government – they should of course be able to enforce a dress code that enables their employees to interact with customers; and that means human beings must be able to see each other’s faces and read their expressions. It’s how we work.

All that seems to me to be sensible. But such restrictions are not quite the same as telling a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business.

This is a fairly strong example of using moderate language to obfuscate an extremist point of view - something that Johnson has become quite an expert at doing over the years.

It leaks through, of course. The letterbox comment, the bank robber comment and a couple of others show very clearly his true colours and ability to turn on a dime from moderate language to sloganising, anti-Islamic rhetoric.

The piece reads like a propaganda piece. It reads like something that’s been very carefully thought out to appeal to people’s fear, rather than offer a considered viewpoint.

[Banjo]

Why will you not extend the same courtesy to me?

Mostly due to the fact that underneath you are a nasty, nasty person. Like, given from what you posted in response to Karl, do you believe that Muslim women wearing the burqa look like letterboxes and bank robbers? Certainly reads like that.

As for this election, the expected media shitshow is forever depressing to see. Much like caseinpoint's shitshow posting, the false equivalences are disgusting and make a mockery of this country. I mostly work outside of the UK these days and it's embarrassing how often I have to bleakly describe the situation to other Europeans I work and interact with. The way this country has been run and the way in which some people want it to continue to be ran is shameful.