Politically incorrigible
Shocking, disgraceful, bastid Tories.Yes, but now go and read what he actually said.
I don't think we need to be outraged at the stupid (beyond the usual seething hatred of the ignoranti that any thinking person indulges in).
posted by Dr Zen @ 3:13 pm
7 Comments:
Hmmm, his words didn't seem racist to me. In fact, he seemed to be deploring the fact that some of racial minority employed a sort of backhanded racism in order to avoid taking responsibility for their own shortcomings. It is a thing that does happen sometimes. It is also a thing that only someone of a racial minority *can* do, for obvious reasons. He seemed rather to affirm the concept of equality and eschew the use of race as a basis for any sort of determination.
Maybe I'm just illiterate.
BTW, what the heck is a "frontbencher" and "backbencher"?
LOL. Well, as you know, our executive and legislature are not strictly separated. Generally, the government -- the administration if you like -- is composed of ministers, who are elected MPs, and their nonpolitical civil servant helpers. They also have advisers, of course. The House of Commons is set up in rows of benches -- quite literally, although they're comfortably padded -- and the ministers sit on the front benches, more or less in order of seniority. The "Cabinet", which is the group of most senior ministers: the PM, Chancellor, home minister (secretary of the interior/justice -- they plan to split that up shortly), foreign secretary (secretary of state), education minister and so on take the frontmost bench. The opposition have corresponding "shadow ministers", who have similar portfolios. They are also called frontbenchers for the same reason. In general terms, a "backbencher" is an MP who is not part of the government. In principle, the Labour Party is not actually the government, just the majority grouping in parliament. The government is formed by the queen's choice of chief adviser. In our constitutional settlement, that choice will just about always be the leader of the party that has most seats. For an idea of how this can be controversial, take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_constitutional_crisis_of_1975.
Of course, ministers do not actually have to be MPs. They can be members of the Lords or even, in principle, members of the public. I can't remember anyone who wasn't either an MP or a peer's having a government position, but it's perfectly possible. It would actually be a bloody good idea, given the clowns who generally do get elected.
So to show that though slow I do get there, the stupidity was in the sacking. The colonel in question was a good and honest man (so far as we can tell), just politically naive. The same nonsense occurs in the US all the time, and slows our progress towards a non-racist society.
You're about half right, Don. Yes, I suppose you could describe him as politically naive, but by the same token, Cameron has to sack him, because doing so is good politics. Not human decency. Not the moral thing. But politics has little to do with that nonsense.
I would go along with the theory that he was being politically naive rather than racist. The only part he tripped up on was using such industrial language rather than political speech. A real no-no.
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