This blog has a notoriously liberal attitude to free speech. It is also, notoriously, not politically correct. Comments are virtually never censored. Only two commenters have ever been banned, in both cases for persistently publishing sentiments that were not anti-Zionist (OK), but anti-Jewish (not OK).
Iain Dale currently has comment moderation on. He is pre-screening comments. He has an excellent post about the corrupt New Labour Baroness Uddin.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6214838&postID=3181377803578187025
But I am really surprised that Iain has approved these comments for publication:
“It is inevitable that these cretins will take advantage. The whole system is wrong and this “Lady” could not control her temptation which was with intent. She’s no different to a sponging immigrant.”
(My emphasis).
and
I wonder why there is a higher proportion of ethnics amongst the most corrupt and deceitful in our society? It makes you think that the so-called colonialists were only acting according to how they found them.
I think most third world ‘people’ are inherently dishonest. Once you accept that, perhaps it is possible to interact on a civilised basis. Otherwise, they’ll run rings around you.
Am I alone on finding the inverted commas in that last one particularly sinister?
Now I quite accept that Iain Dale is no racist. And I accept that a comment on a blog in no way implies that the blog author agrees with the comment. But I would have removed those two, and can’t understand why Iain approved them – or at least did not add a comment of his own to challenge these racist attitudes, as I do in publishing them here.
I tend to the view that this proves that, if you move in Tory circles, you get inured to comments that make ordinary people’s toes curl.
These views are out there. Best to keep shinning a light on them.
I think that people are generally more angry when immigrants have been ripping off the taxpayer, it’s like a double betrayal. We are happy to allow people to settle and hopefully integrate but when our hospitality is abused to such an extent that it constitutes fraud, betrayal becomes raging anger.
Hmmm. Beginning to spot a pattern here.
Comment moderation is on for reasons you are only too well aware of. I do not read every comment I approve. It’s impossible.
Both of these comments are not anonymous – both have Blogger profiles. I rarely delete anything, but if I do it is usually because people are Anonymous.
As you might imagine I do not concur with the views expressed in these comments, but is that seriously a reason to delete them?
You say you virtually never delete comments. Nor do I.
I think this is a 1-1 draw. I think it is ‘stretching it’ to come up with the inferences implied here from the first quote but certainly the second quote seems dubious. I would have deleted the latter one.
However, I would also have problems with this ridiculously speculative comment which belies a rather one-dimensional view:
I tend to the view that this proves that, if you move in Tory circles, you get inured to comments that make ordinary people’s toes curl.
Just read the left-wing blogs in the US if you want to read offensive material and also be thankful that Damian McBride does not post anywhere (or does he?).
You are Derek Draper and I claim my £5.
Honestly, is this anything more than a cheap traffic hoovering exercise?
I had a lot of time for the story about what happened to you and the smearing that was said to go on.
Any blogger at any time will get someone who posts something that someone else doesn’t like or ‘approve’ of.
I had someone last week accusing me of hosting racism because I posted a link to David Starkey’s rant on QT about the Welsh and Scots.
Get a grip man.
Yours disappointedly.
I too think you are being a bit hard on Iain considering neither comment was anonymous otherwise I’ve nothing further to add to my ‘Dale Winton’ comment on the “Iain Dale Rides To Rescue Charles Crawford’ post.
A little anecdote on the ‘immigrants as unwelcome spongers’ though: For my sins I got involved in a saloon bar type multi-sided conversation the other day. The subject of immigration came up. A youngish ‘professional business networking’ type waxed lyrical about how he was sick and tired of immigration into this country; how it was changing the ‘entire character of the place’ and assorted other derogatory a frankly racist comments. He went on to say, without a trace of irony and oblivious to the arrogant stupidity of it, that he had decided to emigrate to Australia to get away from it all. When I prompted him about the contradictions inherent in his reasoning and ‘wasn’t he just a tad bothered that similar attitudes might manifest themselves in his host country of choice?’, he simply did not understand the point I was making – ‘But I’m British’ was his indignant reply. I KID YOU NOT.
It so happens that the former partner of my son-in-law had just returned from New Zealand. The principle reason he decided he could not settle there was – you’ve guessed it – ‘anti-immigrant sentiment’ arising he thought from job security fears in a similarly pole-axed economy, but real and unpleasant nonetheless.
What is it with people who wear their ‘proud to be British’ credentials on their sleeves? Do they really do see themselves as some kind of ‘Master Race’?
“I tend to the view that this proves that, if you move in Tory circles, you get inured to comments that make ordinary people’s toes curl.”
I was about to point this out. Such comments on a Tory blog are really par for the course. They ain’t called the Nasty Party for no reason!
“Just read the left-wing blogs in the US if you want to read offensive material”
–William Blakes Ghost
Have you read the right-wing blogs in the US where they refer to sub-human PaleoSimians and killing them off altogether once and for all? They asked me hadn’t some people in the Middle East a “cultural predisposition to lie”. To which I was going to reply “Yes, Mark Regev”, but I couldn’t be bothered. These are the gun-nuts who are stockpiling weapons against Obama’s “fascism”, they say.
When someone writes, “I think most third world ‘people’ are inherently dishonest” my flesh crawls. But that’s not Iain’s fault.
“I was about to point this out. Such comments on a Tory blog are really par for the course. They ain’t called the Nasty Party for no reason!”
Do you know I read the most dreadful, hatful things about people just because of the school they went to, or because of the job they do on left-wing blogs.
Socialists and those who want to regulate langage and views are hypocrits and bigots. Banning comments like the ones above will not ban the views. Immigrants to any country have got it in the neck down the years – just ask the Jews, or see the comment above on New Zealand.
Why do lefties think they have some God given right to be the master race???? Well as far as I’m concerned you lost the moral high ground a long, long time ago. You don’t know the meaning of the word tolerance!!
Left? Right? Pots calling kettles black [if I dare use that word]. Not worth a raised eyebrow, let alone a post.
I sniff a bit of horn-tangling between the Big Beasts of the political blogosphere. How boring!
Iain Dale was on the George Galloway show last night he didn’t fair too well.Totally arrogant,ignorant and out of his depth. George Galloway kicked ass …
tinyurl.com/cfvpjh
Iain Dale
If you read this you should get your facts right before you try and take George Galloway on.Educate yourself…
tinyurl.com/c4xbbh
Platosays
” Honestly, is this anything more than a cheap traffic hoovering exercise? ”
To what point? I don’t take advertising and don’t have a shortage of traffic.
I think racist comments should be either not published, or published and challenged. Iain didn’t challenge them, so I did.
I completely accept that doesn’t mean he agrees with them.
I don’t agree that the first comment is not racist. “Sponging immigrant” is a racist stereotype we all recognise, designed to whip up xenophobia.
What Baroness Uddin appears to be engaged in is criminal fraud. She should be jailed. Let’s leave immigration out of it.
She is not a fraudster because that is a behaviour common to immigrants. She is a fraudster because that is a behaviour common to New Labour.
We’re all the same. Anything wrong in the world is, pretty much, because there is something wrong with the world. Those 2 comments are just daft, especially the second comment. I would probably not delete them myself and just make a polite response pointing out the flaws in their logic.
Despite the fact that my older brother joined the Young Conservatives, I have never moved in Tory circles. I suspect that he just wanted a posh shag. I was horrified wih him when he said he supported the Vietnam War.
Meanwhile I joined a Gliding Club.
You might think it would be populated by Rich Tories – but it was actually about as “socialist” as you could get.
Everyone would work their arses off to get all the gliders into the air.
They kept coming down – and we kept sending them back up.
No one got paid – well except the tug pilots – but most of the launches were winch driven
And the reward…
Eventually you would get to the top of the list and it would be your turn…
And eventually you would go solo.
If you can keep it up all afternoon – or even all day – no one is going to complain too much.
Cheaper than learning to drive a car – and far more interesting.
Tony
If you can keep it up all afternoon – or even all day – no one is going to complain too much.
Yeah. I remember when I could do that.
George Galloway v Iain Dale.
The exact clip can be seen here…
http://tinyurl.com/djrzwa
Vronsky, the cure for priapism is a room full of ‘Tony’s babes’.
I was wondering if certain institutions which become corrupt, such as Enron, or Zanu-Labour, do so as a self induced monkey trap? Each crook needs to cover themselves, so they elect amongst themselves those that are just as bent, as assurance from whistle-blowers, as everybody in the know is culpable.
In the above link Iain Dale says the financial crisis / collapse is down to Brown changing regulations when New Labour came to power.He doesn’t seem to understand? that this is a world financial crisis / collapse.It was Thatcher that done it.
To understand what is happening you have to go back to who was responsible for it all in the first place…The EVIL ones and the two words that caused it all…”Deregulation”…”Globalisation”…The insanity off free market economics, or should that read GREED off the few at the expense of the many.
“Milton Friedman, free-market economist who inspired Reagan and Thatcher, dies aged 94″…
tinyurl.com/srzs3
“The deflation of Friedman”…
tinyurl.com/2pnql8
“What do we owe to Thatcherite economics?”…
tinyurl.com/ysnrce
The influence that Thatcher had over Reagan as regards economic thinking (or lack off) was key to today’s events.
“They really respected each other’s views, and if that is not influence, I don’t know what is”.
“President Reagan said: “We met before she became prime minister and I became president, and the moment we met, we discovered that we shared quite similar views of government and freedom. Margaret ended our first meeting by telling me that we must stand together, and that is exactly what we have done ever since”…
tinyurl.com/2266eb
“Ian Gilmour served as defence secretary during Edward Heath’s administration, before becoming Lord Privy Seal in Margaret Thatcher’s first government”
“In September 1981 he was sacked by Mrs Thatcher and remained a prominent critic of what he regarded as extreme Thatcherite policies”
“He responded to his sacking by Mrs Thatcher by issuing a statement declaring that she was steering “full speed ahead for the rocks”…
tinyurl.com/6cmprl
“It is 25 years since Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. Click on an individual in the image or use the drop-down menu below to find out more about the members of her first cabinet, and what has happened to them since”…
tinyurl.com/3ca5ml
January 22, 2009
“Death Agony of Thatcher Deregulated Finance Model”…
tinyurl.com/cdtuw4
Galloway made Iain Dale sound a complete plonker. Gorgeous was making complete sense waiting for Dale to actually string a sentence together.
Then he demonstrates how brain washed even he has been by the Global Warming movement – and starts talking bollocks about Carbon Capture.
George – CO2 is not a pollutant – and the World has been getting colder for the last 10 years.
How come the most stupid people end up in control?
Its a bit like the old chestnut.
If you can do it – you do it.
If you can’t do it – you become a teacher.
Look at the State of our State – and the State of our Schools.
Even Craig Murray thinks a bunch of bearded Muslims did 9/11.
Even he either didn’t do science at school or has drunk too much alcohol since he left it.
However, for once I do agree with The Independent
“Craig Murray Former ambassador
Britain is a better place now that Craig Murray has returned.”
Tony
‘Vronsky, the cure for priapism is a room full of ‘Tony’s babes’.’
Not sure about that – I would still give Flinty a severe waterboarding frenzy moment – senior or not.
@ merkononparis
I would be surprised if ‘Flinty’ knew what waterboarding is considering she hasn’t even bothered to read the Lisbon ‘Treaty’.
George Galloway might not be a great MP, but he absolutely totally tore Iain Dale a new one.
Iain Dale came across as a childish, whining self-righteous little twat. He kept complaining that George had spoken without letting Iain interrupt him, then when George invited him to speak without interruption all he could do was the radio equivalent of “I’m not playing!”
Pathetic.
I’ve just looked on that comments thread. The comments are still there. What is Iain Dale playing at? Is Iain Dale a racist or not? What’s his problem?
He has a record of not finding racism objectionable (cf. his defence of Carol Thatcher). I wonder if he, like Paul Staines, negotiated with the BNP whilst at university?
Iain Dale = racist? If not, delete those comments.
Beats me, Dr. I don’t think Iain is a racist. But as a Tory I expect a lot of his supporters are – maybe he is scared of alienating them.
Actually I would not mind him leaving them if he published something refuting them. It is unchallenged racialist comments which are the problem.
I think it is a good thing that Iain has published these comments, so people of all political stripes can see the true colours of some sections of Tory support. He definitely should challenge them, even if he stands to lose his right-wing readership. Question is: will he?
@tony_opmoc – it is not fair to assume that people who disagree with your climate change denial and/or September 11 government involvement theories are “brainwashed”. They just have different views to you, and in some cases they have come by those views after careful and reasoned analysis. In any case, it is quite one thing to posit alternative theories about the attacks on America, but to suggest that the world scientific community is in cahoots to lie about climate change is plain absurd.
Why don’t you think Iain Dale is a racist? All he’s said is that he doesn’t concur with the comments – there’s nothing to ‘concur’ with. As for the cold hatred shown by the quotation marks around the word people: it seems Mr Dale’s board boasts not only pub racists, but someone who fully subscribes to the “untermenschen” theory. Would he not object if someone sprayed BNP graffiti on his wall? Why would he let it stand on his blog?
PS Harry’s Place commentators are currently dealing quite well with the BNP: http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/05/03/is-the-bnp-christian/#comments
The odd display of in-the-open racism serves to remind one of the idiocy of it. I have no problem with Mr. Dale leaving comments such as those you quote.
Actually the commentators on Dale’s blog aren’t doing a bad job…
The Tories have always been armchair racists. They are canny enough, and aware of the political consequences of being branded ‘racist’ to effectively mask it. Back in the 1980s the Federation of Young Conservatices proudly wore t-shirts with the legend “Mandela must hang” or similar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Conservative_Students#Political_stance