Anti-Gipsy is the last socially acceptable racism. Even regular commentators on this blog chip in on Dale Farm posts with “They fly tip and make a terrible mess” “They nicked stuff from my local pub” “They just laid a quarter of an inch of tarmac straight on the soil” and other ethnic caricatures. “They” steal children too, no doubt.
Watching the violent ethnic cleansing in Essex live on TV this morning was a heart-wrenching experience. Councillor Tony Ball, leader of the authority conducting the ethnic cleansing, a Murdoch star, explains that his action is popular. I have no doubt it is. It would be popular in Basildon if the council hung a black man from the council flagstaff every day. No doubt the smug little bigot is a happy man this morning.
Those who justify breaking up family homes, destroying a community and disrupting childrens’ schooling, on grounds of narrow legality and planning law, have to answer this narrow legal point too. The attack (for such it was) on Dale Farm this morning was carried out by riot police with no participation of bailiffs. At least two female inhabitants, both travellers and permanent residents at the site, have needed hospital treatment. The police smashed down fences, both internal and external to the site, which the High Court had specifically said were on the site, legally owned by the travellers and could not be destroyed by the bailiffs. Where does that illegal act of destruction sit with the narrow legalistic defence of this racist attack?
Murdoch News this morning gave the gist of the police’s legal defence. Police had “Intelligence” of a “stockpile of items to be used as weapons”. They therefore had had to storm the camp in the interests of public safety. This necessitated the breaking down of the High Court protected fences as an emergency measure to save lives. All of which is a transparent pretext, a flouting of the law by the police much worse than any law the travellers’ flouted, because the police breaking of the law resulted in violence and injury. The weapons stockpile of course does not exist.
Let me state once more the key facts. Although situated in a greenbelt, every inch of the travellers’ site was brownfield land, previously occupied by a scrapyard. Satellite photos prove that the travellers did not expand at all onto green land. The reason they did not have planning permission is that multiple applications for planning permission have been rejected, and the reason they have been rejected is that Basildon Council are racists. A nice Tory builder would undoubtedly have been allowed to shoehorn countless houses onto this ex-scrapyard. The travellers do own all the land they were on.
What harm were they doing? None. What was their crime? Their ethnicity. All the else is legalistic camouflage of the type that states have used to pursue ethnic cleansing everywhere. Ethnic cleansing is always enforcing the law in the eys of the state which carries it out. That is rather the point.
Alan:
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“The Irish media have (as they always do) portrayed the travellers in the most racist of ways, that they wouldn’t do to immigrants for the most part. The Sunday World regularly carries lurid stories of crime, social welfare fraud and family feuds.”
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I don’t read the Sunday World. But has it ever occurred to you that these things are reported because they’re true? And that they’re not said about immigrants because, by and very large, none of our immigrants behave like the travellers do?
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Exerpt: “A Travelling family associated with the late Eddie Ryan are regarded by gardai as being very well organised, massively wealthy from drug-smuggling and may even have control of large chunks of the drugs trade in parts of the Midlands of England. Several years ago, this family laid down links with some of the major Dutch drug wholesalers in Rotterdam.
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“This travelling family was the first group in Ireland outside the terrorist organisations to use assault rifles. They were used in an attack on a house in Mountbellew, Galway, two years ago. The AK47s that have emerged in Limerick in the past 18 months may well have come from this connection.”
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gang-war-is-a-family-busi-ness-in-limerick-city-488315.html
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“Fist fighting – originally a way to settle disputes within the Traveller Community – is now portrayed as mere fights for money.”
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Bare knuckle fighting used to be considered a sport (as boxing now is) among travellers. But street fights and feuds are fuelled by drink, and have no rules. I don’t think it’s right that some hotels will not allow travellers to hold wedding receptions etc on their premises and have an outright ban on them, but I nevertheless understand why they do it. If I ran a hotel I’d hope that I’d take their bookings just like everyone else’s, and charge them for any extra security I’d have to lay on for the evening.
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“Last night 18/9/11 on RTE Radio news, the site was described as “illegal, an enclave, hijacked land & contaminated” all lies.”
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I don’t listen to radio either, so I didn’t hear that. And I doubt if the official RTE News got it that wrong. Are you sure you weren’t listening to some interviewee expressing an opinion?
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“Doubtless many Irish people agree with the eviction as anti traveller racism runs deep here.”
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It doesn’t run either shallow or deep with me, since I consider the travellers as Irish as myself. (As one Limerick blogger said, “People with names like McCarthy, Reilly, Ward and McDonagh are the same as the rest of us”.) All of my opinions expressed on this thread were formed 80-90% from my own experiences, or from the experiences of my family. Since the last time I commented here I have racked my brains to try and remember *one* positive interaction with the travelling community that I or my family have had since I was a child. Aside from us giving out food, clothing, and money — which is all one-way traffic after all — I have not thought of one.
Here’s a view from a Limerick blogger. For interest. But I take no responsiblity whatsoever for either the content or the comments.
http://bocktherobber.com/2011/03/smithfield-horse-fair-shootings-tradition
Comment on Media Lens Message Board. I saw the Newsnight item and am in total agreement with the comment. It was revolting. I will put the link up tomorrow.
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Posted by walter on October 19, 2011, 11:23 pm, in reply to “Is Dale Farm ‘ethnic cleansing’?”
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With an invited European official speaking of the council’s potentially racist handling of the issue on the screen behind him, Paxman just turned his back to her to join the local MP in pouring scorn on the travellers. They just talked over her. Pouring scorn not on their case that is, but on the travellers themselves. The MP referred to the law-abiding majority. When asked by the European official if he was excluding the gypsies in this description he said he hadn’t meant that at all. But shortly afterwards he was at it again about the law-abiding majority. The MP also interrupted her to say “why don’t you do something useful like tell them to go somewhere else” or something similar. The contempt shown in the MP’s body language throughout was very striking and some was to be seen in Paxman’s demeanour too.
Part of another comment on the same thread on Media Lens Message Board:
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“The idea that travellers are one “ethnicity” is false. Even the concept of ehnicity is in my view rather bogus in the first place, but the idea of “them”: the “outsiders” getting one up on the planning authorities and getting to “do what theyt [sic] liked” when even the locals themselves: the “honest to goodness settled citizens” get stymied at every turn under the planning laws, clearly sticks in the craw.
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“Truth is we are all on the same side really. It is the planning system which is the enemy as it favours the rich, the crooks and the rentiers, but the “divide an conquer” strategy has won, and it is the little people: travellers and settled, who are the losers.”
Yes Nuid. Racists everywhere you look.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01690zz/Newsnight_19_10_2011/
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The Paxman/Baron double act commences at about 7’50” in. Cllr Ball is in the preamble from the beginning of the programme, sorry that should be propaganda. What a lovely man he is. A real humanitarian. NOT.
Back in full force today. I looked up the meaning of VG on the back of the riot police jackets.
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What does VG stand for on police vest? UK police forces use a lettering system to identify their county of origin. VG stands for Essex.
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James Whale was on Sky News earlier. When a viewer’s comment was read out by Eamonn Holmes that electric saws should be used on the two protesters whose hands were locked from each side of an aluminium barrel, he clapped. Repellent. I think he is on LBC Radio who specialize in racist phone ins.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Whale_(radio)
I should think the three dogs he owns are an English Bulldog, a Bull Mastiff and a Pit Bull Terrier.
In response to Canspeccy. “Why are you so pathetically vulnerable that you expect the state to do everything for you?
You assume that I use the term ‘we’ to describe myself. I used we to include myself as a member of society. Interesting that your anger at the world and those less fortunate than yourself does not allow you to think about the world around you. Just so you know I have been fortunate in my life to work and be in a position to buy my own home. I have never been so unfortunate that I had to claim support from the Government. I am in fact a Director and would further like to add that education played a big part of my life in helping me achieve what I have. Education combined with excellent family support, good friends and the benefits of a society that continues to try and improve on it’s negative history. I do not argue that the travellers should be allowed to stay without planning permission. My argument is focused on how this situation has been dealt with. Ten years Basildon Council had as an opportunity to deal with this situation with some dignity. The travelling community requested land to purchase and build and ask that their planning applications are treated with the same equal approach as other applications. What they chose to do instead was use £22 million pounds to create this situation. This is what I have a concern about. While we focus on the negative of the Travelling community we are blinded from seeing the ridiculous cost of this eviction. The debate should not be about the travelling community it should be whether we supporting a Government who allows this type of action against any community. Whilst there is much debate about the accuracy of a ‘labelling theory’ it certainly springs to mind as an answer to why some members of our society feel it necessary to break the law. If we continually tell a person they are bad and all their lives they are treated from birth to adulthood in that way then they believe they are and don’t have an opportunity to change. I for one want to ensure that my life on this earth was a positive one. Not that this is based on religion but based on the simple fact that I only live once and if I can reach out to support someone less fortunate than myself then I certainly will. Perhaps Conspecca if you could let go of your anger then maybe you might find that your life and thinking works more in your favour.
VG obviously standfs for ‘very good’, what else could it mean Mary 🙂
Morwover, given the record of the Government in covering up, should we now be told whether agent provocateurs have or had been involved in the Dale Farm eviction saga?
Who infiltrated the Tarvellers site to gain information? Or do they only show intereast in benign environmental groups and animal rights activists?
My points stand, ususally when housing is granted for a site, and Basildon council did sign off half of the site for housing, it is highly likely and normal for councils to grant follow on housing on the same site. Here it resulted in an expensive planning battle where complaints and insults have been flying for years.
My guess is that the council made the first mistake ten years ago by granting permission for the first tranche of housing. I recon that this site will be turned back into a scrap yard, obviously so much more in tune with its environment and the local community.
@havantaclu… yes and the Israeli settlements.
“The debate should not be about the travelling community it should be whether we supporting a Government who allows this type of action against any community.” — Charlotte
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Previously: “As an Irish woman I can confirm that the travelling community in Ireland are not treated as equals for the simple fact that they do not conform to the ‘norm’. I sit in local pubs, stand outside Churches after mass and hear the majority of those I encounter describe their distaste for other nationals within Ireland.” — Charlotte
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Charlotte, could you clarify where you’re living please? In Ireland or Britain? It would help in understanding your comments. Thanks.
This post is hysterical, talk about hyperbole. A bunch of non-travelling travellers conveniently claim it’s racist to make them abide by the law that everyone else in the UK, regardless of ethnicity, has to live by and we’re supposed to take such devious and cynical race-mongering seriously? Only a complete idiot would claim an attempt to stop deliberate and calculated flouting of the law as ethnic cleansing. In reality it would be racist if we decided to abandon equality before the law on some trendy premise that a specific ethnic group, in this case non-travelling travellers, are special and should be treated differently than everyone else.
Oh, I fogot to add, Craig Murray is deliberately misleading readers about the status of the land. He clearly doesn’t understand the technical differences between green belt and brownfield land, the land is in the green belt, but that is a different matter to its actual usage and development. There has always been development within the green belt, but it is strictly controlled, which is why part of the traveller site is legal and part is not. Also, he fails to note that the previous owner was also deliberately and knowingly flouting planning permission by using part of the site as a scrapyard when prohibited, and the non-travelling travellers were aware of this when they took over and cynically carried on with illegal development. That people have cynically and consistently been abusing the law, and rather disgustingly playing the race card to justify it, does not somehow eventually justify such behaviour or lie about it, even if it is oh so trendy to do so.
Liars, fantasists and race-mongers, oh what a lovely bunch!
“Yes Nuid. Racists everywhere you look.” — Mary
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What is that a response to?
One viewpoint from someone fairly local:
An appeal from one of the Sheridans at Dale Farm has been circulating around Basildon – it makes for heart rending reading. I find it difficult to take local people, my family, friends, neighbours, relations included, who just have no sympathy at all for the travellers, some of whom are having fixed dwellings demolished without compensation.
It’s especially difficult to get the idea of overriding civil rights being more important than mere housing regulations; or the message of the Bonhoffer prayer, which I suppose for me, is that if you don’t speak up for someone who is being persecuted, then you are leaving things open for the same thing to happen to you.
Ironically, one thing that’s happened to the travellers has already happened to the settled community in Basildon. One of the allegations the travellers make about the bailiffs, Constant & Co, is of them knocking dwellings down with people still in them: but one of the stories about the building of Basildon New Town is just that. Hundreds of plot-land houses were knocked down (with rather inadequate compensation) to make way for the New Town – and one, it’s claimed, with a resident still inside.
There are a load of other paradoxes though:
Travellers can be racists too: my wife’s African physio was taunted in the local Macdonalds, (he said he didn’t rise to it because he expected a beating if he did) plus local shopkeepers (our Asian postmaster and his diminutive wife included) get intimidated into giving discounts and freebies.
Our MP John Baron, who has seemed all tough and implacable in the interviews (for public opinion?), has probably done more for the travellers than anyone, in constantly trying to persuade this and the previous government to provide sufficient sites overall for travelling people, and behind the scenes in little things like trying to get the entrance way into Dale Farm resurfaced (the road to the site is totally inadequate, and pretty dangerous at that – not only for the travellers but also for the settled community who live down that road).
Everyone you speak to locally will have some first, second or third hand story about traveller misbehaviour, usually fairly minor – urinating in public, blocking driveways, parking up on pavements, filling the Catholic church collection bowl with coppers so that elderly attendants get weighed down with the coins, and removing the odd fiver at the same time! – yet however, one figure I was given recently was that out of 100,000 complaints to Basildon council last year, only one was about travellers, and bearing in mind that this, as everyone says, is the largest traveller site in Europe. The local area is a very low crime area too.
The travellers are all ultra rich, it’s said, with massive mansions back in Ireland. Yes, some travellers turn up to church in Mercs, but there was the story of the young traveller arrested for stealing man-hole covers. He’d got his girl-friend pregnant, and was trying to provide for the baby – can you get more desperate than that?
The media have it that the international condemnation comes from the UN and “Europe” who can, like happened on Newsnight, be insulted and defied (btw liked it that the UN lady got the last word in on Paxman!) – but the really important international condemnation comes, behind the scenes, from the States: the help the travellers have had comes from a US civil rights organisation, and the White House, according to Eric Avebury, has advised the government on Dale Farm “Don’t do it!”.
It’s said that the protestors, with their violence, have damaged the traveller cause; what the protesters have achieved though is to get traveller issues aired as a major cause in the British media for days on end, and to have, at least on the BBC news channel, all points of views aired (Basildon council’s media managers are not happy for residents to have been exposed to the travellers’ side of things through the national media, when for years anything which would give rise to sympathy for the travellers has been successfully kept out of the local papers.)
However, where we are now, there seems to unfortunately be a broad public approval of what the government (sorry the council) is doing, with there seeming to be no need for debate or discussion of any positive policy options to deal with traveller issues, from the perspective of either traveller or settled communities. That, together with the hardening of attitudes, is what depresses me.
Kamo calm down. Why don’t you campaign for transit sites, the East of England is Littered with abandond airfields?
How do you propose councils to deal with the travelling community, they own the land, still and have the right to come back. What if they find 100 locals who testify that they once used this scrapyard, and then re instate it,legally?
And please Kamo, explain why the council granted planning permission for half of the site? Would such a move, by Basildon council, increase or decrease the pressure for the rest of the site to be developed?
This was show case deflection from the real scandal of Liam Fox MP, errant defence minister who made it up as he went along and/or was directed by…ehh…ehemm some people foreign policy ideas and ‘special’ interests, who are now hastily trying to cover up connections and tracks. They could have done it days ago but waited and timed it with the release of the Gus O Donell investigation that was not much at all.
Still its Apartheid politics.
Ingo,
1) The travelling community are perfectly entitled to own land in the green belt or anywhere else, just like everyone else of whatever ethnicity is allowed. The point is irrelevant; they have to stick to planning law like everyone else.
2) You’re falling for Mr Murray’s scam here, that part of the site was previously used illegally as a scrapyard is neither here nor there when it comes to reinstating into legal use. That the non-travelling travellers bought land in illegal use to knowingly undertake different illegal development is their problem not anyone else’s. The only point of argument here appears to be that non-travelling travellers are somehow “special” and shouldn’t be equal before the law like everyone else.
3) Part of the site had already been legally developed and part hadn’t, why do people find it so hard to understand that controlled development does go on in green belt, and the key issue is that people stay within the controls, and not just do as they please?
4) It certainly would be apartheid politics if we had a legal convention which said non-travelling travellers can do as they please because they are different. It might be fashionable, acceptable, trendy kind of racism for some people, but where did you draw the line, when is it not fashionable racism anymore?
Charlotte and Alan (and others perhaps):
Can an Irish person be racist about the Irish? Can the English about the English or the Scots about the Scots? If I were to throw derogatory language at the Irish bankers who played fast and loose with borrowed money to indulge in casino antics that eventually brought us to our knees, nobody would turn a hair. But the Irish travellers? No, I can’t criticise them because it’s not PC. And I must be racist.
What utter nonsense.
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Mary, I ask you once again, what was this in response to?
“Yes Nuid. Racists everywhere you look”
Hi Nuid. I was brought up in Ireland and live in the UK. However I frequently return to Ireland as my family live there.
Hey, Charlotte:
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“I am in fact a Director”
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Wow, that’s cool.
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When you said: “We go to housing authorities and have our homes built for us.” I fairly reasonably assumed that by “we” you meant “you” not someone else altogether.
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But my point remains, rephrased as follows. Why is it so good that there are people, your “clients” perhaps, who are so pathetically vulnerable that you expect the state to do everything for them?
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Is it because they’ve been induced into a condition of apathetic feeble mindedness, by kindergarten to early middle-age brainwashing enforced by the parasitic state apparatus in the name of education?
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Or is it because the lib-left screwed them by inviting in millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe and the third world who are willing to take their job at minimum wage or less?
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I do see that if you are part of the bureaucratic state apparatus, then the existence of a vast underclass needing your management is a good thing — for you. But why is it a good thing for everyone else, including those in productive employment who have to pay you a salary several times that of the average tax payer.
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Oh, and as for my life and thinking, it seems to work quite well for me, thanks, though for reason of modesty, I won’t spell it out, exactly how.
Since my last comment is still “awaiting moderation” I’ll repost it and see what happens >
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Charlotte and Alan (and others perhaps):
Can an Irish person be racist about the Irish? Can the English about the English or the Scots about the Scots? If I were to throw derogatory language at the Irish bankers who played fast and loose with borrowed money to indulge in casino antics that eventually brought us to our knees, nobody would turn a hair. But the Irish travellers? No, I can’t criticise them because it’s not PC. And I must be racist.
What utter nonsense.
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Mary, I ask you once again, what was this in response to?
“Yes Nuid. Racists everywhere you look”
Hi Canspeccy
Clearly you and I think very differently. As an adult i have chosen to be an individual to inform myself of the many factors which could lead an individual into a vulnerable situation where they may need support. You clearly don’t see it worth your while to do that. I assume you are an adult and therefore would have had this debate with friends and family and have chosen then to have the point of view you have. For clarity I do not gain financially from what you term as ‘underclass’ . I wish you well in your life and hope that some time in the future you develop a more compassionate approach to your thinking.
Hi Nuid
I stand corrected. I went off track slightly. I was referring to members of my Irish community presenting racist comments in relation to other nationals. The Irish travelling community are indeed Irish. I reiterate my point. We focus on the negative behaviour of some members of the travelling community and not what should truly be debated here. Each community have individuals within them that present negative behaviour so rather than spending our time listing what we know or hear to be true of the travelling community we should be focusing on the fact that Basildon Council were prepared to spend £22 million to evict this community. Surely there was an alternative to this. Surely there was also an alternative to moving riot Police into a community where children, elders, women and vulnerable people were residing. Why did the situation come to that? Why did the council refuse the support and offer of UN intervening to bring about a resolution? What could have been done better and how can we ensure this does not happen again?
Day Three of Cllr Balls’ cleansing project.
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Dale Farm eviction: Notices to remove homes served
Travellers and their supporters said they vacated the site “with dignity”
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Notices detailing how travellers’ homes will be removed from Dale Farm in Essex have been placed around the site by council officials.
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Basildon Council said the homes would be removed “with care” and then roads and concrete torn up.
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Fences and walls would be demolished to allow access, although they would be reinstated.
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Forty-nine of the 52 plots will be removed by bailiffs who moved on to the site on Thursday.
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The majority of the clearance is likely to get under way on Monday.
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Despite a mass walk-out of travellers and supporters from the illegal part of Dale Farm on Thursday, up to 30 people spent the night inside the site.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-15398254
Nuid
You ask: “Can an Irish person be racist about the Irish? Can the English about the English or the Scots about the Scots?”
Can a gay man be a homophobe? Unfortunately yes, if they are in denial.
There is a lot of bad feeling directed against this group, often as you say for reasons based on the individual’s personal experience. But that’s not the issue here. The eviction of the Irish ‘Travellers’ (I put the word in commas because I think the traveller label is bogus) has nothing to do with their ethnicity, it is because they were breaking the law. An occupation of the site by Craig Murray and people of similar ethicity would have been treated in precisely the same way.
Charlotte,
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You belong in a museum. A museum of delusions of the liberal class.
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“As an adult i have chosen to be an individual to inform myself of the many factors which could lead an individual into a vulnerable situation where they may need support. You clearly don’t see it worth your while to do that.”
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No, I only wrote three blog posts in the last two weeks examining the causes of unemployment and proposing sensible and workable solutions. Too much trouble, obviously for you to examine the link attacked to my name before you blast off with your arrogant, conceited, self-satisfied, humbug.
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Instead, you argue for making half the population a ward of the state rather than changing the political and economic structure in a way that would make them free and economically independent agents.
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Sure there will always be some who cannot help themselves: one or two percent of the population, perhaps. If you help such people, whether you’re paid or unpaid, good for you. But that’s not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is the idea you seem to accept and wish to propagate, that a large part of the population (about 40% in Britain, currently) must be on some kind of welfare. Such an idea does a great disservice to millions of people.
“The eviction of the Irish ‘Travellers’ (I put the word in commas because I think the traveller label is bogus) has nothing to do with their ethnicity, it is because they were breaking the law.”
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I know, Mr D, and I agree with you. Which is why I quoted a comment from Media Lens above: “Truth is we are all on the same side really. It is the planning system which is the enemy as it favours the rich, the crooks and the rentiers, but the “divide an conquer” strategy has won, and it is the little people: travellers and settled, who are the losers.”
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Having said that, I cannot “escape” from the fact that my own experience of interaction with the ‘travelling community’ over many decades has been very negative.
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Mary,
You seem to have great difficulty in answering simple questions. I cannot imagine why.
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Charlotte,
Thanks for your response. I’ve lived all my life in Ireland and I’m glad to say that incidents of racism against immigrants have been mercifully few and far between. In fact, one hears a lot of praise for e.g. hard working Polish tradesmen who outshone the Irish completely and made themselves very popular. I don’t have any figures for how many have now gone home.
I live near to a large double gypsy site, I have gypsies living in the same road as me and also to the back of my property and I have never, not once, in the years living in close proximity had a spot of bother from them, on the contrary, treat them with respect and respect is what you get back, much the same as any other human beings. I have never noticed even a piece of paper loose outside their property again on the contrary it is exceptionally well maintained and very neat. They have built seriously nice looking brick walls replacing broken scruffy derelict fencing, installed beautiful wrought iron gates and generally improved the appearance of their site. When passing as I often do, nine times out of ten there is someone outside with a broom cleaning, they seem to have a passion or obsession for it.
I once saw a bedraggled mum and dad with a tot in a pushchair and two toddlers clinging onto it walking in the wind and rain towards their camp, they were about a mile away, I stopped and asked them would they like a lift, they accepted and honestly the thanks I received, anyone would think that I had just given them a million pounds – their car had broken down. Each year since then I have received a beautiful hand made Christmas card.
For the people that say these “travellers” do not travel, how can they? If they do they are moved on they are not allowed to put down camp. This is their way of life the majority do not want to live in houses, who are we (Tory Councillor Tony Ball) to force them to?
I believe that people’s minds have been set against the travelling community and the majority pass opinions on the say so of others, perhaps if people could just open their minds a little and give them a chance, they may find they have nothing to fear in the majority of cases. Of course not all travellers are the same, but not all of any ethnicity is the same. There really is truth in this saying “there is good and bad in every race”, just give them a chance.
£22 million could have been saved with a little flexibility from Basildon council, they could have granted the their planning permission for their site, it could have come with strict rules and regulations that must be adhered to, it has been successfully carried out in other councils, however, that would not have appeased the rather odd neighbour the gypsies have had to put up with on the boundary to their property would it? Not everyone living near to Dale Farm objected to the travellers, the right wing press and biased Tory controlled Basildon council just made it look as if they did.
As an aside Andy Coulson,David Cameron’s former chief of media operations at Downing Street started life as a reporter on Essex’s Basildon Echo. Why does everything with the Tories always, but always somehow manage to entwine?
Very few people are aware of this, a source close to the site told me that a police marksman fired three rounds into the crowd.
He won a teddy bear, a plastic flower and a small goldfish.
… couldn’t resist..