Those Brits sure love their Thatcher

You see, urban folk don't understand the countryside ways.

Whereas countryside people understand countryside ways AND city ways!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1135359/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-The-age-snitch--public-sector-informers-creating-Stasi-Britain-.html

expand the comments on this page if you wish to see dozens of marcello carlins.

got to comment #4 before punching a hole in the monitor.

However wrote this expressed my views with far more clarity and forthrightness than I could ever do - and to a wider audience. Well done, and I endorse every word.

- Jean, SW, England

This is the kind of utter looniness that springs up in the wake of the destruction of a masculinised society and its replacement by a feminised society. It was inevitable.

I rest my case.

- Eric Legge, Ongar,

But you haven't made your case yet.

Don't Look Back In Ongar

Clearly with any HYS-type set-up you're going to get the nutbags and idiots.

But I fail to see how a careless but lighthearted remark made after the imbibement of a few drinks in the company of friends equates with Enoch Powell in '68.

Furthermore, if everyone's so obsessed with this happening In The Workplace, what the hell are the BBC doing allowing alcohol to be consumed In The Workplace?

As with Ross and Brand, nobody would have known or given a toss about this if the meejah hadn't picked up on it and decided to make it an issue.

Who cares if we end up not talking to anyone else and no one talks to us for fear of getting the sack or being sued? It's a Good Story!

But I fail to see how a careless but lighthearted remark made after the imbibement of a few drinks in the company of friends equates with Enoch Powell in '68.

Er, the answer is, it doesn't, and nobody except you has claimed it does. Enoch Powell was a member of the Shadow Cabinet, and was sacked. Carol Thatcher did little reports on some shitty TV show, and she hasn't been sacked (because as you've pointed out, she's a freelancer). There's no equates in there.

dropped = sacked.

Daily Mirror has an interview with the mother of "Thatcher's Victim"

(Didn't look in though, so it might have been the mothers of all those miners or something...)

tbh i thought the hysteria over ross/brand was sort-of justified in that when j-ross said 'i would fuck you' to gwyneth paltrow on tv, i did feel that some sort of a line had been crossed. but with this...

it's hard to talk about this kind of hysteria (on both sides: "thought police" vs "the ineradicable racism of the former colonial power") without getting hysterical about what it all signifies.

The BBC have said they will still employ her on other programmes just not the One Show so she hasn't been sacked.

So, it's Adrian Chiles who won't 'work' 'with' her, I guess.

Ron Atkinson-style sensitive examination of racial politics in the works already.

well, this is sort of what i mean. what ron atkinson said was worse; but also the nightmare HYS/CIF/etc "culture" of the last couple of years hadn't kicked in. ron-gate did not seem to generate quite this amount of horseshit, and that took place when the economy wasn't imploding.

Wasn't on the BBC either though and that's crucial to why this is being supersized.

Well, yes - it would help if the current BBC had anything resembling a backbone.

(see also unsacked Mayor of London Boris "P*cc*n*nn**s" Johnson)

Except that I think she should have at least been suspended. This has backfired on the BBC surely as it has been 'supersized' more by the anti-PC brigade though. It was the DM who put her on the front page.

troo, and the mail's blatant hypocrisy w/r/t this vs ross-brand is why they have to lean on the dreadful 'it was in private' argument. that argument doesn't hold water. reckon that it carol thatcher had said 'i am sorry, it was unthinkingly insensitive' this would have blown over.

xpost

johnson was clearly using 'picanninies' ironically to deflate blair's imperial pretensions. he's a terrible man and everything, but it's basic reading comp stuff.

There's details of a new BBC apology on the CBale thread.

this is Carol Thatcher ffs. under whatever pretext I'm glad to get rid of her.

stellar argument, kudos.

Boris did say that in public, but to be fair he also apologised for saying it.

If CT's drinking companions had said "look, I don't agree with you" or "look, that's out of order" or similar when she made that remark - as any reasonable person who knew her would have done - and she corrected herself then nothing more would have been heard about it.

But someone - I'm unconvinced that Chiles and/or Brand were even in the same room when she said it - decided to throw a hissy fit and go to the headmaster whining daddy daddy thith woman thaid thomething terrible and they're the person who should be kicked out of the BBC, not CT.

no marcello, she was asked to withdraw the remark and apologised, she refused and was sacked. it's famously hard to get sacked from the bbc!

*apologise

If CT's drinking companions had said "look, I don't agree with you" or "look, that's out of order"

of course nothing like that happened and you know 'cause you were there

I'm unconvinced that Chiles and/or Brand were even in the same room when she said it

hooray for you!

also bbc one controller confirmed brand and chiles were in the room. don't let the facts get in the way.

Why should she apologise to anyone except the people who professed to be offended by her remark?

If the BBC carries on like this they won't be able to attract anyone to work for them and they'll be dead/privatised (same difference) in five years.

she didn't apologise to anyone

MC trolling scorecard: this thread rates C minus - unconvincing and transparent. Could do better.

feel that im being drawn into the hysteria but: um, has anyone brought up the shit chris moyles has got a way with on air?

away with

i think several papers have mentioned the moyles stuff. halle berry incident was particularly awkward iirc.

Isn't it the case with Moyles that his show and personality are tailored to a specific audience who know exactly what they're going to get and that those likely to be offended by him know better than to tune in?

(or, indeed, agree to be interviewed by him?)

Oscar winning actress Halle Berry (above) took great offence to Chris’ “big, fat, black guy” impersonation. She questioned if he was being racist live on air during an interview with Hugh Jackman for one of the X Men films. Afterwards he said she was "bratty” and should get over herself.

think her exact words were "are we having a racist moment here?"

Isn't it the case with Moyles that his show and personality are tailored to a specific audience who know exactly what they're going to get and that those likely to be offended by him know better than to tune in?

― Bernard Braden Misreads Stephen Leacock (Marcello Carlin), Friday, February 6, 2009 12:33 PM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah well it was the same with DER STURMER.

also, i don't think 'people who listen to pop music in the morning' implies 'pigshit-ignorant racist, homophobic, sexist-liking twat'. 'if you don't like it, don't tune in' is not the best defense for a publicly funded service -- though sometimes it has to be made. not, i would have thought, of a flagship mainstream show, though.

Doesn't Berry/her agent have highly paid researchers who can find out what sort of a chap Moyles is before agreeing to talk to him?

I don't particularly like Nick Ferrari or James Whale ranting away about Broken Britain or whatever they do on their flagship LBC mainstream shows but I deal with the dilemma by not listening to them. Listeners do have the choice.

why don't you stop reading all this news coverage that annoys you so much then?

Doesn't Berry/her agent have highly paid researchers who can find out what sort of a chap Moyles is before agreeing to talk to him?

Probably, also there is the possibility that said agent (or some underling) got sacked for putting her into this.

I'd imagine they would be!

Oh, I'm OUTRAGED!

the point is the bbc shouldn't pay lots of money to plankton like moyles and ross. it sounds absurd to say halle berry and gwyneth paltrow deserve better treatment... but they sort of do! it demeans the viewer or listener to have to pretend that ross/moyles's shit is acceptable.

I tend to find words such as "acceptable" and "appropriate" enemies of humanity but perhaps that's just me.

Moyles and Ross are highly skilled and experienced and occasionally very entertaining broadcasters and the argument that people who tune in/go on their show don't know what they're getting into doesn't, in your words, hold water.

But I guess that if they're going to "sack" CT then they'll have to get rid of Moyles, Ross and Clarkson as well. It's only fair. Look forward to exciting Friday Night With Alex Lester shows from now until, um, September.

Radio is kind of less of a participatory medium than TV tho - eg loads of workplaces just have it on as a matter of course. Why, only yesterday lunchtime I was browsing crappy CDs and had to endure the voice of George Lamb

Is he still on? Another argument for delaying getting a digital radio for as long as possible.

lol @ the Daily Mail masses trying to bend their logic around supporting Thatcher and Clarkson while castigating Ross and Brand. As I understand it it's ok to insult black men and disabled Scotsmen but not old white Englishmen who do comedy Spanish accents.

xp I don't otherwise pay much attention but he doesn't seem to actually get less popular no matter how much of a prick he acts :(

xp: I totally agree, Omino - apply it across the board or don't apply it at all.

Of course if the Mail didn't have a vested interest in stirring all this up in the first place then none of this would be happening!

How come the Mail readers who love calling Jonathan Ross "Wossy" don't call CT "Cawol"?

Surely it should be "Thatchewy"?