DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

i see my role more as curator than pervert

In seriousness I don't know what the legality of page 3 is but I think it's a manifestation of a kind of creepy, bad British sexuality and some manifestation of that or other will always be allowed/enforced whatever else gets banned

Like in Russia, you get the combination of shockingly brutal state homophobia + yet anorexic blonde sex-doll ideal for the women and girls. In a particular strata of America you get gaybashing and slutshaming and purity rings + yet the coiling, jumping, smiling bodies of cheerleaders. In Italy and some other latin countries, teenagers having anal sex to get round the catholic sexual taboos because those taboos are so strong + the idea that a Woman is Beautiful and Sensual.

Parallels might be drawn with Iran and Saudi too but I'm not qualified to say. To be honest the above is probably horribly reductive too. But the point is there's always some form of sexuality that's allowed in, and page 3 is ours.

http://i.imgur.com/MNnay3w.jpg?1

up against tough competition, claire perry making valiant play for the actual most stupid current MP: http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2013/07/24/cameron-porn-advisors-website-hacked-threatenslibels-blogger/

http://flickeringcolours.net/v2/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/double-facepalm-picard-riker-2.jpg

Next week: members of the Flat Earth Society are brought in as advisors to the UK Space Agency.

God, imagine being a government so racist that Nigel Farage felt the need to call you out for being too racist.

"Go home or face arrest" sounds like something from one of Nick Griffin's wet dreams.

out of interest, if you're arrested for not going home what's the punishment?

You get to stay in the UK...

Or they make you a member of the Royal Family or something.

saw this being retweeted earlier re: this campaign

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rlig1e

tbh probably very little thought has been given to how actual illegal immigrants might take it- the campaign isn't aimed at them.

using "GO HOME" as a phrase is the offensive bit, right?

out of interest, if you're arrested for not going home what's the punishment?

Deportation, iirc. You might be kept in a detention centre while awaiting deportation but it's not a given.

For those too lazy to click:

a friend complained about the #racistvan; her report is well worth a read:

"I just spoke to the Home Office via their text-callback service about the 'GO HOME OR FACE ARREST' billboards. Very interesting conversation with the woman working there: she recorded my complaint, warned me that notes of complaint via that route were being binned and quietly gave me the official Home Office complaints address: Home Office, Direct Communications Unit, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.

"Then she told me she and her colleagues felt the message was counterproductive and would increase fear, making it less possible for destitute migrants or people who might want to claim asylum to approach the HO for help - and she said she'd raised this with the PCS and was hopeful that the union would respond. So, in summary, even the Home Office's own staff don't want to deal with the fallout of this campaign."

WE! SA!! LUTE!!! YER!!!!

the campaign isn't aimed at them.

Yeah, it's an attempt to try and convince people who were thinking of voting for UKIP to vote Tory instead. Paid for by taxpayer's money.

Trust me, any expat/migrant/child of migrants looking at that thing is thinking NO, FUCK *YOU*.

http://scriptonitedaily.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/newsflash-uk-border-agency-id-checking-people-of-colour-at-train-stations/

Forget the van, this is the absolute worst.

Apparently there are liberals in prominent positions in the British government.

jfc i keep doing Children of Men jokes but this has gone way beyond

This is shocking. I would be surprised if the UKBA itself had a hand in deciding this was a good idea or a good use of resources. This has everything to do with the realigning of control that saw them coming back under Home Office command.

This is actually illegal as far as I know.

Also unworkable - how many millions of people in London a) look a bit foreign and b) don't carry their passport with them on public transport?

This is apparently becoming a fairly popular tactic. They have been waiting at bus stops at 4am or 5am because they think that a high proportion of people doing early shifts will be undocumented.

They can stop you if they have sufficient reason to think you don't have a visa but you don't have to answer their questions and they can't simply stop you for being foreign. I occasionally see instructions in how to respond / understand your rights pasted up in Turkish around my area.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23518732#TWEET840277

IN YOUR FACE HUNT.

The sweep by the UK Border Agency, mainly at rail stations, has caused a furore, partly because the Home Office issued press releases and Twitter updates saying how many "immigration offenders" had been arrested, apparently prejudging their guilt.

The Twitter updates followed the Home Office use of vans warning illegal immigrants that they must "go home" or face arrest.

Farage said: "Spot checks and being demanded to show your papers by officialdom are not the British way of doing things. Yes, of course we want to deal with illegal immigration, but what's the point of rounding people up at railway stations if at the same time they're still flooding in through Dover and the other nearly hundred ports in this country.

"I'm astonished that the Home Office has become so politicised that they're actually advertising 'another 10 arrested'. Before long they'll be live video-streaming these arrests. I don't like it. It really is not the way we've ever behaved or operated as a country. We don't have ID cards; we should not be stopped by officialdom and have to prove who we are."

They've managed to make Nigel Farage sound like a voice of reason, sort of. Kudos.

No wonder Obama's campaign chief is helping them win the next election. They're all cunts.

Farage's message is that immigration can't be controlled while the UK is part of the EU so any attempts to deter undocumented workers is cosmetic. He has a pretty clear incentive to rubbish all immigration policy that doesn't address that central point. Wouldn't imagine he'd sound so liberal if EU migration was already restricted.

Also has a pretty clear incentive to rubbish anything the Tories do too.

The language he phrases it in is pretty transparent too: I don't like it. It really is not the way we've ever behaved or operated as a country. - This is just a whimsical personal opinion, but, there's nothing inherently morally wrong about it in absolute terms, it's just that we British like to see ourselves as above that sort of thing, and let's be honest that allows us to declare ourselves superior to less civillized foreigners yes? This is about tradition and nationalist self-image, not morality or ethics.

Yes, of course we want to deal with illegal immigration, but what's the point of rounding people up at railway stations if at the same time they're still flooding in through Dover and the other nearly hundred ports in this country - You're not doing the job thoroughly enough!

so much insight

its not just that ukip have been outflanked but quite a lot of conservatives too, not all of whom regard the purity of the volk as being so important that it requires having thugs hassling random people in the street

The minister revealed that no details of the ethnicity of those questioned were recorded, with officers noting only the nationality, name and date of birth of those they spoke to. Some 17 people were arrested on suspicion of immigration offences at two tube stations where operations were carried out. Data on the numbers stopped for questioning will be released in due course, he added.

"We are not carrying out random checks of people in the street and asking people to show their papers," he told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme. "That's absolutely not what we are doing. We wouldn't have the lawful authority to do that.

"The operations carried out at two tube stations were based on specific intelligence about concerns that we had about those particular locations and about the times when we conducted the operations. We weren't stopping people based on their race or their ethnicity. We were only stopping people and questioning them where we had a reasonable suspicion that they were an immigration offender."

would love to know how they arrived at this "reasonable suspicion" without ever recognising people's race or ethnicity

Might be a bit of a slap-down to Boris Johnson as well, i suppose. Reminding him who's in charge of immigration policy in the capital.

While it is pretty lolworthy to see Farage criticising the government for being too racist you have to willfully overlook the fact that a lot of this is his fault in the first place.

Reports in the Indy today of victims of domestic violence being questioned about their immigration status. This fucking country.

Any time a foreigner is detained by police, the first thing they want to know is your immigration status. Even if your status is perfectly in order, it's still a sinister question in that setting.

I have some doubts about whether the sort of people who want to see these checks in place will be satisfied with them.

Spot the odd one out!

Questioned on the BBC News Channel, Mr Bloom, MEP for Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire, said it would be "absurd" and "ridiculous" to label his comments racist.

He said Bongo Bongo Land was "a figment of people's imagination. It's like Ruritania or the Third World".

He added: "It's sad how anybody can be offended by a reference to a country that doesn't exist."

"One of those ghost stories like Harry Potter or the Bible..."

"A myth, like a UKIP majority at a General Election."

"but you don't understand, Bongo Bongo Land is the name of my dog"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23597233

The UK Independence Party has banned its representatives from saying the phrase "Bongo Bongo Land", after an MEP used it to describe countries receiving government aid.

political correctness gone mad

They'll be banning that Kia-Ora ad next...

It's Um Bongo I'm worried about