Tony Blair’s legacy and what being progressive and demanding equality for all leads to.

• Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government’s anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: “If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you.” Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: “If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings.” It took him five years to clear his name.

• In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher’s first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: “It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police!” Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. According to her mother, she was placed in a bare cell for 3 1/2 hours. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott. Headmaster Anthony Edkins reportedly said: “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark. We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form.”

• A 10-year-old child was arrested and brought before a judge, for having allegedly called an 11-year-old boya “Paki” and “bin Laden” during a playground argument at a primary school (the other boy had called him a skunk and a Teletubby). When it reached the court the case had cost taxpayers £25,000. The accused was so distressed that he had stopped attending school. The judge, Jonathan Finestein, said: “Have we really got to the stage where we are prosecuting 10-year-old boys because of political correctness? There are major crimes out there and the police don’t bother to prosecute. This is nonsense.”
  Finestein was fiercely attacked by teaching union leaders, as in those witch-hunt trials where any who spoke in defence of an accused or pointed to defects in the prosecution were immediately targeted as witches and candidates for burning.

• Hate-crime police investigated Basil Brush, a puppet fox on children’s television, who had made a joke about Gypsies. The BBC confessed that Brush had behaved inappropriately and assured police that the episode would be banned.

• A bishop was warned by the police for not having done enough to “celebrate diversity”, the enforcing of which is now apparently a police function. A Christian home for retired clergy and religious workers lost a grant because it would not reveal to official snoopers how many of the residents were homosexual. That they had never been asked was taken as evidence of homophobia.

• Muslim parents who objected to young children being given books advocating same-sex marriage and adoption at one school last year had their wishes respected and the offending material withdrawn. This year, Muslim and Christian parents at another school objecting to the same material have not only had their objections ignored but have been threatened with prosecution if they withdraw their children.

• The crime of one nurse was to offer to pray for a patient, who did not complain but merely mentioned the matter to another nurse. She managed to win her disciplinary hearing and got re-instated.

• A primary school receptionist, Jennie Cain, whose five-year-old daughter was told off for talking about Jesus in class, faces the sack for seeking support from her church. A private email from her to other members of the church asking for prayers fell into the hands of school authorities. She managed to come to a financial arrangement with the school and council after a hearing in front of the employment tribunal though she did not go back to her job.

This list was from Hal G. P. Colebatch’s book Blair’s Britain: British Culture Wars and New Labour

kitler March 2, 2011 at 10:31

My local police station flies a rainbow flag to show solidarity with the
mincers. I find this extremely offensive since I am a mincer and I fucking
hate the police.

Jeremy Poynton
February 28, 2011 at 15:03

There is an annual contest at the University of Arkansas calling for the
most appropriate definition of a contemporary term.

This year’s term was: “Political Correctness.”

The winner wrote:

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional,
illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a
piece of shit by the clean end.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself

Ian (Aberdeen)
February 28, 2011 at 14:53

The people who think-up these anti-racialism and protection of vulnerable
persons laws (to name but two aspects of ‘political correctness’) seem to be
too thick between the ears to realize that the laws they turn-out are flawed
and exploitable. Indications are that these laws are already being widely
exploited for the purposes of malicious accusations, hate campaigns,
fraudulent compensation claims, blackmail, stalking, and other forms of crime.

I would second the motion to repeal all such laws without delay.

2Mac February 28, 2011 at 13:26

I am a black vegetarian(Vegan Brigade) Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged
lesbian socialist but I do not drive a lorry. No! I am busy fighting for
special treatment called equality within your court system to enable mfself
and the rest of the members of my various different minorities. It is a legal
fact that we are more equal than the elitist white indigenous population. who
refuse to learn all our languages as a way of insulting our culture.

These racist thugs think that because there fore-bearers shed blood, sweat
and their very lives for a couple of millennium building this country that
they should be treated equally with me and my special friends.

As outlined in the European Court of Human Ridiculousness(ECHR) ruling
1939c the reason me and my comrades cannot find suitable work is that the
capitalist pigs of industry refuse to acknowledge my designation as a
Socialist of Special Social Engineering Importance (SSSI).

Since I came to the UK I have been treated pitifully and forced to live in
a prison like 4 bedroom detached house in the west of London on a meagre
benefit of £24,000 per year. This leaves very little to send back home for my
family to live off.

Your education system even tries to force my children to loose their
cultural identity by making them speak English and fills their heads with
crazy ideas about women’s rights being equal to men’s. My legal aid lawyer is
currently taking this to court for rectification.

I would despair if it were not for the progress we in the cultural jihad
are making to ban everything of your culture and replacing it with our culture
at your expense while making you feel guilty for your countries success and
wealth and the couple of years of colonial rule that is the cause of every
problem in every country. What have the Britons ever done for us?

Your people, the Zionist regime and the American Satan are to blame for
everything wrong in the world with your modern technology, medical treatments,
equality for everyone, democratic institutions, foreign aid programmes and
your callous attempts to force Freedom upon a people who already have the
genius teaching of Allahs revelations to lead us to peace and prosperity.

You do not understand the problems we lived with back home, there is just
so little time to focus on progress as the work of weeding out infidels,
hypocrites apostates, gays, educated women, jews, christians, hindus,
buddhists & cartoonists. All the billions our country earn from the oil
industry barely covers the cost of such divine works.

Kindest Regards,

Cherie Blair on behalf of her many clients Tony Blair’s policies
created

JuliaM February
28, 2011 at 10:40

Along the same lines, something to remember next time the police are
weeping and rending their garments about the ‘danger’ we are all going to be
in if cuts mean fewer bobbies on the beat.

They clearly have too amany already, if they can spare the time for
this:

“Detectives will start sending messages to cyber bullies…”

Caedmon’s
Cat February 28, 2011 at 10:31

It’s all too easy to slip into a Daily Mail mentality about these examples
of vindictiveness and blame it on (to use a cliche) “political correctness
gone mad.” However, it’s far better to get an understanding of the ideological
strategy behind it; I heartily recommend (and I’ve done so before) Dr Sean
Gabb’s “Cultural War” book, which may be downloaded in pdf format from his
website and others. It’s been one of the most revealing insights I’ve read,
and it should be read by anyone who wants to understand the contemporary
cultural landscape.

Tacitus February 28, 2011 at 10:14

It is always easy to see examples of where ‘political correctness’ has gone
awry – and no-one is disputing there have been serious errors. However, what
is the alternative? To go back to a world where we ‘look after the ladies’? Or
perhaps we might question whether we want ‘coloureds’ in our society?

Evidence from the Searchlight Education Trust today does not paint a very
good picture of modern Britain and while I am saddened to hear of the outrages
cited above, I still prefer the tolerance today compared with the bigotry of
yesteryear.

John Levett
February 28, 2011 at 10:40

Tacitus – it seems to me that the ‘bigotry of yesteryear’ has been
replaced by just another form of bigotry. Intolerance of dissenting views
appears to be more prevalent than at any other time that I can recall:
what’s more, it’s state-sanctioned and distinctly unpleasant.

Tacitus
February 28, 2011 at 10:47

I would be the last to support intolerance of dissenting views –
particularly as more often than not I am one of the dissenters. However, I
do have a problem when the dissent allows for expressions of tolerance.
Take for example the level of bigotry levelled at Muslims. Sure there are
Islamic extremists – and only a fool would defend them, but the majority
of Muslims are hard-working, ordinary folk who want to live in peace with
their fellow citizens.

Our ‘political correctness should reflect an acceptance of their right
to peaceful co-existence without judgement of their race, ethnicity or
religion. If that makes me a state-sanctioned bigot, then I stand accused
and proudly accept the charges.

Fabian the
Fabulous February 28, 2011 at 14:03

The insidious genius of identity politics is to constantly redefine what
constitutes “racism”, “homophobia” etc, so that ever-more people are recast
as “bigots”.
Most English people are happy to rub along with homosexuals,
black people, etc – in spite of official attempts to drive a PC wedge
between them.

opinion prole
February 28, 2011 at 09:13

The country has been utterly and unspeakably betrayed by self regarding
lefties who couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag without a
flourescent-jacketed clipboard wielder to guide them. I seethe and boil with
anger when I read about these petty, childish actions by stupid small minded
bureacratic parasites. How on earth you can get these idiots out of politics,
local government, education and the media I do not know. And I don’t know if
Cameron knows either, or cares.

Woman on a
Raft February 28, 2011 at 08:36

Katherine Birbalsingh is competent teacher of French and may be one of the
gifted teachers of her generation. She’s unemployed and unemployable because
she refuses to toe the PC line, although her questioning of the current
orthodoxy amounts to little more than some observations that what we are doing
is not helping the objects of our concern.

As a woman of colour who has refused to be a PC-pet she is being doubly
punished.

If she had been an barely-competent classroom operator but kept up a
barrage of whinging that it wasn’t her fault, her pupils were all kept down
because they is blek, innit, and appeared as a puppet for the Labour party,
she’d have been a head mistress by now.

Her story reprises Ray Honeyford’s in the 1980s, when the Conservatives
cheerfully went along with this guff, eventually producing woeful legislation
in 1988.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4374961.stm

Birbalsingh may have thought that being a woman of colour, they’d listen to
her instead of crucifying her the way Honeyford was in order to keep an entire
generation of teachers in fear of their jobs.

Unfortunately, Birbalsingh is not as politically astute as she thought she
was. This transcends colour. Yes, she’s good at her job, but her advancement
was always contingent on being a good doggie for the worst of post-war
thinking.

JuliaM February
28, 2011 at 10:38

I thought I read she was planning to open her own school?

Woman on
a Raft February 28, 2011 at
10:53

So the papers said. However, opening a school in the private sector is
not particularly easy, let alone the state sector. Gove doesn’t seem to
have been knocked over in the rush to create free schools although he’s
got a strong demand from existing state schools wishing to become
independent academies. Running something where the building, staff and
pupils are already in place is a very different proposition from setting
up from scratch.

Gildas theMonk
February 28, 2011 at 08:21

Great post. We are living in a world where thought crime is a reality.

gladiolys February 28, 2011 at 07:37

I agree this list of “transgressions” is appalling. They are petty beyond
belief. I honestly believe the intention behind the legislation was sincere,
but its practise is pure Orwell. Maybe it should be withdrawn and everyone
should be told to grow up and sort out conflicts between themselves. But then
again, maybe police like the laws because they give them soft targets rather
than solving those pesky burglaries and stabbings and rapes and assaults.

Livewire February 28, 2011 at 07:18

There should have been a Basil Brush special episode to make amends. Dish
out the stirrup cups and hunt him with hounds.

JuliaM February
28, 2011 at 05:39

” Then remove all the PC thinkers from the public service that haven’t
been removed by the bill removing their jobs …”

That many? It’d make the great bovine TB cull look like a little veterinary
problem by comparison…

ivan February 28, 2011 at 11:19

That is the general idea Julia, if you cull them hard enough it will take
a generation or two for them to reappear – if they do at all.

ivan February 28, 2011 at 01:03

The simple answer is to remove everything produced by parliament since 1990
– the great repeal bill plus. Then remove all the PC thinkers from the public
service that haven’t been removed by the bill removing their jobs and we
might, just might start on the road to recovery.

There would also need to be a law that anyone trying to be PC would
automatically be locked away for at least 20 years.

The Wasp
February 27, 2011 at 23:37

You forgot to add the current favourite :

“using threatening, abusive or insulting words with intent to cause
harassment alarm or distress”

This offence is Labours true legacy – make it so everyone is too cowed to
say anythign at all for fear of being arrested after a complaint by a third
party.

Making aircraft gestures gets you arrested, for example!