Saturday, May 01, 2010

Bigotgate

"I read a story in the internet about your prime minister," one of my students told me. "He called a woman stupid, but I don't understand why it is a big story."

"Me neither," I said. Bigoted woman with Irish name rants to prime minister about immigrants, prime minister calls her a "bigoted woman". Where's the news story in a politician being honest?

Oh.

8 comments:

Garry Nixon said...

Did you see the face on her? The sort who'd puncture your football if it landed in your garden.

Michael said...

Hahaha. Exactly.

Wood said...

Either of you read the transcript of the conversation? Nothing she said was deserving of Brown's remark. Fact is I would wager that the bulk of people in the UK have legitimate concerns of the type she touched on.

girlx said...

I agree with Wood. I do feel a bit sorry for GB though with his PR ineptitude.

Michael said...

You really shouldn't agree with Wood, Eilidh. It's never a safe thing to do.

Garry Nixon said...

the bulk of people in the UK have legitimate concerns of the type she touched on

If they read the Daily Mail.

Michael said...

Daily Mail readers. I wasn't shocked to see Mrs Duffy was one of those.

Ironically, all of the contributors to this thread are English language teachers who have lived/are living abroad. Just saying.

Garry Nixon said...

I was thinking of that very fact earlier. It's utterly absurd for a tefl teacher to complain about immigration. Lot's of people in lots of countries want our skills. By the same score, lots of people in the UK and elsewhere want cheap farm labour, (for one thing). So they get the workers from other countries. If that process stops, capitalism as we know it could well collapse. So maybe we should all just stay at home and watch it crumble?

And let us never forget that throughout the 1930s the Daily Mail constantly ran horror stories about the Jewish hordes of refugees from Germany.