Current Affairs 2024

[Mervyn and Trish]

On this occasion the Speaker followed the normal rules.

[Slapstick]

On this occasion the Speaker followed the normal rules.

Maybe he did, but in the interest of fairness she should've been given the opportunity to question the PM directly rather than him having a preloaded question that he could dodge, after all the debate was centered around her and the despicable comments towards her, with two previous MP's murdered you'd of thought the speaker would given her the chance given the idiotic " I'd like to shoot her" comment, not withstanding the racist and sexist comments to go along with it.

The whole thing stinks.

[oldbluefox]

The fact remains, she should have submitted her question.

[Mervyn and Trish]

On this occasion the Speaker followed the normal rules.

Maybe he did, but in the interest of fairness she should've been given the opportunity to question the PM directly rather than him having a preloaded question that he could dodge, after all the debate was centered around her and the despicable comments towards her, with two previous MP's murdered you'd of thought the speaker would given her the chance given the idiotic " I'd like to shoot her" comment, not withstanding the racist and sexist comments to go along with it.

The whole thing stinks.

In the interests of fairness he should have broken the rules? Absolutely not. In the interests of fairness she knew the rules and should have followed them. Or of course the opposition MPs who are so excited about it could have stood down from the queue to allow her a turn.. I agree what was said about her was awful. But that does not justify bending the rules to suit her agenda. And race and gender apart she has a well established record as an incompetent hypocrite.

[Slapstick]

On this occasion the Speaker followed the normal rules.

Maybe he did, but in the interest of fairness she should've been given the opportunity to question the PM directly rather than him having a preloaded question that he could dodge, after all the debate was centered around her and the despicable comments towards her, with two previous MP's murdered you'd of thought the speaker would given her the chance given the idiotic " I'd like to shoot her" comment, not withstanding the racist and sexist comments to go along with it.

The whole thing stinks.

In the interests of fairness he should have broken the rules? Absolutely not. In the interests of fairness she knew the rules and should have followed them. Or of course the opposition MPs who are so excited about it could have stood down from the queue to allow her a turn.. I agree what was said about her was awful. But that does not justify bending the rules to suit her agenda. And race and gender apart she has a well established record as an incompetent hypocrite.

He wouldn't of broken or bent any rules whatsoever, the speaker has and always has been allowed questions from the benches regardless of whether it was requested prior the PMQ's or not, and just be aware that even if submitted before not all get asked, it's at the speakers discretion.

Believe me, I'm no fan of her's, but by the very nature of the heinous comments she had the right to question why Sunak accepted a pi55 poor apology from the multimillionaire Conservative supporter if it were me or you we'd of been charged with racism without a doubt.

Starmer is no different, she lost her whip for alleged antisemitic comments, yet all he would question was are the Tories returning the 10million donation, hypocritical to say the least.

Like I previously said the whole thing stinks.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Those listed on the order paper are always prioritised. Others can be selected if there is time. There wasn't. All she had to do was give the appropriate notice. But she didn't. Either she failed to do so through incompetence or she preferred to seed a fuss. And as you rightly point out she is herself guilty of making antisemitic comments. When asked by Starmer how he could help, her answer was restore the whip. So maybe that was what it was really about! In which case yeah it stinks.

[Slapstick]

Those listed on the order paper are always prioritised. Others can be selected if there is time. There wasn't. All she had to do was give the appropriate notice. But she didn't. Either she failed to do so through incompetence or she preferred to seed a fuss. And as you rightly point out she is herself guilty of making antisemitic comments. When asked by Starmer how he could help, her answer was restore the whip. So maybe that was what it was really about! In which case yeah it stinks.

Yes they are prioritised but not all get to ask as the house gives way to open questions, always have done, simple fact is either way between the speaker the PM and Starmer she was never going to get the chance whatever the circumstances.

As for her comments yes they were offensive, but nowhere near what she had against her, I quote Frank Hester "It's like trying not to be racist but you see her on the TV, and you're like... you just want to hate all black women because she's there" "And I don't hate all black women, but I think she should be shot" staggering, but that's ok because he apologised says the PM, funnily enough the latter fits in well with the new extremism definitions I'd say, oh the irony.

I'll leave it there as there's no way we'll see eye to eye on this one.

[towny44]

46 times according to the BBC news channel. Ridiculous really.

I didnt think there were ever as many as 46 questions asked, PMQs normally lasts less than 40 minutes and about 10-15 minutes is taken up with the intial PMs comments and the opposition leader and SNP leaders questions and answers. So with the remaining 30 minutes at at least 90 seconds each, there's only room for about 22 questions from the rabble, unless they counted her bobbing back down as well.

[Stephen]

Good point John.

Perhaps she was trying to strengthen her calf muscles

[Mervyn and Trish]

All the hiatus round this from the opposition seems less about DA or racism, more about trying to make the Tories hand back money. If this guy had donated money to Labour rather than the Tories the story wouldn't have even surfaced. It was a dreadful thing to say, that has been acknowledged, move on. There are more important things for parliament to be working on.

[Ranchi]

I’m afraid I’m getting pretty confused with terminology these days. In the late ‘90s part of my brief included what would now be termed ‘inclusion’ and we were taught, through several training sessions that the term ‘black’ was a term of empowerment and was to be used describe any person or group that wasn’t white. The idea was a little difficult at first but was easy enough to introduce through the idea of eg black scientists and mathematicians of which there were/are many excellent examples.
I believe I have fairly liberal views but still tend to avoid conversations around race/colour with all but close friends or family.
I was surprised last night to see the BBC News (601) hailing Vaughn Gething’s elevation to first minister of Wales with the headline Wales Elects Europe’s First Black Leader.
I was under the impression that Rishi Sunak and Humza Usaf would have both beaten him to that title.
Is it now time to change my terms of reference and ditch my training from the ‘90s? (Incidentally, terms around ‘colour’ were a definite no,no and that was easy enough to appreciate when you heard about the use of the term in a South African context from footballers such as Albert Johanneson of Leeds United.)

[Mervyn and Trish]

I think the whole thing is a minefield. Some terms are clearly derogatory and should never be used. But others such as black go in and out of favour. And I struggle with why coloured means anything different to of colour.

[Ranchi]

I agree. Obviously wouldn’t use a derogatory term but the fear of inadvertently using an incorrect term is worrying. And as for north of the border after April 1st then oh dear.

[oldbluefox]

I have great difficulty in getting my head around so-called racism. I consider myself to be non racist and couldn't care less what colour or gender anybody is but there does seem to be pressure at the moment to push diversity, equality etc to such an extent that I feel my culture is being squeezed out. I put on the television and the greater proportion of presenters and correspondents are female and/or black/coloured. As I say I am happy to see equality and diversity which reflects our country but where is the balance? In a country where approximately 15% are of ethnic cultures are they now over represented?

When racist comments are said to be made I often substitute white for black into the comment and then ask "Is that a racist comment"? The results are interesting to say the least.

On a slightly different tangent I put the radio on this morning and they were talking about viral sandwiches at £7.50 a throw, Gen X and Gen Z who can't wait until their parents pass away so they can have their money. I was rather shocked but am coming around to the idea some of them live in a parallel universe. I hadn't a clue what they were talking about but this is another example of some of the rubbish being bandied about on the radio. I'll have to stick to music on my Sony Walkman!!!

[Mervyn and Trish]

Get your 8 track cartridges out.

[Mervyn and Trish]

The other angle on political correctness is the way language gets hijacked. For example we can't say blackboard any more, in case we upset someone. We are supposed to say chalkboard. It is a board, it is black. So where is the problem? We can apparently still say white board.

We can't refer to a jolly or colourful person as gay, because that means something else now. We weren't allowed to say queer though for odd reasons that now seems okay again. I can't keep up.

[Stephen]

Political correctness gone mad.

Those that are easily offended, go and cry in your hanky somewhere else.

[Stephen]

355681123_10159502403751905_2129753170752325237_n.jpg

[CaroleF]

Doesn't that sum up the ridiculous situation at the moment - if we're allowed to say White Board but can't say Black Board, why? So if Black Boards are still around what do we call them - we can't call them White Boards because they aren't White! Ridiculous. One of my sons-in-law is from Uganda and I asked him a while ago now, 'Do I call you black or coloured, I'm not sure?' He said, 'You can call me whatever you like, I really don't mind.'

Carole

[barney]

We are tempted to opt out of what is considered ‘normal life’
We’re not interested in social media, online banking, online shopping or getting obsessed about things we have no control over.
We are content to live in our bubble.
Go to the shops.
Go to the bank.
Live life exactly as we want to.
The world can get on with it, but not with us accompanying it.

[Ranchi]

Go to the bank…wow that requires planning and emergency rations for us. Our local town used to have Halifax, Barclays, NatWest, Lloyds, HSBC and building society. It’s still got the building society (+ an extra building Soc in the library) & that’s it.

[oldbluefox]

Rather amusingly (although not funny) Nationwide advertise themselves as not closing any branches down The irony is they closed their branches long before the others thought about it.

As a consequence we transferred all of our business to our local building society which are excellent rather than facing a 30 mile trip to our next branch of Nationwide.

[Ray B]

I actually a phone call this morning from a lady at Nat West surveying customers about the last out of City bank. It was conveniently situated on the City ring road with a big free car park, it closed six months ago and now if you need to visit the bank ,it entails a trip to the City centre.
I gave her my views on the loss of our well used bank, and she said that it was the same reply she had from most of the customers she had spoken to.
Any questions I had ,she asked. The bank building is still empty and could be reopened was my reply .

[Ray B]

I see the megalomaniac was voted back for another five years with 87% of the votes . Nothing surprising there then.

[Stephen]

I wonder if it was rigged by any chance