And nowhere in the reactions that I am hearing from flag-waving Labour politicians is the fact that faux nationalism by those who similarly like to wrap themselves up in flags to further their political cause is a factor in all this. It’s as if these Labour politicians don’t realise that it was Farage and his cohort who started all this flag-waving nonsense in the first place and what they are doing is pandering to it.
Finally, there is no discussion of the fact that what we are witnessing might be perpetrated by a few, some of whom seem very good at mastering the art of misinformation, but the fact that it is happening reveals a wider likely feeling of alienation within our communities on which extremist sentiment feeds.
It is a fact that Stoke, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Liverpool and elsewhere lost out very badly during the neoliberal era that set out to destroy what so many of these places once contributed.
Mass immigration happened to these areas but anyone who notes that is a neo-fascist who doesn’t understand the cause of the discontent. So there.
No politician in power in 45 years has now sought to address the fact that Thatcher deliberately destroyed British manufacturing in pursuit of her political agenda that sought to undermine the power of working people,
Manufacturing output – yes, after inflation – is currently well over twice what it was when Maggie took power. So there was no destruction of manufacturiong by anyone.
Manufacturing employment dropped, sure. But that’s the other side of Baumol, that we can indeed increase labour productivity in manufacturing.
Is Murphy really a scouser? Because everything always comes back to ‘FATCHER!’
Hmmm. Always complaining. Massive sense of grievance and entitlement. Covets other people’s property. He should move to Liverpool.
Well yes, those who so enthusiastically fly flags for “palestine” and the united colours of sodomy are certainly a factor.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen Nigel wave either.
I don’t think mass immigration has affected these three towns to any significant degree: Sunderland 94.6% White, Stoke 86.43% White British plus 1.88% other White, Hartlepool likely similar to Sunderland. But they can see the effects of mass immigration elsewhere.
I do not support the actions of the rioters nor do I really understand what they hoped to achieve or their specific motivations. What I do have in common with them is a disgust at what this country has become, where it is heading and for those who have led us to this position.
Careful KJP, that sounds very much like the seditious uttering of that well known enemy of the establishment, Donna Jones, PCC Chair for Hampshire.
Whoops, it’s ok, she’s been made to recant her heresy! The internet doesn’t forget though.
https://x.com/StanVoWales/status/1820000539318304943
but the fact that it is happening reveals a wider likely feeling of alienation within our communities on which extremist sentiment feeds
I haven’t seen many estimates of the numbers involved but it does appear to be hundreds rather than thousands and certainly not tens of thousands. I also imagine that there isn’t a great deal of alienation or political ideology involved for a fair chunk of them other than what can be adopted to “justify” a bit of hooliganism till the football season starts on August 27th and regular hooliganism fun can resume.
No politician has quite so comprehensively destroyed manufacturing, in fact civilisation, till Ed Miliband decided he didn’t know nuffink and that didn’t matter, he was NOT going to allow anyone to burn hydrocarbons, so there!
So now we are unable to make steel, Mr Murphy, which is quite often used to build things. Bloody Fatcher!
There are a variety of other things we are unable to make Mr Murphy, so stay fit and well won’t you…
This was my favourite paragraph:
‘ Nor is the term Islamophobia being used, at least as far as I have heard, including on the BBC. Anti-semitism is mentioned whenever possible by media outlets. When what we are seeing is outright Islamophobia, apparently, the media do not know how to use the term.’
Maybe he’s seeing if the Muslim block might get representation in the House of Lords and solve his financial woes?
KJP – beware statistics based on the 2021 census. The floodgates opened just after Covid, with nearly 1.9m non-British immigrants in the three years ending December 2023. Spread evenly across the entire country, that would be 2.75% of the population. Obviously they aren’t spread evenly: they’re concentrated in poor urban areas.
I hope peace and democracy wins. Labour won a free and fair election.
@Peace,
Yes, but it was an election, not an enabling act.
That’s the trouble, they act as if it was (as do all cheeks of the uni-arse)
faux nationalism by those who similarly like to wrap themselves up in flags
This the faux nationalism of those with second Irish passports like to strew the UK with with orange, white & green flags every St Paddy’s day?
I recently (March) spent a very enjoyable long weekend in Newcastle – it was only on the third day that I noticed the first person with a dusky complexion. As a proud monkey-hanger, I know Hartlepool well and ‘hideously white’ would be a good description.
Those of us who watched the city of their birth turn into a: black / pakistani / somali / bangladeshi / euro moslem /third world shithole people of your choice, sea of ‘diversity’, and made the huge decision to relocate (with all the ramifications for work, young family and friends) decades ago to escape said ‘diversity’, are distinctly unhappy to see the haven they chose being polluted by ‘diversity’.
I absolutely respect the rights of those who wish to live in a multi-cultural society if they wish to.
I want them to respect my right not to.
AndrewM – I think 1.9m is the net migration number in 3 years, roughly 3.4 million in and 1.5 million out. Also out of the population are the roughly 2m deaths.
Depends how you dice the estimates but a 6% addition in foreign borns or those with a foreign born parent in 3 years is believable to me.
Almost everyone in Hartlepool has noticed the changes, the barbers, the take-aways, the islamic welfare centre, the growth of visual foreign borns on taxis, buses, in care and the hospital and two ethnic councillors elected this May one of whom openly boasting about his diversity rather then keeping shut about it like Sajid Javid used to. And last year’s terrorist murder of Terence Carney. It might make the place more interesting, and might just be a good thing overall, but it has happened VERY quickly.
We need to stop the riots.
The murderer of those 3 girls was evil.
I support peace, democracy, and Liberal values.
We need to keep democracy and peace.
From Murphy on X:
“Why isn’t the English Defence League a prescribed terrorist organisation?”
He must want it on the NHS or something….
Like some of the previous interlopers here, this latest one sounds like an AI from the days of the Turing Test. Simple grammar rules and a few buzzwords from lefty tracts. It seems incapable of engaging in the level of argument normally on show here.
might just be a good thing overall
It isn’t, but thankfully people are waking up to the healing power of fire.
Mrs Thastcher did NOT destroy manufacturing: in fact she increased it.
Unemployment did rise during her premiership but by less than the number of non-workers declared redundant by the denationalised electricity, steel and telecoms industries (British Gas was relatively efficient) and a *few* coal mines (Labour closed more coal mines than Mrs Thatcher). The number of people actually working in manufacturing increased as did its output.
Examples: BT got rid of *five* layers of management, National Power had three workers for every two jobs when part of CEGB.
Murphy is vile, relying on the legal doctrine that the dead cannot sue for libel.
Thatcher did close manufacturing jobs.
She was only in Hell for 3 days before she had closed 10 furnaces, and the Devil’s iron mongers.
I support peace, democracy, and Liberal values.
If peace & democracy come with Liberal values, I’m in favour of riots.
Thatcher and Saville will be meeting up in the afterlife and comparing numbers on how many miners they………
There is no such thing as society.
Margaret Thatcher, 1988.
There is no such thing as Margaret Thatcher.
Society, 2013.
Margaret Thatcher’s final wish was to be cremated………..
But, we’ve no coal left
We need peace in the UK. Riots are not better than democracy and peace. Liberal values are needed for peace.
“the neoliberal era that set out to destroy”: eras don’t set out to destroy anything, or do anything else. He presumably means that neoliberals (whoever they may be) set out to do it. Off his chump, Mr Murphy. Away with the fairies. Howling at the moon.
Or, in the modern jargon, he has menl elf ishoos.
“ I recently (March) spent a very enjoyable long weekend in Newcastle – it was only on the third day that I noticed the first person with a dusky complexion. As a proud monkey-hanger, I know Hartlepool well and ‘hideously white’ would be a good description.”
Understandably they’ve looked at areas that have had high immigration and don’t like what they’ve seen.
It’s OK for those who live and in highly affluent areas the immigrants they see are usually at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs so they aren’t in competition for scarce resources.
Liberal values are needed for peace.
I’m interested to know this. How do you know the rioters don’t have Liberal values? The BLM rioters were said to have Liberal values. The Poll Tax rioters were supposed to have had Liberal values. In fact we’ve quite a lot of riots by people with Liberal values. They can’t stop talking about their Liberal values. There seems to be nothing about Liberal values that precludes violence in support of them. So what makes these rioters different? Because they’re rioting about something you don’t agree with? Doesn’t make your values very Liberal, does it?
@ KJP
Immigration *has* affected these towns, but indirectly. None of the immigrants want to go there because there aren’t any cushy jobs like there are down south so there are no vacancies for illegal immigrants at the “Hand car wash” places.
Fifty-odd years ago when Wilson and Frank Cousins wrecked the North-East economy by setting national wage rates for trade union members, school-/university-leavers could go south to get jobs. Now most of them can’t because southern employers think it’s cheaper to hire immigrants
For a man/weasel so keen on the diversity and socialism he certainly goes out of his way to avoid it. Previously resident in Downham Market and now Ely- 2 towns not notified for their high melanin count and allahu ackbars or labour local councillors. He could have chosen Wandsworth where he had his practice or even his home town of ipswich which is rapidly turning into a third world shithole thanks to the vibrancy.
It’s almost as if he’s going out of his way to avoid the vibrancy. Probably the next stop will be one of the scottish islands if the vibrancy gets too close.
@moqifen
Not so drastic as Boston or Wisbech but all Fen towns were very affected by free movement from Eastern Europe in the 2000s, to the extent you can wander around a heaving town centre and hardly hear anyone speaking English. Poles and Lithuanians are generally white and Christian so your point mostly stands, but it does explain the high Brexit vote and good performance of Reform in the Fens.
You also do meet some people in the Fens who are descendants of the 1980s and 1990s migration wave from Portugal and Turkey for agricultural and food processing work, before the Poles took their place (and in far greater numbers). Portugal is explained by that country, especially rural areas, being dirt poor 40 years ago, and the inhabitants getting European free movement. Not sure where the Turks all came from, was there some kind of long term visa scheme for agricultural labour back then? But then I dunno where all the Turkish/Kurdish takeaways, restaurants, barbers that have sprung up in recent years have come from either, surely not high skill visas but Turkey isn’t a major source of illegal migration (of its own people – it is obviously playing an important role in the transit of others) so there must be some sort of legal route they’re taking.
Similarly Brazilians, whose numbers have exploded in the last decade or so – look out for restaurants and beauticians coming to a high street near you. Maybe @bis can shed some light on that one. Some of the “Portuguese” in the Fens are in fact Brazilians who got a Portuguese passport by tracing their family ancestry but that can’t explain the numbers arriving post Brexit.
A country can sustain impressive amounts of immigration, if the immigrants want to become a cohesive part of that country.
A quarter of NZ is born overseas. That makes pretty much no difference, because the Poms, South Africans, Indians, Pacific Islanders, Chinese etc all want to become Kiwis. Within a generation their kids are natives. It helps that almost all our immigrants are legal.
The Swedes have a much lower immigration rate, but they picked the wrong type of immigrants. So they have massive issues.
On a previous thread Western Bloke complained about the protestors/rioters being deemed “far right”. Also a good comment about how much total nonsense used to be in the media long before “fake news” became a Thing. Worth reading: https://www.timworstall.com/2024/08/eh-196/#comment-1333031
Anyway, our PM right on cue said:
“If you target people because of the colour of their skin or faith, that is far-right and I’m prepared to say so”…
“I won’t shy away from calling it what it is – far-right thuggery,” Starmer added
There’s a confluence of several bizarre things here. First of all, whenever was anyone – especially on the left – scared of calling stuff “far right”? They LOVE calling stuff far right. They do it all the time. Why pretend that saying this sort of thing is “far right” is itself a bold, radical step and fortunately we are blessed to have a PM with the strength and fortitude to call it thus?
Secondly, when did “far right” become the strongest possible pejorative? “Far left” isn’t. I honestly thought he was building up to something like “I won’t shy away from calling it what it is – extremist, racist violence” or “mindless criminal intimidation” or “attempted ethnic cleansing” or even “domestic terrorism”. “Far right” is pretty lukewarm in comparison.
And finally, is it even accurate? Like WB, I doubt most of those rioting were especially political and no doubt many of the political opinions they do have are centrist or even left-wing. The British working class political consensus, such as it exists, is basically “hang the pedos and fund the NHS”, a mix of left and right priorities that isn’t well represented by any single Westminster party, and contains elements too extreme for any to truly embrace. Farage comes closest and his willingness to disregard norms or “red lines” set by the political and media class explains a lot of his cut-through with such demographics, but even he doesn’t go the whole hog. Nor is this contained entirely to the lower classes. It’s certainly echoed in fairly conventional middle-class thought, though with some elements toned down (“jail the pedos for life” maybe, and “less low skill immigration” rather than “no more immigration”).
I really don’t think the rioters will be too upset about being branded far right. I don’t see that they’ll think of it as a challenge or an insult, but at best as a complete misunderstanding of their cause and at worst just as another attempt to silence and marginalise them. Even though the label “racist” has also lost much of its sting from overuse, I reckon that would have been a harsher and more accurate rebuke for activities like attacking mosques and Asian minimarts. And the people doing those things might well think of themselves as “not racist”, even if it’s very much “I’m not racist BUT”, so it might pay to remind some of them that attacking Asian family businesses is, in fact, blatantly racism. There’s at least some chance this might appeal to the better angels of their nature. I can’t see how calling them “far right” is even in principle going to make them reconsider their priorities in any way.
I think this piece “gets it”: what we are seeing is much more like inter-ethnic conflict (and specifically ethnic rather than a racial) than it is any manifestation of the left-right political axis: https://unherd.com/2024/08/how-britain-ignored-its-ethnic-conflict/
Also the intro about all that “I ♥ MCR” graffiti that “somehow” sprung up after the Manchester Arena bombing, with similar occurrences after the London Bridge terror attack, is fascinating. Legacy of the 2012 Olympic planning for a recurrence of the 2011 riots, and all paid for by the Home Office – similarly the bussed in “faith leaders” who turn up after successive atrocities. Though it’s sourced from a Qatari owned propaganda mouthpiece, so worth some scepticism of the details, even at the time the supposed “spontaneous response” of love and inclusivity was clearly being engineered by someone. I don’t know if the powers that be will try something like that on a grand scale to “heal” the divisions in so many towns and cities this week, but it’s worth looking out for.
I’ve made Tshirts for us.
Choose your headline.
“My second thought was about attacking the police and “stoking disorder”.
“I’m in favour of riots”
“Thatcher and Saville will be meeting up in the afterlife”
“Bring baxk Bircherism”
Hot seller. “black / pakistani / somali / bangladeshi / euro moslem /third world shithole people”
Nice colors ala “the united colours of sodomy” and in team colors for rhe bovver boys because “regular hooliganism fun can resume.”.
And bring back Thatcher Birching
Hansard HC Standing Committee B [551-600]
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher
“I think that if we were to reintroduce a modified form of corporal punishment, caning and, in very serious cases, birching”
Mr. Howell
“Flogging will not deter a boy who has gone out in gang warfare knowing that in the course of that gang warfare he may be injured. As the hon. Member for Barons Court said, it will be a medal if he can show what he will call an honourable scar obtained in gang warfare. I do not think flogging is a deterrent at all.”
“convinced that these hooligans would feel that they [column 576]had been punished more severely if they were inside a prison and deprived of their freedom. If they were given the choice of a birching or a caning and then immediately released to go back to boast among their friends and to carry on their activities, they would choose that rather than be incarcerated. ”
“The hon. Lady the Member for Finchley said that she had difficulty in deciding on the matter. I can tell her that a decision now will cause some pleasure in at least one women’s organisation, the only one in complete unanimity in its desire for flogging. I refer to the women’s organisation of the Tory Party which has been demanding flogging for a long time.”
Commander Courtne
“The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) produced a rather remarkable and dogmatic assertion. If I remember correctly, he said that the overwhelming evidence was to the effect that corporal punishment was not a deterrent. In the general sense of his remarks he was supported by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson). I was particularly surprised at that, bearing in mind the fact that the relevant sentence in the Barry Report reads:
“We would not ourselves regard the available statistics as a basis for any firm conclusions about the deterrent effect of judicial corporal punishment.”
This is supported by the Cadogan Report, which goes slightly further. In paragraph 59 it says:
“We do not, of course, deny that it” ——
that is, corporal punishment—
“has some deterrent effect.”
I consider that the arguments of the opponents of the Clause are slightly inconsistent, and that they rather overplay their hand.”
Mr. Whitlock
“His first set of witnesses were borstal boys at one institution who were said to favour the reintroduction of corporal punishment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. C. Royle) pointed out, to argue that borstal boys favour the reintroduction of corporal punishment seems completely to rule out the credibility of corporal punishment as a deterrent. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Ayr was advancing as a general principle that we should be willing to accept the advice of delinquents on how they should be punished?”
Addolff is a sure sale! As is Simon Neale who 2 days ago “I’ve literally just got back from the Portsmouth demonstration. …
“My second thought was about attacking the police and “stoking disorder”.
Endearing Simon.
Peace and birching. For your kids too.
Results?
“They had written a joint suicide note and taken an overdose, but the sedatives they had swallowed turned out not to be life-threatening. Two days later, the young man stood trial for snatching a woman’s handbag the week before the couple had tried to end their lives. The magistrates found him guilty and had him birched.Footnote22
“Police officers led them upstairs to what Tyrer thought was the jury room. Police officers “told me to take my trousers and underpants down and bend over a table in the room. I was held by my head in a sort of ninety degree position so that I could not see what was happening. I was also held by a policeman by each arm.”Footnote35 This was the standard procedure.Footnote36 Tyrer continued: “On the first stroke the birch broke. I remember pieces being shattered all over the room.” After the third stroke, his father could not contain himself and “went for” one of the police officers. The other officers restrained his father and the birching stopped. “I pulled up my trousers and went downstairs to my mother, leaving my father with the police.”Footnote37
Looks like the spam trap has gone tits up, Tim.
Yup, Mr Womby, it certainly looks like it.
I’m almost pining for more Steve than all that other bollocks. Almost.
The floodgates opened just after Covid, with nearly 1.9m non-British immigrants in the three years ending December 2023
That’s net figure after deducting Brits who left and ~25,000 non-doms
Immigration Gross was ~1.4 million pa, plus illegals. Total immigrants, mostly from third world muslim countries, in three years is over 4 million. Over 4,000 every day