I see that that the BBC have managed to take an alleged private comment from Carol Thatcher and use it as one more assault on the Thatcher brand. As you may know, Carol Thatcher is supposed to have used the word “golliwog” in reference to some Tennis player. However the point is that IF she did say this she did so off-air in the green room and so it is a private matter that the BBC have ruthlessly turned into a public affair. I’ve been in BBC green Roomsrmore than a few times and I could raise eye-brows about some comments made in my presence if I so chose. But why would I break confidence in this way? Even if I was diametrically opposed to another person’s point of view, what they say off-air has to be private. Clearly Carol Thatcher should be much more circumspect in what she says, but for me the greater crime here lies in the BBC’s blatant breach of confidence. Ultimately, the BBC hate anything that has the Thatcher imprimatur, a fact Carol should have been more aware. Your thoughts?
Not holding my breath for the BBC to adopt the same line with the odious Ken Livingstone after his anti-Semitic remarks.
I notice the BBC still use scumbag Livingdead even though he insulted a Jewish reporter.
I think we know what sort of racism is acceptable to the BBC don’t we?
I can’t help but feel that her being sacrificed on the altar of PC is penance for working for the institutionaly biased BBC.
Maybe the tennis player does resemble a gollywog, after all they were not racist idols but simply black dolls until the PC brigade made them so.
The BBC will eventually eat itself and implode as they balance appeasing muslims verses gay rights etc.
Anybody they don’t like they will shit on. From a height of 10 miles. Amen.
what about that odious antisemite tom paulin.
do the bbc still use him ?
i find the snitch of an interviewer adrian chiles more offensive than her
I remember watching QT after the Prince Harry “thing” when the Lib dem woman thought it was the end of the world and launched into a diatribe against him and the Royal family. I was struck by the peculiarity that she thought it was so bad to use the word in question but thought it was perfectly acceptable to be very disrespectful to the Royal family. It is this seeming lack of logical consistency which is so peculiar. The exagerated obsession with the sacredness of certain topics is accompanied by the insistance that no respect can be accorded to others. It is not hard to detect a peverse inverted trend in this. Whatever is British/traditional is worthless whereas what is not British has to be treated with great respect. I was struck by a tv discussion i watched a while ago where all sorts of ideas were expressed many of which I found objectionable (socialist and anti-american) but then the whole panel were vociferous when a person used the word “raghead” in indirect speech. I am a great believer in politeness but I find something troubling about the reaction in some of these instances.
TPO: For some reason your post didn’t show up till I did mine. Haloscan must be run by Nu Liebour.
Or Justin Webb for suggesting that certain religious beliefs ought to preclude someone from holding public office.
martin,
HaloScan’s parent company is doing a system upgrade. They say things might be weird for another couple of weeks.
The first para of the BBC’ story about this made me sit up with a jolt. Have you ever come across anything more Orwellian?
The BBC is considering the future of Carol Thatcher as a contributor after she was reported for using racist language during a private conversation.
They just don’t get it, do they?
Typical of the BBC to make a mountain out of the molehill of Carol T’s remarks. It was the last story just now on PM, already being covered widely in the press.
Someone snitched about a throwaway remark, BBC execs goe apeshit, announce high-level inquiry, blah blah blah.
I bet the BBC emerges with egg on its PC face. And that Carol T is re-instated. After lots of debate about how come the BBC welcomes people who have made DELIBERATE anti-semitic remarks.
Hopefully, another small nail in the coffin.
Will they ever learn ?
Why is it a racist remark?
Contast the speed at which carol thatcher is kicked out compared with wossy and brandy is a contrast. Also I have thought that it has been hypocritical of us to critisise the Sudanese over the Teddy/Mohammed affair when anyone who even mentions golliwog let alone brought one of them into a class here would get far worse treatment from the PC brigade than could ever be met out in a Sudanese prison! (they would probably be ‘shoed’ to death)
Martin
you are correct, when will the BBC ‘drop’ Ken Livingscum for he’s anti-semetic remarks, we know this will never happen.
Parsnipboy: It won’t happen. The BBC hates Jews. As I’ve mentioned before many many beeboids would probably have happily run the Ovens for the Nazi’s in WW2.
When turd stealer Livingdead spouted his nonsense to the Jewish reporter, you just know there would have been a big cheer in Broadcasting House.
Here’s another regular contributor to the BBC freely mouthing off without fear of losing his handouts:
Arafat Told Me Jews Are The Most Corrupt People He Had Come Across : Al-Bari.
Aired on ANB TV (Lebanon/London) –
January 26, 2009 – 00:00:51 : Al-Quds Al-Arabi Editor-in-Chief Abd Al-Bari ‘Atwan: Arafat Told Me the Jews Are the Most Corrupt People He Had Come Across
Bio
Good find.
How do Thatcher’s PRIVATE remarks in the Green Room rate against those PUBLIC, ON-TV remarks by old popping-eyes Al-Bari Atwan, a long-time BBC favourite ?
Answer – apoplexy at Al-Beeb over Thatcher, while Al-Bari Atwan (and people like Tom Paulin and Livingstone) get a free pass.
It is quite pathetic.
My wife and in-laws are Black African and, in common with many Black Americans, regularly use the word “Nigga” about Blacks.
So, for example , a W. African woman might say to another one “Hey, you crazy fat , stupid Nigga, ah ! What you thinking about , ah ? ”
It is quite normal patois.
Also, it is normal to call a white person “Toubab” ( “whitey”).
The point is , it depends on the tone and the motive of the person using the language.
My wife regularly calls me , in her tribal language Wolof, “Toubab Goloh” ( White baboon ). I take it as a compliment !
Good find.
How do Thatcher’s PRIVATE remarks in the Green Room rate against those PUBLIC, ON-TV remarks by old popping-eyes Al-Bari Atwan, a long-time BBC favourite ?
JohnA | 03.02.09 – 7:05 pm
It happens to be on today’s post at Israellycool.
Al-Bari Atwan once said that if Iran nuked Israel he would dance in Trafalgar Square.
He seems to be another phoney “Palestinian”, pretending to be born in “Palestine” while really he’s a Syrian?
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP28501
Even the articles of the intellectuals whom I respect, and by whom I am influenced, such as [Al-Quds Al-Arabi editor] Abed Al-Bari ‘Atwan, [the Syrian journalist living in London]…
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP220209
An open letter by Fatah central committee member Hakam Bal’awi to ‘Abd Al-Bari ‘Atwan, editor of the London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi harshly criticized ‘Atwan for the anti-Palestinian Authority line pursued by his newspaper since the beginning of Israel’s offensive in Gaza. In his letter, which was published by the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Quds, Bal’awi described ‘Atwan’s style as crude and inciting, especially when he sought to undermine the legitimacy of Mahmoud ‘Abbas as PA president. He called ‘Atwan a journalist for hire for “personal gain and hoping to satisfy your urges,” and said that even though he was a son of Rafah, he had no right to preach to the Palestinian people from a safe distance – because the Palestinians, unlike him, had returned to their homeland, courageously and with honor.
Wikipedia says he was born in neither Syria or Rafah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Bari_Atwan
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1506.htm
Title of Video: Abd Al-Bari Atwan, Editor-in-Chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi Newspaper: If Iranian Missiles Hit Israel, I Will Dance in Trafalgar Square
Link
Clip #1506 Broadcast: June 27, 2007
I presume the BBC report this because they think we should be shocked.
So it was said in private to no one who could take offence personally to it.
On the other hand they dont think we should be shocked by Jonathon Ross even though was offensive to someone in public.
What`s the difference ? Is it because the BBC has decreed that racist comments deserve punishment but crudely offensive comments (especially against the old) should be tolerated.
Original Robin
Yes – it is entirely valid to compare the BBC’s instant panic over Thatcher’s innocent and PRIVATE remark to its grovelling attitude towards Jonathan Ross who made some appalling phone calls ON AIR.
A snitch reports on Thatcher’s remarks – instant kneejerk response by the BBC.
While in the Ross case, it took days and days for the BBC to wake up to the seriousness of the affair. Management fast asleep/on holiday, Press Office fails to do anything even when it was the lead story on Mail on Sunday – and was obviously far more serious and offensive.
Ross gets a mild slap on the wrist, and a short suspension. Thatcher gets the boot.
Utter hypocrisy at the BBC. What a bunch of cowards they are.
Person A tells an un-PC, possibly not very funny, joke.
Person B hears it and doesn’t think it’s funny. Instead of saying so to Person A, he/she goes and complains to get Person A into trouble.
Whose behaviour is more reprehensible? Person A or B?
what about that odious antisemite tom paulin.
do the bbc still use him ?
vicky | 03.02.09 – 5:30 pm |
The last time I saw Paulin was on that pretentious tosh that used to follow Friday night Newsnight and hosted by some bald headed poser.
The Big Brother Corporation is at it again. I’m not sure who the actual snitch was, but they can’t have much of a life, can they? I’ve lost count of the times I have heard the pointless Paris Hilton referred to as a Barbie doll. I haven’t noticed too many protests…and why should there be? Could such a remark be deemed “racist”? The only people who would care are the obsessed race czars at BBC towers.
It reveals a very peculiar and unpleasant mindset. These PC Puritans are a joyless bunch who spend their lives looking to be offended.
Memory-stretch.
Bush = Thatcher: source of all evil, just as Obama = Brown, source of all good.
If you subscribe to this ludicrous dialectic parody of the real world (look out – rebuttal unit watching) , you are stuck in the dilema of abandoning everything you have said last decade and being seen for the fools you are, or ploughing on with the same false nonsense.
Oh my God, a Thatcher has said some thing bad. Quick. Bush and Thatcher are source of all evil. That evil runs in the bloodline.
Oh Gordon, I think I’m coming….
This is such an important matter that it made it onto the 6pm news – just after the lengthy “we’re all doomed” piece about the snow.
I applaud the comments by PMJK above – re the Sudanese bear.
This, if it is anything, is a minor
matter – it does not warrant placement on the BBC’s premier new show not ‘front page’ coverage on the wed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7868401.stm
THIS is her crime.
“Carol never intended any racist comment,” he said.
“She made a light aside about this tennis player and his similarity to the golliwog on the jam pot when she was growing up.
‘Mortified’
“There’s no way, obviously, that she would condone any racist comment – we would refute that entirely. It would not be in her nature to do anything like that.
“It is disgusting that we’ve had a leak of private conversations in the green room – the BBC has more leaks than Thames Water.
“Carol is mortified that anyone should take offence at a silly joke. She has summarily apologised.”
This is the BBC comment
“The BBC has said it considers any language of a racist nature “wholly unacceptable”.”
However, The Ross/Brand crisis, shows that it did find “wholly acceptable”‘jokes’ about the Queens’ privates, menstruation and the public humiliation of elderly men crowing that they were great, “edgy” comedy; until the fascist Daily Mail incites an avalanche of unreasonable bigoted complaints – from people who didn’t even hear the comments.
Surprisingly, I didn’t hear Miss Thatchers comments, presumably those who are smearing her now didn’t hear them either, so by the BBC Ross precedent they have no right to complain. Apparently this convention only applies to complaints that the BBC finds ideologically unacceptable
What is next? What is the most likely development of this BBC policy? A hypothetical view of the news in a couple of weeks…
Headline news,
“Good evening, this is the BBC news at six o’clock.
There have been shocking developments in Doncaster today. Mr X, 53, an unemployed welder was heard by a BBC reported during a vox-pop to complain that he was in a “black mood” having lost his job in the ‘down turn’. The Presenter immediately denounced Mr X who was invited to participate for 42 days in protective detention pending his sentencing. Mr X Compounded his crimes by objecting to the forceable entry of armed officers to his home at 3 am this morning. He was last seen by his wife being bundled into a black Mercedes by three men in trench coats. In other news 12,000 jobs go in…….
Didn’t they get rid of another woman because she told a dispatcher in a private conversation that her daughter would be nervous around Asian taxi drivers?
Yet Beeboids who repeatedly lie to and steal money from license-fee payers and their children are only scolded, briefly suspended, and made to copy out a few Scripture passages as penance.
Liz Kershaw is still on air, and only her producer was fired for things like 17 incidents of phone-in fakery over a period of 17 months. And she was only fired after the Blue Peter “Cookie” fiasco.
The obtuse reactions of the woman’s colleagues were real evidence of the actual problems with Beeboids’ attitudes.
I wonder if any of Carol Thatcher’s (former) colleagues will express their anger and resentment, and “feel absolutely betrayed”.
Surely the Beeboids should be demanding the resignation of Mark Thompson over this instead.
I simply ask this:
What kind of fool would use language like that today, especially at the BBC and especially in the company of groovy, right on socialists with cushy public sector jobs?
Thatcher, Like that other fool Prince Harry deserve no quarter.
Do we have any clue as to who the tennis player was ?
I mean, is it possible he’s not even black ?
You’re right, Libertarian. You only use this kind of talk when you are absolutely sure of the people you are talking to.
Not that I would….of course!
Zog – Iain Dale says it was Andy Murray, who does have quite a big, poofy hair thing going on. How can it be racist to say a white guy looks like a doll with big hair?
I sincerely hope the BBC will now ban all Abba tunes on account of the patent racism of Agnetha Faltskog’s song, Golliwog; and Claude Debussy’s Children’s Corner should be booted into touch as well.
Indeed, we should go one step further and ban all books by Enid Blyton and WE Johns; and anyone who is caught in possession of any Florence Upton Golliwogg books should be charged with committing a hate-crime.
I take it Adrian Chiles and Jo Brand are not so ignorant that they don’t know what a golliwogg is?
They’re intelligent people, aren’t they? Aren’t they?
Some views from The Evening Standard
How ridiculous.
– Roger Slade, Winchester, Hampshire, England
The day the BBC lose their licence fee will be a great day for me it,s left wing bigotry and political correct stance makes it a laughing stock as pointed out by Keith Lonsdale.
When will we get our country back and feel safe making light hearted comments without fear of castigation by the likes of the BBC.
– Ericrigby, UK
Pathetic…. really pathetic,…. and I’m not talking about the remark. I’m talking about the so called friend who couldn’t wait to rush away and tell the World that Carol Thatcher made a racist remark during a private conversation over drinks.
Carol, with friends like these who needs enemies. What a terribler namby pamby society we are turning into.
– James, Malta
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23633431-details/BBC+asks+Carol+Thatcher+to+apologise+for+likening+tennis+star+to+a+golliwog/article.do
All I can say is that these people ought to get a sense of humour and get out into the real world more. I’ve heard far worse things said about white guys with frizzy hair.
Melanie Phillips
The age of the snitch: A nurse suspended for praying. Carol Thatcher sacked for a private remark. How public sector informers are creating Stasi Britain…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1135359/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-The-age-snitch-A-nurse-suspended-praying-Carol-Thatcher-sacked-private-remark-How-public-sector-informers-creating-Stasi-Britain-.html
I dunno but would guess it could be Monfils, he of the 6’4″ gangling physique, the bulging arm muscles, the wild hair (which appears to be dyed, sticks up, sticks out every which way and generally looks rather startling) and the at times wild-eyed look. The other black French player Tsonga looks utterly different, with a powerful muscular physique but a neat, groomed look, short close cropped hair and a more composed appearance and image. The only other black player I know is the American James Blake who I think is fairly unremarkable as I really cannot remember anything in particular about what he looks like.
The BBC has said it considers any language of a racist nature “wholly unacceptable”.”
A good half of all BBC “comedy” consists of the implication that all Americans are “stupid” “fat” “racist” etc etc.
Replace the term American with Pakistani,Indian or Ugandan and see if the BBC objects.
David:
Yes, Andy Murray used to get a lot of comments in the media about his hair but then I think he got it cut and wears it shorter now.
Libertarian:
I simply ask this:
What kind of fool would use language like that today, especially at the BBC and especially in the company of groovy, right on socialists with cushy public sector jobs?
Thatcher, Like that other fool Prince Harry deserve no quarter.
Libertarian | 03.02.09 – 9:42 pm | #
We’re British and we’re free !
We should be able to say anything we want .
Only the Royal Family are beyond criticism , as part of the Revolution Settlement .
Anything else is tyranny .
Perhaps the BBC will ban the RAF because Guy Gibson called his dog ‘Nigger’?
I’m afraid there is no turning back – the age of common sense has gone for good.
“In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union it was the state’s mission not just to prevent people from expressing themselves, from moving about freely and unobserved, from pursuing their chosen careers and acting upon their religious and political convictions, but to stop them from thinking freely. It needed to occupy people’s thoughts – to take up a kind of permanent residency in the mind of the average citizen. And as the many psychological studies published in the Nineties make clear, this led to psychic disrepair on a massive scale – paranoia, clinical depression, chronic internalised anger and learned helplessness.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-limits-of-liberty-were-all-suspects-now-420724.html
And every time you see the media “exposing” a so-called un=PC remark they are helping to perpetuate this fear in us all.
they are just beyond belief.
stupid dumb show anyway, so very smug and full of nonsense.
Apparently some ‘crimes’ are more heinous and require swifter decisive action than others.
Amazing how fast Thatcher was dumped cf Brand and Ross
I thought that the BBC had established the principal that ‘if you didn’t hear the offending item you have no right to complain’. That is certainly what they said when they dismissed 40,000 complaints about Ross/Brand as a ‘daily mail campaign’.
1999: a frown
2009: the sack
2019 arrest and imprisonment
I rather suspect this “snitching on private conversations” has echoes of George Osborne and how Peter Mandelson ‘dripped pure poison’ about Gordon Brown.
Except in that case there is a public interest issue. Anything that tosser Adrian Chiles says is of no interest.
So, Carol Thatcher calling a tennis player a “golliwog” is more offensive than Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross leaving obscene messages on the answering machine of Andrew Sachs to the effect that Russell Brand has had carnal knowledge of his granddaughter, Georgina Bailie.
Why didn’t Ross and Brand just leave an obscene message on the answering machine of Georgina Bailie, the Satanic Slut and burlesque dancer? This may be due to the operating fear that the feminists in charge at the BBC would have their balls for breakfast.
And so they picked on her grandfather.
So, in British society, it is considered more socially-acceptable to the grandfather of a slag and slapper than it is to call a slag and slapper a slag and slapper?
And calling someone “golliwog” is worse than either of the above?
These are the values the BBC are now propagating.
There is no need to ask yourself if the world has gone mad. It went mad as long ago as 1972, when the first of the series of thought-crime anti-discrimination Acts were passed.
The chickens have now come home to roost.
In case anyone’s interested, here is the link to my blog again.
Radio 5 still spinning the story that the Tennis player is black and not as Iain Dale suggests Andy Murray.