Re: George Galloway wins Bradford West : Sat Mar 31, 2012 10:35 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Would you agree:
1. 20% of the population currently provide 50% of the new births?
2. Bradford has one of the highest instances of unoccupied retail spaces in the UK?
3. Westfield have left a huge hole - literally right in the centre of the city?
4. Two of the five post codes with the highest instances of uninsured vehicles in the UK start with BD?

I agree with all of those. But what do any of them have to do with the success or failure of multiculturalism in Bradford?

Sal Paradise wrote:

I cannot see this village thing you suggest is going on - i see two distinct segregated areas Pakistani/Bangladeshi and the rest.

Then I can only say that you're blind. Especially so if you think the Pakistani / Bangladeshi part of the city is one when it's as fractured as everything else.

You've really never come across people who've never left the housing estate they grew up on? I grew up with people who were proud to say that.

You've never met the Pringle jumpered Volvo driver who hasn't been into the city for years?

Would you be also telling me that you've never come across professional middle class people from Asian backgrounds? Are they all Indian or something?

You will not see many white residents in Mannnigham/Frizinghall/Great Horton

You really are blind.

This soup of multi cultural integration you elude to is simply a fantasy IMO.

I don't think such a thing does exist. It's one of the reasons I haven't said it does. What I have said is that Bradford highlights the way all modern society is segregated and alienated from itself, and that race and religion are just two other means by which that happens. There is nothing unique about the problems Bradford has except perhaps degree.

I did give examples of where people from different backgrounds but with similar outlooks work together, if that's what makes you think I do believe it exists. Here's another. I work at the university. We have the highest proportion of students from the same city of any in the country. I see thousands of young people from this city with similar outlooks in life integrating just fine.

In all the places I have lived I have also seen it happening, and that includes Manningham and Great Horton. I lived in the latter for ten years, right in the middle of BD7 - the worst of the post codes you mentioned. I've also seen it not happening in those places, as well as the estates I grew up on, and it's always the mouth breathers with no idea of what they could be other than what their parents were. We have many of those of every stripe and it doesn't matter if your parents conceived you in a Kashmiri mountain village, a middle class suburb of Lahore, Ilkely, or under the pool table in the Holme Wood Bound.

How many other cities have Pakinstani only schools where whites are prohibited to attend

There are plenty where schools are allowed to discriminate on the grounds of religion, if that's what you mean. I think it's disgusting, fwiw.

- do you really live in Bradford?

For just shy of forty years.

I'm not claiming it's a paradise. I'm saying if you look at things through a race coloured lens then race is what you'll see. It's *way* more complicated than that.

Re: George Galloway wins Bradford West : Sat Mar 31, 2012 11:24 pm  

Cronus wrote:

Don't know whether to laugh or cry at this whole debacle.

At least George is fully focused on his constituency:

Bradford West, what have you done?

I saw that tweet and guessed it can't be him, although apparently it is. O M G

Housing Benefit Cuts for the Scroungers. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 5:54 am  

We aren't saying Galloways thick now are we? He's maybe made a geuine mistake or perhaps it wasn't him? For the many of us who saw him disseminate and destroy that American Congress Select Committee then stupid would be a bad call....Whether you disagree with everything he spouts, eloquence and a fine command of the Scottish language are not his problems.

Housing Benefit Cuts for the Scroungers. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:51 am  

Interesting to hear from some of the young inspired activists who were out supporting Respect during the campaign on the Politics Show. Didn't realise that the Lib/Dems had lost their deposit. They'd best get used to that me thinks.

Re: Housing Benefit Cuts for the Scroungers. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:03 pm  

WIZEB wrote: We aren't saying Galloways thick now are we? He's maybe made a geuine mistake or perhaps it wasn't him? For the many of us who saw him disseminate and destroy that American Congress Select Committee then stupid would be a bad call....Whether you disagree with everything he spouts, eloquence and a fine command of the Scottish language are not his problems. Yes, it was him. Being a prick and being stupid are two different things.

WIZEB wrote: We aren't saying Galloways thick now are we? He's maybe made a geuine mistake or perhaps it wasn't him? For the many of us who saw him disseminate and destroy that American Congress Select Committee then stupid would be a bad call....Whether you disagree with everything he spouts, eloquence and a fine command of the Scottish language are not his problems. Yes, it was him. Being a prick and being stupid are two different things.

Housing Benefit Cuts for the Scroungers. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:21 pm  

Cronus wrote: Yes, it was him. Being a prick and being stupid are two different things. Ah well, he'll have to live that little faux pas then....Being a victor, it's always easier for other people to live with your mistakes...Your right about the difference mind. Go and watch them yankee senators questioning him. Now they really were more like your definition of stupid.

Cronus wrote: Yes, it was him. Being a prick and being stupid are two different things. Ah well, he'll have to live that little faux pas then....Being a victor, it's always easier for other people to live with your mistakes...Your right about the difference mind. Go and watch them yankee senators questioning him. Now they really were more like your definition of stupid.

Re: Housing Benefit Cuts for the Scroungers. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 1:03 pm  

WIZEB wrote:

Ah well, he'll have to live that little faux pas then....Being a victor, it's always easier for other people to live with your mistakes...Your right about the difference mind. Go and watch them yankee senators questioning him. Now they really were more like your definition of stupid.

I've seen it. Yes, he destroyed them, but that wasn't really hard to do given the gross idiocy he was confronted with. He's a lot of things, but he's certainly not stupid.

Re: George Galloway wins Bradford West : Sun Apr 01, 2012 1:53 pm  

Seems to me that most of these posts are missing the point. Galloway's personality is not a 'non-issue' here but neither is it the main issue.

The reality is he was elected on a two-pronged political approach, against war and austerity, which had massive resonance across all sections of the constituency.
In the predominantly white middle class area of Clayton, for example, Galloway got 900 votes against Labour's 40!

Nor is it a given that Galloway will automatically pick up the Muslim vote, however much he courts it. IMO he should be congratulated for breaking the 'braderi' networks that have corruptly tied much of the Asian community to Labour for decades.

Mintball's accusations would be funny if they weren't so rabid. The reality is that Galloway himself has moved away from a traditional catholic position on gay rights towards a position (and one that he has stated many times in public) that homophobes should 'Get over it' Incidentally, one of Galloway's 2 key advisers is himself a well-known gay activist.

The accusations of anti-semitism are also nothing new. They are typical of a blurred distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism...a blurring which is particularly prevalent among pro-zionist pseudo lefties such as the one Mintball directs us to.

Re: George Galloway wins Bradford West : Sun Apr 01, 2012 3:26 pm  

Chief Stinkwort wrote:

... Mintball's accusations would be funny if they weren't so rabid. The reality is that Galloway himself has moved away from a traditional catholic position on gay rights towards a position (and one that he has stated many times in public) that homophobes should 'Get over it' Incidentally, one of Galloway's 2 key advisers is himself a well-known gay activist.

The accusations of anti-semitism are also nothing new. They are typical of a blurred distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism...a blurring which is particularly prevalent among pro-zionist pseudo lefties such as the one Mintball directs us to.

Feel free to use actual facts to dismiss what I described in terms of campaigning that went on down the road from where I live.

I look forward to it.

[Kosh]

Re: Housing Benefit Cuts for the Scroungers. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 3:40 pm  

WIZEB wrote:

For the many of us who saw him disseminate and destroy that American Congress Select Committee

Disseminate?

That would have been worth watching.

WIZEB wrote:

Whether you disagree with everything he spouts, eloquence and a fine command of the Scottish language are not his problems.

When have you heard him speak Scottish?