General News MP sacked over snobby Tweet

I take it you're not voting for Labour then .

It was a very stupid thing to do for a politican and goes to show just how out of touch some politicians are with the working class. It makes you wonder how Labour and the Tories can criticise UKIP when they both have MPs who disriminate. I dont think I will be voting for any of these parties.

The next election will be very intersting with the rise of UKIP and the SNPs challenge to Labour in Scotland.

 

I'm actually so excited for the next election ha. So many different things can happen it seems unlikely anyone will get a majority we could end up with UKIP SNP or even Green party in government it's crazy.

On the #rochester tweet, for a labour politician especially it's fucking stupid, not surprising she's lost her job

 

There, fixed it for you.

Right. I think it was wrong of the MP to be made to resign. She made an error of judgment, apologised, and has learned her lesson that social media is a very public medium.

Do I think she was "bigoted" or "out of touch"? She relied on stereotypes to infer something about the house-owner (probably that he was a bit of a div for having three flags), and surprise, surprise....she was proved absolutely right. If anything I think that makes her in touch.

The guy does come across as a bit of a div. He himself made a rather rash judgment about her (calling her a snob who must have a "three storey townhouse") and came out with this charming quote “I will continue to fly the flags – I don’t care who it pisses off. I know there is a lot of ethnic minorities that don’t like it.". He is an inconsiderate douchebag of the EDL/BNP kind - and in my own experience most people who display flags in this manner are too. They are just being provocative or trying to "out-English" everyone. An MP who happens to pick up on this is just being astute in my opinion - not bigoted. Yes the manner she behaved in was unprofessional (using twitter for non-political purposes) but I'm really not that bothered by the actual content of her tweet.

Signed,

An actual working class white male.

 

It didnt need fixing. So you're saying that people who are patriotic and have England flags outside their homes are chavs? Shes a millionaire and mocking people who are patriotic and working class, how more out of touch can you get.

I agree with him, if anyone is offended by the English flag then that is their problem. I know people who have England flags outside their home and their just proud to be English and have no intention of offending anyone. Just because he is patriotic doesnt mean he belongs to the likes of the BNP or EDL.

 

If they display them nicely then no, if they have a multitude of flags hanging out the windows then probably, yes its a bit overkill and tacky.

Treating your housefront or garden like a junkyard or a poundshop is disrespectful to people in your neighbourhood (I'd be pretty pissed if my neighbour painted his house with the flag or stuck tons up to be honest), and to be being disrespectful is the epitomy of chaviness.

Shes not though. How is she mocking him because he is working class? You don't have to have tons of flags outside your house to be working class.

Her tweet actually just read "An image from Rochester" with the picture displayed...to be honest you could read that in anyway from "yay, go patriotism" to a jokey "is one flag not enough?" to "OMG I HATE THIS PERSON" to "this is a photograph I took in Rochester, I like it".

If she posted a tweet saying "look at the size of this house, isn't it tiny, I bet a peasant lives there" then that would be mocking him for being working class.

If people have tidy and presentable English flags outside their home because they are proud to be English and have no intention of offending anyone fair does to them. If they litter their house with them then yes it becomes a bit comical and I'd probably tweet it to - same as if a person litters their front garden with gnomes.

Now if they do it to provoke then it is somewhat annoying. Perhaps I'm biased coming from an "EDL area", but here your typical flag bearer goes beyond being patriotic and into being xenophobic. The manner the man in this case expressed his thoughts to me expressed some level of disregard or contempt for ethnic minorities so I'd place a bet that he gets some kick from annoying people...and is a bit of a chav because of that.

 

I'm sorry, I gotta play the "dumb American," here...

People in the UK vote? Who... who are you voting for? I thought the UK was a socialist nation, like with a king or a queen. I thought your leaders were born into power?

I mean no offense in this question, I'm just curious.

 

I hope your being sarcastic there! :lol:

If not, well firstly I wouldn't believe you, but we have had a democratic state for hundreds of years with the Crown's involvement diminishing over the centuries. All the Queen does now is look pretty, attract tourists and do a bit of ceremonial pomp such as signing new legislation. Technically they can veto legislation, however by convention they will always sign it (and have done since 1707). It would be extremely controversial if a monarch ever did decide to with-hold their assent now - no monarch would ever dare. The public regard it as a purely ceremonial role (although its not quite) and so for them to get involved in politics in this manner would be really overstepping the mark.

 

I wasn't being sarcastic, I just didn't realize that the UK and US had the same basic kind of government, with the voting and the different parties. But if the Queen doesn't run the country, who does? Is there a President? Do you call the person in charge the King?

 

The reason the US has the same basic kind of government is because it is based on the UK government - (most modern democracies are). In America most of the traditions on how things would be run came from how things were run in English/British America (before the revolution), which obviously originated from Britain.

Briefly:

In the UK we have a bicameral parliament (two houses) made up of The House of Lords and the House of Commons, a little like the Senate and House in their operation, although one of them (the HoL) is made up mainly of non-elected members (however this is something that has been changing in recent years, with pushes towards a more democratic HoL).

Within the elected House of Commons the majority party (or parties in a coalition occurs) take Government, with their party leader becoming the Prime Minister (a position akin to the US President) who can in some ways be said to be "running the country" with his or her chosen cabinet in support.

 

Okay, I think I'm starting to get it. I always thought that the Prime Minister was like, the adviser to the King or the Queen and spoke on behalf of them to other world leaders as a sort of medium. I honestly have always thought that the UK was an anti-democracy socialist state, because when I was in school they'd always say "the difference between America and England is that we're a capitalist nation and they're a socialist nation and that's what sparked the Revolutionary War."

The American public school system lied to me. Go figure.

 

It sounds like they did, yes!

England (as part of the UK) is like the US a fundamentally capitalist country, although it can be said to have a few more socialist "features" develop since the 20th century making it slightly more of a "mixbag" than the US (for e.g. public healthcare, heavily subsidized higher education and a greater welfare system).

Its been a long time since my very brief stint studying US history in school, but from memory the Revolutionary War started more from the British Colonies in America being unhappy with having no control over their taxes (taxes were decided in the UK and imposed on the colonies) despite them not having representatives in the UK government like the other states of the UK had. They felt they were getting a bit of a raw deal so after tense attempts at negotiations revolution broke out. During the war, Britain later conceded and offered to take a step back - allowing the colonies to have control of their taxes and self-governance (but stay under the crown). By this point though the colonies had had enough so continued to push for full independence (which they obviously achieved!). I think thats roughly the gist of it, I'm welcome for anyone to correct me though.

 

This has been a really bad week for inappropriate comments from politions, with pleb-gate and that politions in the cab (can't recall his name off the top of my head)

 

Parliament has had more power than the monarchy in britain for hundreds of years?? What has socialism got to do with any of this?

 

Honestly, I don't know-- I thought Parliament and the monarchy were the same thing... I was taught that in middle school here in the States and I just went along with it because it didn't really affect me when I was 13. Like I said, I was taught growing up that the Revolutionary War came out of the New World's hatred of socialism which was utilized by England and we fought for our capitalism over here in the 1700s and in the end we became friends but agreed to disagree over a democracy and a monarchy.

 

All Western nations are capitalist - the difference between the US and the UK (and other European nations) is that we have more socialist aspects - including universal healthcare, a large welfare state and more education subsidies. The Queen does not rule the country - there could be a vote tomorrow on whether we should keep the monarchy and if we voted against it she'd be out of a job and we'd become a republic like Germany or the US. It's the same situation as in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and others.

With all due respect, Benway, I'm completely astonished. American education has a lot to answer for.

 

Hey, no offense taken here, I share your anxiety. I'm astonished and frankly disturbed by this, too.

 

England has had capitalism and democracy for many hundreds of years, before we had colonized America. Although perhaps what your teacher was saying was that although Britain had democracy, before the revolution the British American colonies had no direct representation in parliament (instead the British felt their needs were already being looked out for by people in England). Now to be honest I think a revolution of some kind was always likely here. You have to remember that this was a time before we had any form of long-distance communication (all communication had to be done in person or by letter sent by person!) - even if the colonies had seats in the UK parliament it would be questionable how well they would have been able to represent those halfway around the world. There was always going to be the need at some point to develop at the very least a devolved government on US soil - the revolution went a step further and brought independence and America their very own government.

That is a bit worrying on the education though, but no worries, you can always keep learning. I'd suggest maybe dipping into a few history books, heres a start:

A Short History of England (Simon Jenkins) gives a good basic overview of England from its early dawn to modern day. A good book although it does kick off after the fascinating period of the Roman invasion and the indigenous Celtic Britons.

A People's History of the United States (Howard Zinn) is a must read, especially for Americans.

I'm sure your local library would carry at least the latter.