Jack Straw sticks his neck out
UPDATED
AND UPDATED AGAIN
Intriguing that Straw has decided to go public with his concerns over the veil, and I think we have to ask to what degree this is positioning himself for a shot at the deputy leadership, or even the big one itself (and his price on Betfair has dropped to 48, having been at 500 at one point) . All the usual rent-a-quote Islamic types are foaming at the mouth about this one, and doubtless everyone has seen those elsewhere.
Despite the high proportion of Muslims in Blackburn, 25% I think, it does not look as though he is any serious danger of losing his seat - he has an 8,009 majority, despite the Tories putting up an Asian candidate last time and and LDs making a big song and dance about the Iraq war.
Melanie Philips notes in 'Londonistan' that he has done a fair amount of pandering to the Muslim lobbies: "In September 2005, he told the UN...that Muslims had given the world mathematics (wrong, 'arabic' numerals come from Hindu India. C) and the digital age (?!), and that only 'terrorists and the preachers of hate' wanted people to believe 'that Islam and the West are fundamentally different'".
So far so pretty harmless, but it gets worse. Much worse:
"Jack Straw, was even more pusillanimous. In March 2006 he appeared to airbrush Islamist violence out of the picture altogether. In a speech at the Muslim News awards, he suggested that the tensions between Islam and the modern world had arisen from a prejudiced reaction to Muslim religious piety, along with an adverse reaction to the movement of large numbers of Muslims intoEurope . In other words, the responsibility for creating this ension lay not with Muslims but with European society. One might have thought, on the contrary, that the main reason for such tensions was obviously Islamic terrorism. Yet at no point in his speech did he even mention Islamic terrorism. The nearest he got to it was a glancing reference to 'criminal' behaviour on the fringes. The world-wide outbreak of murder, kidnap, rioting and arson that followed the publication of the Danish cartoons was dismissed as merely a 'distasteful and unacceptable' reaction by a handful of Muslims, whose distorting impact upon the way Islam was viewed was to be wholly deplored".
Meanwhile, a rather curious intervention by Jemima Khan:
"Jemima Khan, a convert to Islam and campaigner for Muslim women, said: "My belief also happens to be that covering the face is completely unnecessary in Islam. I have never read anywhere in the Koran that a woman is obliged to cover her face.
This from the Socialist Worker is even more of a head scratcher:
"It seems as though Labour ministers want to break down the unity ordinary people forged in the anti-war movement bit by bit..".
Erm, why would the Labour party be in favour of those who oppose its actions?
AND UPDATED AGAIN
Intriguing that Straw has decided to go public with his concerns over the veil, and I think we have to ask to what degree this is positioning himself for a shot at the deputy leadership, or even the big one itself (and his price on Betfair has dropped to 48, having been at 500 at one point) . All the usual rent-a-quote Islamic types are foaming at the mouth about this one, and doubtless everyone has seen those elsewhere.
Despite the high proportion of Muslims in Blackburn, 25% I think, it does not look as though he is any serious danger of losing his seat - he has an 8,009 majority, despite the Tories putting up an Asian candidate last time and and LDs making a big song and dance about the Iraq war.
Melanie Philips notes in 'Londonistan' that he has done a fair amount of pandering to the Muslim lobbies: "In September 2005, he told the UN...that Muslims had given the world mathematics (wrong, 'arabic' numerals come from Hindu India. C) and the digital age (?!), and that only 'terrorists and the preachers of hate' wanted people to believe 'that Islam and the West are fundamentally different'".
So far so pretty harmless, but it gets worse. Much worse:
"Jack Straw, was even more pusillanimous. In March 2006 he appeared to airbrush Islamist violence out of the picture altogether. In a speech at the Muslim News awards, he suggested that the tensions between Islam and the modern world had arisen from a prejudiced reaction to Muslim religious piety, along with an adverse reaction to the movement of large numbers of Muslims into
Meanwhile, a rather curious intervention by Jemima Khan:
"Jemima Khan, a convert to Islam and campaigner for Muslim women, said: "My belief also happens to be that covering the face is completely unnecessary in Islam. I have never read anywhere in the Koran that a woman is obliged to cover her face.
"That said, while the sight of a woman in a veil may be shocking to the average Westerner, there are many Muslim women who will argue that a skeletal 14-year-old on a catwalk is equally disturbing."
Erm, non sequitur of the year?
This from the Socialist Worker is even more of a head scratcher:
"It seems as though Labour ministers want to break down the unity ordinary people forged in the anti-war movement bit by bit..".
Erm, why would the Labour party be in favour of those who oppose its actions?
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I have to say that whatever his reasons I respect that he had the balls to do it.
For me the reality is that I would favour Labour over Shameron to defend the country.Shameron can't even stand up for his own beliefs let alone someone else's.I know Verity/Peter,that they have done a shocking job but I fear our sunshine boy would be worse.Am I wrong?
I too am astounded by Straw's statements and can't help thinking suspiciously, "What did he mean by that?" Perhaps Labour's been reading the blogs, (D)HYS and the comments sections that newspapers are now offering and feels a cold chill down the back of its neck. I suppose we should just be glad he's done it and not investigate motives too closely.
Rigger Mortice - I too believe that Cameron and his crew, save Davis and Hague, would be far worse than even ZaNu-Lab. Cameron has no experience of running anything, never mind a country. And he is so smug and pleased with himself that he sees no need to learn.
Racial tension is all part of the NWO plan that bair and his cohorts are so willing to serve.
this is why the border between Mexico and the USA is wide open all whilst 80 year old women in wheelchairs are hassled at airports by big fat clowns dressed up like members of a marching band.
Same reasn our borders are non existent
Sorry to be dim, but what does (D)HYS stand for?
I just googled (d)hys and came up with this
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~AD8y-hys/index_e.htm
Its a japanese guide to the cleanest toilets in tokyo.
Very clean folk the Japs, this morning I found an envelope under my door from a Japanese tenant , they had also left their slippers outside their own door(in the rain) having got them dirty crossing the garden.
Must say Acronym finder wasn't much help...
Verity, I beg to differ.
Whether Cameron has ever held a ministerial post is frankly neither here or there. John Major, Jim Callaghan and Harold Wilson had all considerable experience of government before entering Downing St. For all the good it did them once they were in power.
Maybe Hague (who after all had his shot at the job and failed) and David Davis might be more favouably perceived by old-school Tory activists. However, a Guardian/ICM poll of 22 September 2006 showed that voters believe David Cameron would make a more effective prime minister and that Britain will be better off if Labour loses the next election.The poll gives Camerona five-point lead as the man most likely to take Britain in the right direction.
I'll gladly support David Cameron in place of NuLabour any day....
Croydonian - (D)HYS is a mean perversion of the Beeb's Have Your Say page. The D stands for Don't - because they writhe about and contort themselves bending over backwards not to offend muslims, to promote multiculturalism, the welfare society, blah blah blah. That this (D)HYS caught on prompted the Beeb to change its format to a choice of Readers Recommend. Even then, there are people who have been writing in for yonks and never get their letters posted.
gc - A five point lead while Labour is in meltdown mode and Blair is, at last, a busted flush, is derisory. They should be up on 17 or 18%, given the circumstances. I think this proves that the country has no stomach for the self-promoting, rather silly, Dave.
GC
You intend to vote for more of the same?
I find this whole conservative/labour nonsense fascinating, politics isn't a game of football, will home town wigan beat manchester united, it is about principle and common sense, things that all the mainstream parties appear to lack.
All these idiots licking Cameron's boots are no different from the football obsessive hoping that this time his team will win.
Bollocks, the only people who win at the moment are the parasites who have hijacked our parliamentary system by turning it into a KFC franchise.
Writing in the The Wall Street Journal last year before the Tories' third successive election defeat, Geoffrey Wheatcroft summarised the future for the Tory Party:
"If the Tories now find further leisure in opposition, they might try consulting their experience in the hope of correcting their errors. They could go on in the present Poujadist direction, voicing the sournesses of the alienated and embittered. Or they could try one further reinvention, as an economically (small-state) and socially (open-minded and diverse) libertarian party, while adopting a critical attitude to the increasing centralism of the European Union and also the unconditional American alliance"
The future lies with the latter option and real corrections in party thinking and presentation. I for one am not enthused by Cameron's big-state tendencies but we are obliged to reclaim health and education as areas of policy where the conservatives adopt a more centrist position. Scargill-style socialism or gung-ho monetarism are not politically palatable to the majority. Lethal injections of factionalism and dogmatism serve only to keep parties in opposition as Labour learned between 1979-1997 under a sequence of hapless leaders and we have learned under a sequence of hapless leaders 1997-2005.
It is only under Cameron that the Tories have begun to provide a credible, much-needed opposition and a potential alternative to the present government. And I am fed up with seeing the party stuck on a third of the vote at elections.
OK, time to out myself: I voted for Cameron in the leadership election. It was a heart for Davis, head for Cameron thing. Although in an ideal world (or at least one involving current Tory MPs, it would have been Alan 'Saturn's Children' Duncan.
Anyway, all of my regulars know what my rough position is on a lot of things, as shrinking violet I ain't, but two party FPP politics being what it is, a party has to have sufficient centrist appeal to achieve a majority. While DC might be saying and doing certain things that prompt some degree of teeth grinding among the activists, the one more heave approach was no more going to win the Tories an election than it did for Labour prior to Blair.
My thoughts exactly, Mr. Croydonian.
Croydonian says: Erm, non sequitur of the year?
Erm, yes, actually. I am still dizzy from trying to find a stable point to hang onto. First, she says she knows some Westerners are shocked by the sight of a woman in a burqa. They are? Who would these Westerners be? The ones who live in caves?
And the bit about the anorexic 14-year old model on the catwalk. Erm, women in full islamic drag go to the new designer collections? Why?
Oh dear, I can feel an anecdote coming on. I read / heard some time back that in the post 70s when the Middle East was awash with petrocash, the French couture houses created outfits out of lime green gonk fur etc (all on the QT, natch) to meet the demands of the sundry wives / mistresses of the arabian knights...
I have a totally dynamite idea. Jack Straw, quite rightly, says he feels uncomfortable talking to someone whose face he cannot see and read from the clues we all pick up from the expressions of other humans.
If the islamic woman refuses, Straw should reach into a drawer, take out a mask that reveals only the eyes and don it. He should conduct the conversation wearing this mask, so she cannot see his face or judge his reactions to what she is saying.
Sauce for the gander.
V - make it a GWB mask and I think it could fly.
Meanwhile, I'll offer you the usual Lombard St to a rotten orange that JS will be besieged by burka wearers at his next surgery.
Then, Croydonian, I think Mr Straw should demonstrate how in touch he is with his feminine side, and wear a burqa, too.
C'est a dire, sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose.
Don't like your George Bush idea, Croydonian. His mask should be totally bland and not carry emotional baggage which could provide an opportunity for a diversion. It should be non-controversial, and show only his eyes.
Just a grey mask with the eyes showing. Sitting opposite a woman in a black mask with just a slit for her to see through.
Interesting scenario.
V - just me being impish...
Meanwhile, here's a take on the veil business from a lesbian muslim.
This is the most salient point, I think: "Before getting into Muslim ‘sensitivities’ about women being covered in face sheltering niqabs (only eyes exposed) or worse, the burqa, covering the entire face and body, leaving just a mesh screen to see through – let me just say that if anyone, man or woman, Muslim or non-Muslim – covered his or her face, it would always result in a paranoia.
If I happen to decide to cover my entire face and body, I would expect people to be suspicious of me. I would be suspicious of me.
Covering your face – in this country - as a form of body language says things like ‘I’m ashamed’ , ‘I don’t want to be seen’ , ‘I am not one of you…’ and it can also say things like – ‘I don’t want to be identified by CCTV!’
And the Mystic Croydonian hat worked yet again:
"A demonstration to defend women's right to choose how they dress has been called for tomorrow outside in Blackburn outside the surgery of Jack Straw...The Demonstration in Blackburn takes place outside Jack Straw's surgery from 10.30-12noon on Saturday 7th October".
From the Respect website, where JS is accused, on the site's 'front page' of having made :"a sleezy (sic)and rascist sic)attack".
Meanwhile, check out what Dizzy's been up to - more than partially inspired by an IM conversation yesterday in which Verity's modest proposal was mentioned.
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