Well, I don't carry any burden of shame. India benefitted hugely from the Raj. Would they have been better under the heel of the muslims as they were before. Africa is a bit of a disaster but tha is mostly because of the greed and savagery of the black men who run it.

@Vanessa - how about justifying your mudslinging? You don't just go around labeling people racist because you don't like what they have to say. Where is your ironclad counter-argument? ;-)

One is left with the impression it is not racist if the "targets" are:

1) Israel/Israelis
2) Non White Tories
3) Whites

P J Wall

Would it also not be 'spot on' to say that black in the UK are generally poor ambassadors for their community?

Paul Flynn is one of the nicest and most genuine people I have ever met. Compare that to the careerist hacks that make up much of the Labour party establishment and hangers on these days.

For the ultimate put down of DA, reprise Constance Briscoe, black district judge, on R4's Any Questions.

Character demolition is a dish best served forensically with wit and just a tinge of abject contempt.

It will be interesting to see whether Cameron's comments on Tourettes today generate the same media storm particularly in the BBC for several days. Somehow I doubt it.

Apparently, if you live in a "Community", your prime identifier isn't being British. So we have the 'black community', the 'Asian community', the 'muslim community' and so on. All identified by something other than the word 'British'. So who,where and what is the 'Britsh community'? I'm English, with part Irish and German ancestry. Which 'community' am I in?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/gang-rape-is-it-a-race-issue-...

Whilst white people like to divide and rule ....it seems black people like to gang rape!!!

Don't you just love the left wing, if you have the temerity to question anything that involves a black man you are instantly a fully signed up NAZI, ITS CALLED FREEDOM OF SPEECH...It would also appear racism only works one way.
PS I see a man has been arrested for calling Stan Collymore names, Jesus if that's the way it's going there will be millions of arrests a day HEEEEELP

Please leave Diane Abbott alone she's brilliant, after all she always says what she thinks, and never hides her hatred of white people at every opportunity she's given, and why is she a hypocrite? Because she sent her gifted son to an overwhelmingly posh white and upper-class traditional English school rather than the local overwhelmingly black failing state school. Who wouldn't, if they had her money and social connections? If whites are so evil and intolerant, why do so many none-whites want to live in an overwhelmingly white country? Why is it most refugees are black/brown people fleeing other black/brown people? If white are so nasty. Racism cuts both-ways. Or is racism confined to the white race? Diane Abbott made a silly comment, but I’ll give her credit were credits due she fights for her own, now what’s wrong with that and before someone calls me a racist. I've got plenty of black/brown friends who hold right-wing views on life, work and families. But I've got to admit watching Labour lovies running around with their political knickers in a twist is quite amusing.

Luddite....i think you've killed the argument dead.

Rob Marchant is clearly a mind reader. He can delve inside the minds of both Abbott and Flynn and conclude that this pair of devious dissemblers has used politics as a cover for sneaking racist opinions out into the public sphere.

Fuckwit.

Rob Marchant is confused on this issue (the evidence of this being that at one point in his missive he claims that neither Diane Abbott or Paul Flynn are racists before continuing his argument that they should be sacked for racism - again, Fuckwit) and he would do well to read Steven Baxter’s piece on Abbottgate and Laurie Penny’s piece on “divide and rule”.

I think it’s clear that Diane Abbott was speaking of the POLITICAL ENTITY that white people constitute, and by this she meant – and unlike Mr Marchant, I won’t have to read anyone’s mind to deduce this because Abbott explained what she meant (although rather inarticulately, I thought) – the collective historical group.

It is not racist to declare this historical truth: across the whole history of white people’s interactions with black people, black people have come off rather badly, and yes - divide and rule was one of the methods by which our empire was administered. Look it up, it’s true.

As far as Paul Flynn’s comments are concerned, is it not also true that there has been an almost century long (if we go as far back as the British Mandate of Palestine) dispute over Palestine between Jews and Arabs? Doesn’t it make sense then that, regardless of how neutral he or she may be (because it’s not about them), any ambassador to Israel shouldn’t be Jewish? And while we’re here, isn’t it more of a problem that we don’t have an ambassador to Palestine? And if we did have an ambassador to Palestine, wouldn’t it be sensible to ensure that he or she wasn’t a Muslim?

It’s called Politics, Rob.

As a person who has fought racism for close to three decades now, I am utterly appalled at the attitude of some old and dear friends on the left who have appeased this racist bigotry from ethnic minority communities.

Even using the outrageous lie and apology for racism by the use of the term, "Blacks can't be racist" which in itself IS racist and potentially an example of incitement to race hate.

We should tackle racism and racist ideas within EVERY community and EVERY race.

It is wrong to appease and excuse racism. I have been bitterly disappointed in those who have played down and excused Dianne Abbott's blatantly racist comment. That tweet was NOT about colonialism of the past, but was entirely phrased within the present tense and was aimed squarely at the white race.

Clearly the left are incapable of crossing idealogical divides to tackle racism when it becomes "inconvenient" to them.

The right wing of politics has bitten the bullet and is working continuously to tackle racism and Cameron, to his credit, has sacked people for racist comments.

When will the left catch up?

I am particularly appalled at claims of "fake outrage". How patronising and contemptible does one have to be to think that this is an acceptable response to racism?

Racism is unacceptable, whether it is practised by whites or Asians or Blacks or anyone else.

I am genuinely outraged that the left's PC lobby have turned out to be racist apologists and appeasers of racist bigots!

"Only a few weeks back Guardian produced a blatantly doctored report to link London Riots to poverty. "

After 13 benevolent years of labour rule? Gifting billions over the years to the poor and disenfranchised? Surely labour were successful at tackling poverty, were they not? After all, these riots happened before the tories really started their vicious cuts. So did the Guardian actually lay the blame with labour's failure to tackle poverty in spite of the massive amount of money they wasted in these poverty trap estates?

"Only a few weeks back Guardian produced a blatantly doctored report to link London Riots to poverty.

good point

Oh well, at least this article is balanced..

"However, in the resulting Twitter-storms over both, we saw some examples of the opposite: the extraordinary logical contortions that people can be prepared to go through to defend an unacceptable view."

step forward: L.Penny...S.Baxter of the NS

"It was notable, though, that these defenders, on issues which are not essentially-party political, seemed to come exclusively from the left of the Labour Party and the liberal-left media.

step forward: L.Penny...S.Baxter of the NS

"We need not go over again why her comment was unacceptable."

No...you're right. Those reasons have been fully outlined in the responses to L.Penny and S.Baxter of the NS...to which L.Penny, in particualar took particular exception, denouncing anybody who strayed from her wholly tendentious, dogmatic and largely 'sixth-form' analysis as a 'troll'.

The NS has not performed well over this issue. Its line, as expressed by its two moronic pundits, one egregiously smug and the other a whiny nasal adolescent, seems to be that there was no case to answer whatsoever; and anybody dissenting from this was either a latent racist or a hysterical twitter addict.

A poor show all round. This was not a trivial storm in a teacup, it was a symptom of everything that's fucked up with race relations in this country. Any serious debate is sidelined in favour of soundbites from self-appointed spokespeople who have a vested interest in keeping racial tensions stoked to the maximum to justify their own existence. 'Race-scamming' and identity politics have done more damage to social cohesion than a million half-arsed marches by fucked-up neo-Nazi troglodytes ever could.

I hesitate to step into these comments as some range from the bonkers to the downright racist. However, out of respect to those who have bravely contributed to the debate instead:

@Chris: I can believe that Paul Flynn is nice and genuine, as indeed I point out in my original piece on him here: http://thecentreleft.blogspot.com/2011/12/flynn-tolerating-intolerable.html

All the more surprising why he should first come out with this unacceptable comment, and then refuse to apologise for it for a week.

@MatthewBlott: thanks. And I think your use of the word "closet" rather generous.

@SpudMiddleton: well spotted: the "political entity that white people constitute", indeed. What terrible tripe.

As if white people were some homogeneous mass of like-minded human beings, or black people, for that matter.

Diane Abbot has a history of rash, racially charged statements and if Milliband is prepared to retain such a person in his shadow cabinet, he should not be surprise if this is a net vote loser (I have already heard Abbot described as the best recruiting Sergeant the BNP has ever had).
More of a concern is the appointment of Matthew Gould as the UK's Ambassador in Tel Aviv. His views as a Zionist much surely be at odds with his officail position and already his actions have given cause for concern. It has been reported that when he met the Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, he apologized to her for the fact that the British Mandate authorities had arrested her parents, Eitan Livni and Sara Rosenberg, both prominent Irgun members. “Don’t worry about that,” she told him, no doubt much bemused by this astonishing outburst. Livni's parents were both active terrorists (the father being convicted and sentanced to 15 years in prison)who were fighting the British whilst the British Army was fighting to liberate Europe from Fascism.
It would appear unlikely (but not impossible) that Gould had official sanction for such an apology. What message does his appointment and public utterances send to the Palestinians?

This ridiculous article has certainly allowed and attracted the racist scum who spread their poisonous bile like a disease.

@matthew smith glasgow

As she has risen to the position of a shadow minister in the labour party, presumably shes not an idiot

Idiot will do. I mean the shadow chancellor of the exchequer shows his opposition by iterating childish insults such as "FLASHMAN" repetitively at the tory side.

I find it strange how the left think they are intellectually superior.

As a libertarian, whom no doubt you would like to smear as a right winger, I was not offended and historically there maybe some basis for what she said. I will also add that even if she was wrong I defend her right to offend.

However, it is the toe curling double standards of the left that angers me. As many people would know full well any white person especially from the perceived right would suffer a public hanging, drawing and quartering and forced to resign. Certainly by the left's standards she should have gone.

"They are about the tolerance of the left to attitudes on race that the centre and the centre-right would have no truck with."

Again, he wilfully ignores countless examples to the contray. How much more admiring of the Right does this man have to get without going the full hog and joining their ranks, his natural home.

objectively measured even..

Dylan

I'm packing now...happy

A little history lesson on the subject of the Raj The appalling behaviour on the part of the free-enterprise British settlers and their military brought about a rebellion in which both Hindi and Moslem subjects took part.
Their revenge was oh so sweet but short-lived. The Brits knew how to deal with unruly subjects.

Executions ensured these Muslims and Hindi peoples could not even enter the next world.
Again the British government had to step in to save India from avaricious East India Company adventurers; but London had learned its lesson well
When faced with huge numbers of 'native' populations, it decided 'divide and conquer' was a policy that had
served the Europeans well and was well worth following.
Are the Asians, Africans, and West Indians in the UK one homogeneous mass?
The UK is following the USA social model with a vengeance. Or is it the North of Ireland set-up, with children of different race and religion being taught in different schools?
And still they keep coming! Even from war-torn Afghanistan.

Empire Disloyalist.