RESPONSE TO COMMENT

In response to the comment made on the previous blog TIME TO CALL 'EM AS WE SEE 'EM, from Michael:

 

"I don’t think it is racial - a knee jerk London liberal analysis. Sunak problem is he is is too smooth and he is the candidate of the great and good. Truss, backed heaven help us by Jacob Rees Smogg and Shrunken Smith speaks to the twitter feed response. See Clare Foges in Times today who is very good on this." 

 

May I just point to the various tribunals and enquiries into various British Institutions such as the Police Force, Cricket etc.. which have found endemic racism and concluded that institutional racism is a serious problem in public life. I take the view that my knee jerk London liberal analysis may have something to do with those findings. I have, as have you, been in and around many of London’s boroughs, police stations and courts over the last 50 years and have not failed to notice that there is an undercurrent of prejudice and bigotry of all kinds. Perhaps my view is biased as a London liberal and old fashioned hippy, but when I first came to the UK in 1965, looking for a room, there were adverts indicating that only Europeans need apply. I was also asked by a prospective landlord if my flatmate, who he had not yet met, was ‘European’. One prospective landlady asked rhetorically “You’re not English, are you?”.  I was also very much around in the run up to the March 1966 General Election. I attended a number of hustings. One involving Quintin Hogg, in St John’s Wood, was quite an eye opener as to the nature of his conservative supporters, particularly in relation to a heckler. I also attended a Liberal Party meeting with Jo Grimond, at the Hampstead Theatre Club, a very different affair, much smaller, more polite and, surprisingly, far more civilised than the well-heeled St John’s Wood purple rinse brigade.  So if I take a view that the current local Conservative Party members may harbour certain racist feelings, it is based on, I think, long observation. I accept that my London Liberal analysis may well be biased, but knee jerk? Perhaps, that you do not see the racial element in this situation indicates a well-intentioned conservative knee jerk naivete (tee hee). The sad part is that since I came to the UK all those years ago the problems of prejudice and bigotry still flourish. 

 

As to Clare Foges, I am sorry, but I would have to subscribe to The Times in order to read her article. I know that’s a poor excuse, but my London Liberal analysis gives me pause when it comes to a chief speech writer for David Cameron and Boris Johnson. I realise, again, a poor excuse that does me no credit. One should be able to absorb all kinds of opinion and views without prejudice.  But, in keeping with Boris Johnson's current theme of film quotes, as Auda abu Tayi said to Ali ibn el Kharish, of Lawrence, “He is not perfect”.