Neil Sears, Daily Mail (London), November 11, 2008
A race relations quango is warning that the word ‘British’ should be avoided because it is similarly offensive to the words ‘negro’ and ‘half-caste’
According to the publicly funded organisation—headed by disgraced former Cabinet minister Ron Davies—to use the word British ‘implies a false sense of unity’ that is unwelcomed by people from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Astonishingly, this extremist view is being swallowed wholesale by council and health authorities which use the Valleys Race Equality Council as a trusted consultant.
As a result, council staff and health workers across Wales are struggling to express themselves when trying to describe the people they are working with.
Last night the guidance was condemned as ‘political correctness gone mad’ by Conservative MP David Davies.
Yet the advice from the Valleys Race Equality Council (Valrec) has in fact been circulated for some time, and has only come into the public eye after being adopted by Caerphilly council, near Cardiff in south Wales.
All 9,000 staff at the council have been issued with a leaflet entitled Equalities in the Delivery of Council Services advising them on how to deal with the public—and what words or phrases not to use to avoid causing offence.
Under the heading ‘British’, the leaflet solemnly informs council workers: ‘The idea of “British” implies a false sense of unity—many Scots, Welsh and Irish resist being called British and the land denoted by the term contains a wide variety of cultures, languages and religions.’
The suggestion the word ‘British’ should be avoided appears alongside similar sections in the leaflet which warn that ‘half-caste’ implies ‘a person is not whole and so should be avoided’ and that ‘negro’ has ‘racist overtones and is linked with the slave trade’.
The man behind the leaflet, Mr Davies—who lost his Cabinet job after a ‘moment of madness’ with a male stranger on Clapham Common in 1998, then left the Welsh Assembly after allegations he had gay sex in a wood—has been £27,000 a year head of Valrec for five years.
Mr Davies—who denied the woodland sex allegations, claiming he was looking for badgers, but later admitted to being bisexual—is also a senior independent councillor in Caerphilly, which helps explain why his advice is taken so seriously.
Discussing the leaflet yesterday, Mr Davies said: ‘It’s just for information, there’s no advice or instruction.
‘Of this council’s employees, 3,900 describe themselves as white British, whereas 5,400 describe themselves as white Welsh.
‘So this information is very much in accordance with the way that people in Caerphilly identify themselves.’
But Welsh Tory MP David Davies said: ‘I’m afraid Valrec is guilty of trying to propagate its own views. There’s absolutely nothing offensive about describing people as British.
‘This is political correctness gone mad. Organisations like this are using public money to propagate their own narrow nationalistic ideas.
‘Perhaps they should be replaced by a single body that promotes Britishness and encourages everyone in this country, whether black, Asian or white to unite and stand together under the British flag.’
And Wales rugby legend Gareth Edwards, who won 53 caps for Wales and ten for the British Lions, said last night: ‘This is absolutely mad.
‘I’m very proud to be Welsh and if anybody asks me where I’m from, I’ll say Wales.
‘But I’m also British—I’ve played for the British Lions and I’m very proud of that as well.
‘I have no issue with being called British, none whatsoever.’
The director of Race Equality First in Cardiff, Mohammed Tufail, said he describes himself as British despite being born in Pakistan.
Mr Tufail said: ‘I have not come across any Welsh people who have said: ‘Don’t refer to me as British’.
‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling someone British.’
Less than one per cent of Caerphilly’s 170,000 residents are from ethnic minorities—and figures from the last census suggest only 15 per cent of the total identify themselves as Welsh.
A Caerphilly council spokesman said: ‘We are committed to equality and we always try to ensure that everyone is treated equally, regardless of sex, race or religion.
‘However, we also recognise that political correctness can sometimes be taken too far and we try to strike the right balance so that we are sensitive to the needs of minorities by taking a common sense approach.
‘The information contained in our equalities handbook was a terminology exploring various words and their connotations—it is not a direct instruction to staff about what phrases they can and cannot use in the workplace.’
Valrec has five full time staff and is funded by local councils and the Commission for Racial Equality.
Original article
(Posted on November 11, 2008)
Comments
Something that Americans (and others) are unlikely to be aware of is the sheer hostility that the indigenous English receive as a matter of course from their Celtic neighbours (who regard them as Anglo-Saxon interlopers).
It is no coincidence that a New Labour government consisting largely of Anglophobic Scots and Welsh has promoted the break-up of the United Kingdom through the devolution of Scotland and Wales (conferring on them benefits denied to the English) combined with the attempted regionalisation of England, and the repeated denials that there is any such country (e.g. those of John Prescott), or any such people as the English.
It is also no coincidence that the overwhelming majority of immigrants to the “UK” actually settle in the England that these hateful Celtic politicians wish to destroy as a nation and people.
We have entered the “It must get worse before it gets better” phase.
I’m established enough in my career to to in a position to hire and promote. These young white liberal recent grads are about to get a lesson in Affirmative Action, given by ME!
Unfortunately, the only way to wake up to multiculturalism is to experience it first hand.
This kind of behavior by the British, I almost want the minorities to take over. It’s less painful to watch than the suicidal indigens. Well, they’re running out of room. Very soon, there won’t be any moors to flee to. I don’t think ObamaNation is going to welcome them in the USA.
Don’t expect this to last long. It won’t catch on, not because of it’s utter stupidity—the people in the British Isles are all to eager to keep stupid laws, but it will die because people from Scotland, Wales and Ireland are predominately white, and as such, any laws protecting them will be soon discarded.
These problems are going to be be minor compared to ther ones now building and with reach fruition as time goes on.
This diversity nonsense will be their end.
There’s not going to be any “tan man” or “every man” look. It’s absolutely humorous to me that they’re not planning what to do when they get heavily into disintegration, rather than pretending they’ll be carrying on their diversity project into the second half of this century.
They’re doomed, and it is now set in stone.
These problems are going to be be minor compared to ther ones now building and with reach fruition as time goes on.
This diversity nonsense will be their end.
There’s not going to be any “tan man” or “every man” look. It’s absolutely humorous to me that they’re not planning what to do when they get heavily into disintegration, rather than pretending they’ll be carrying on their diversity project into the second half of this century.
They’re doomed, and it is now set in stone.
It’s not extremist to preserve these areas (Wales, Scottland and Ireland) for whites.
It just gets worse and worse.
What I thought was unbelievable before is trumped every day by new idiocy.
I found this out first hand the other day, but from the other perspective!
As a (white) British citizen born in Australia and currently living in Australia I gained my British citizenship when I was born due to my father and all of his family being born in England. I met some British girls the other day here who are holidaying in Australia and one of them told me that in the eyes of many I am no longer ‘British’ even though my passport clearly states that I am.
I asked why this was and she said to me it was a backlash to all the immigrants that have recently moved to the U.K. and declaring themselves ‘British’. Apparently quite a few people are taking offense to this, so much so that someone who is British but does not live in Britain is no longer considered British by quite a few people, and she says it’s slowly filtering into the government and that the rise of the B.N.P. is a sign of this.
It all seems like a form of ethnic nationalism from what I can gather and I really cannot blame them give what I saw in East London two years ago, but where does this leave me? I’m a ‘British citizen’, yet not ‘British’ in the eyes of the British people. How weird!
It is still called the British Isles, isn’t it?
This is the kind of pettiness that is destroying the White race.
Now that I think of it, I don’t like being called an American anymore and I never liked being called an Anglo either. I guess I will have to choose between French, Russian, English and a few other Northern European strains. Since my surname is French I will claim I am French. I bet am more French genetically than most people living in France now, anyway.
Some people don’t like the term illegal alien but it doesn’t change the facts.
This guy is a creepy little Welsh bi-sexual who was arrested on Clapham Common for soliciting oral sex from black men.
Just the kind of person in charge now in the UK. Just great eh..!
Unfortunately you guys in the US have the same kind of creeps in charge and in the media as well.
I one sense however he is right.
The term British used to be used to refer to people who were indiginous to the British Isles.
A great people with a proud heritage.
Now any third worlder who skulks in can claim a passport and call themselves British. The quality of life in Britain has consequently gone down the pan.
That is the primary reason that people now call themselves English, Scots, Welsh and Irish.
Increasingly only immigrants call themselves British - thats when they are not otherwise occupied in robbery, benefit claims, playing the “discrimination lottery” or blowing people up on trains and buses.
The very fact such people are funded by taxpayer money show just how sick our society is. How many race equality quangos do we need, and how much could we save in taxes, or spend on the underfunded police and judiciary system, if they were all to be sacked tomorrow?
“Mr Davies—who denied the woodland sex allegations, claiming he was looking for badgers, but later admitted to being bisexual—is also a senior independent councillor in Caerphilly, which helps explain why his advice is taken so seriously.”
Badgers!?
Badgers!?
We don’t need no stinkin’ badgers!
It’s not the terms that are offensive it’s the weakening of the national identity of those places by importing many thousands of totally dissimilar Third World peoples.
This is like when Mexicans get offended when people from the USA claim to be Americans because Mexico is just as much a part of North America as the USA. They neglect that shortening USA becomes Americans as in France-French, Germany-Germans, Mexico-Mexicans, etc., etc.
“First they drive mad, those the Gods would destroy…” with apologies to the poet if I’ve not gotten the quote 100% accurate! Surely, however, a phrase TOTALLY APPROPRIATE to Britain’s government officials.
The INSANITY is not just limited to Britain. Read this. The link to the story comes at the end. I just HOPE all Whites wake up out of their stupor and throw ALL governments out. This is lunacy beyond reasonable belief
Australia To End
Australia will now join China in blocking free access to the internet. Responding to decades of pressure from the Anti-Defamation League, the Australian government has announced it will ban all “illegal” internet content produced in or entering Australia. Under ADL-orchestrated Australian hate laws, it has already been unlawful to hold up homosexuals, Jews and Muslims to “humiliation or intimidation” in the public forum, including the internet. Incoming material on the internet, however, has remained largely unregulated.
http://www.rense.com/general84/aust.htm
It is of no use to comment on the idiocy of the suicidal policies of the current ruling elite, but one thing stands out above all others. The council is the lowest ranking form of government, as in the US you have city,county, state and national government, except in Europe you have the EU government on top of all that. It says this council, with a population of 170,000 has 9,300 employees, which does not include the elected councilors, they consider themselves far above the herd. I believe in England some 40% of the working population now work for some government agency or the other. Can anyone imagine the tax burden to support this socialist hell-hole.
We need to remember that the islands were named British after the people who were there before the Celts arrived. After the Celtic invastion Britons blended in and ceased to be a distinct people. It could be said therefore that all those living on the main Island - the one containing England, Wales and Scotland really are Britons first and their various Celtic generalities after. Of course, there is this later insertion of the Germanic Anglo-Saxon tribes and later Danes in what become know geographically as England. The Normans (Yea, my team!) were a mix of Vikings and Celtic Gauls who came next and dominated most of the Islands. In Ireland’s case, the situation is similar. Celts arrived and supplanted the people known as the Tuatha de Dannan.
It may actually be a U.S. conceit to term it’s own citizens as Americans. But a general term was needed and used for them by the British (there I go again) and other Europeans. That indigenous people and those we term Hispanics try to make pretenses by claiming to be Americans due to Mexico’s geographic location is disingenuous and transparent. They want to make that term blur in order to justify what is already convered by the national laws and international agreements.
For many years now, it’s been considered racist to fly the Union Jack in Great Britain; our national flag!
This is just more of the same P.C. nonsense that’s destroying once-Great Britain. I’ll bet the people behind this are graduates of “Common Purpose” (see http://www.stopcp.com).
I am a Scot (first) and British (second); no problem with that (or Australians being British) at all. If these so-called “nationalist” parties e.g. S.N.P., Plaid Cymru, (B.N.P. excepted) succeed in breaking up Great Britain, all will be lost and we’ll just become merged regions of the EUSSR; a precursor to a one world dictatorship.
We British know who we are, and who aren’t us, regardless of where they were born or which piece of paper they hold.
Historical Note:
The politician - a particularly disgusting specimen, at that - in question was (temporarily) disgraced a decade ago on the brik of becoming Labour’s first Gauleiter of Wales …
He was soliciting, or “cruising” to use the vernacular, for homosexual sex on London’s Clapham Common, in a place known to devotees as “Gobbler’s Gulch”. He made the mistake of approaching a black Rastafarian, whom he wished to sodomize, or, more likely, be sodomized by. The black Rastafarian duly robbed him at knifepoint.
When the scandal broke, he protested his innocence (don’t they all?) by claiming he was “badger watching”.
He and his ilk are beneath contempt.
The Scots, Welsh and Irish are closer to being true Britons than the English, who are more recent offshoots of post-Roman Anglo-Saxon invaders.
“This guy is a creepy little Welsh bi-sexual who was arrested on Clapham Common for soliciting oral sex from black men.”
Clapham Common and Hampstead Heath are favorite gay sex places. But most of them have the discretion to do it in the bushes. The police are under orders to overlook gay sex as long as it is discreet.
To be arrested on the common or the heath for gay sex must mean he was doing it out in the open in plain sight. Or perhaps those black men weren’t men but 10 year old boys who got scared and reported it to their parents or teachers.
>>>“This guy is a creepy little Welsh bi-sexual who was arrested on Clapham Common for soliciting oral sex from black men.”
It is funny, how so many British government officials turn out to be devotees of aberrant sexual practices. England has a long history of that, as review of old news stories would suggest. Not, of course, that we Americans haven’t had our share of sicko types.
I would dearly like to see Brits pull themselves together, act like MEN again. Telling government officials where to stick their insane policies, edicts and regulations. Maybe mass disobedience by 20,000 or so to focus attention on the government’s unwanted interference and public policy.
I was under the impression that English policy made the world England?
And who features importantly in this report…’The Director of Race Equality First Cardiff, Mohammed Tufail’, born as so very many in Britain today in Pakistan. He occupies a lucrative sinecure as do so many other Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, blacks in positions with the race equality commisariat. Many of these immigrants are fast-tracked to good places in official employment. Muslims are quickly propelled to mayorships when quite young, thus in the dreadful East Lancashire towns are seen a mayor of Rochdale who had recently been a shepherd in Pakistan. Then there is the young mayor of Oldham, who is also employed in the race relations sector. In the past a mayoralty only came to those with many years of unpaid public servioe when a councillor was always a volunteer.
“Something that Americans (and others) are unlikely to be aware of is the sheer hostility that the indigenous English receive as a matter of course from their Celtic neighbours (who regard them as Anglo-Saxon interlopers).”
Right?
Conan: “And the English show absolutely no hostility whatsoever to their ‘Celtic’ neighbours.”
Very little, if any. Compare and contrast the Scots, who will usually vandalise a car displaying a sticker for the England soccer team if its owner is naive enough to leave it parked in a Scottish town or city, or the Welsh, who have a notorious propensity for burning down English-owned homes in Wales. The same sort of things happening to Scots or Welsh in England are unthinkable.
Perhaps the English should just go back to Denmark and northern Germany. I’d be happy to help them pack.
Burning English homes down in Wales? I thought Wales was for the Welsh, and not for the English and their Pakistani friends.
Reply to Michael C. Scott;
After 1,500-1,600 years I think the English are entitled to England. But perhaps the U.K. should be broken up. The old Celtic / Anglo-Saxon bifurcation was never really resolved and this division has weakened the internal cohesiveness of the island making it more vulnerable to outside forces and alien pressures then other European countries. I don’t believe it was just a coincidence that Britain was the first European country to allow mass non-White immigration. When you think of your nationhood as a multitude of ethnicities (English, Cornish, Welsh, Manx, Scottish, Highlanders, Irish, etc) it is a step on the road to extending that concept to races as well.
To Michael C. Scott
Sir, your remarks are disgustingly offensive. I am an Englishman and I can assure you that the Pakistanis are no friends of mine. Do not confuse our corrupt (and largely Celtic) elites with the ordinary mass of indigenous English.
Furthermore, we English have been settled in Britain for a millennium and a half; in other words, a damn sight longer than whites have been settled in North America. Think before you write.
Michael C. Scott:
Do you realize if all the ethnic English leave the island of Great Britain as you propose that the remaining Celts will probably be reduced to racial minorities in their own island? Or would likely become so very soon afterwards?
The UK is being broken up. The only problem is that the Celtic/NWO architects of this dismemberment are making sure that while Scotland and Wales retain their integrity as sovereign nations, England (whose actual existence is nowhere explicitly acknowledged by officialdom) is carved up into a number of ahistorical, culturally non-specific regions.
The anonymous poster is certainly right in saying that the “Anglo-Saxon/Celtic bifurcation” has been a faultline running down the centre of the UK, but it is overwhelmingly England that has suffered from uncontrolled mass immigration (mainly because it is more industrialised, and therefore more attractive to economic “migrants”).
I would remind Michael C. Scott that it is an odd sort of white nationalist who denies a white nation the right to its own homeland. (He’s probably listened too credulously to too many of the lies told by the Celts against England, and watched Anglophobic drivel like “Braveheart” too uncritically.) It is worth bearing in mind that the Celts themselves were settlers in Britain, displacing the original Bell-Beaker people. Perhaps Mr Scott should henceforth show his solidarity with the Celtic nations by writing his posts in Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic or Manx (I leave the choice of which of these great world languages entirely to him).
There is no such thing as “Celtic”.
There is a VERY strong link between Irish/English/Scottish DNA and Basque DNA. These nations share a common ancestor. Only a very small ammount of English show Saxon DNA markers.
am not surprised by this. There were thriving large populations across these islands for thousands of years before any European ‘celt’ set foot here,and that most likely came from the basque area.
Conan, there’s a very strong link between all Northern European DNA. There’s a very strong link - dare I say it? - between all human DNA. (For that matter, there’s a very strong link between human and chimpanzee DNA!)
This proves very little, unless you subscribe to the kind of national creation myths being foolishly peddled by the BNP in one of their recent videos. We, the English (or for that matter the Celts, who seem to think, in spite of your pleas, that they DO exist) don’t need to show that we have lived in Britain since before the last Ice Age to legitimise our territorial claim to our nation. It is enough that we have been settled for centuries, and have created a civilisation (including the now-international medium of the English language).
The English language is a mix of French, Latin and German
Richard Harris: “The English language is a mix of French, Latin and German.”
This is crudely put, and reverses the order of importance of the respective language groups (NOT languages) involved.
English is a Germanic language, brought to Britain in the 5th century AD by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, that has absorbed vocabulary and, occasionally, grammatical features and orthography from other languages.
It first encountered (from about the 8th century) the closely-related Norse languages of the Vikings, which led to a simplification of its grammar. It next came under the influence of Norman French, after the Conquest by William I in 1066, but this influence was predominantly upon educated persons. The precursor to English had already absorbed some Latin influences when the Anglo-Saxons still lived in Continental Europe, but Latin (and Greek) did not become significant elements in English until the revival of scholarship during the Renaissance. To this day, their influence is largely limited to the vocabulary of the educated, and the specialised vocabularies of the sciences and professions.
It is just plain wrong to say that English is descended from French or Latin. It is, rather, a Germanic language which has borrowed a large vocabulary from these languages, while retaining its distinctive grammar and morphology. (The Anglo-Saxon spelling system, however, was somewhat modified by the Norman.) The proof of this is the extreme ease with which English sentences can be formed using only native Germanic elements (e.g. “Last summer I didn’t mow my lawn for six weeks, and when I came back from my holiday the grass had grown six feet tall”), and the actual impossibility of forming them with only Latin or Norman French elements (where the Germanic system of verb declension and noun accidence is implicit).
I am Scottish and don’t agree with Michael Scott,however although I would class myself as British,I tend to use Scottish because I feel any non white invader can come in and class themselves as British.
These kind of articles only serve to rear old tensions between Scots and English,which is what our enemies want to see.
