Tory frontbencher sacked over race comments

[Silent Hunter]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6431005.stm

Oh, dear for Mr. Cameron.

[afleitch]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6431005.stm

Oh, dear for Mr. Cameron.

Not really - the shadow cabinet minister was rightly and quickly sacked.

[??????????]

What's so "offensive" about what he said?

[Silent Hunter]

Let me see:

Implying that racism was a) common in the army and b) acceptable.
Saying that many ethnic minority soldiers were idle.

[Cubby]

Nice to see free speech is still respected in the U.K.

People shouldn't be punished for airing their opinions. I hate Anne Coulter, but she has every right to say what she did about John Edwards, no matter how stupid it was. The same applies here. The only reason the Tories fired this guy is because they want to attract more minority votes in the next election.

I never heard of "ginger people" before, unless that just means redheads.

[??????????]

Let me see:

Implying that racism was a) common in the army and b) acceptable.
Saying that many ethnic minority soldiers were idle.

Many bigotted views or biased views are quite often based in a bit of truth.

[minionofmidas]

Let me see:

Implying that racism was a) common in the army

Which is offensive why? Too close to the truth, or what?
Anyways, he didn't actually say that. More that comments that sound racist when taken out of context are common in the army. Which I wouldn't doubt for a second.

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That part was pretty damn stupid of him, yeah. He probably didn't mean that quite the way it sounded.

Nice to see free speech is still respected in the U.K.

People shouldn't be punished for airing their opinions. I hate Anne Coulter, but she has every right to say what she did about John Edwards, no matter how stupid it was. The same applies here.

Ann Coulter is not a member of the GOP shadow cabinet, and would not be if such an institution existed in the US. Stupid comparison. Very stupid comparison.

US cabinet members aren't sacked as easily as UK ones simply because their successors need to be approved by the Senate.

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Carrot-haired ones.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It wasn't so much the implication that racism is common to the army, more that it isn't really racism and that it is in some way acceptable.