Adebayor's started so well for Man City
The Mulrooneys are white and working class..
Frank and Helen Mulrooney are my grandparents on my mum's side. They are a white working class couple from Bury, and good catholics.
Frank was in the tank corps and fought in Egypt during WWII, and when he came home he worked for the British Gas Board.
Helen worked in a weaving mill and then a factory called Walmsley's that made paper-making machinery.
My grandad died a few years ago, my grandma is in an old people's home - she's had alzheimers for about seven years.
When we were still able to talk about stuff I know she felt that the UK was changing and she didn't necessarily like the fact that black and asian people were moving to Brtain.
She didn't express herself in fair terms particulary, and when you'd try and explain why what she'd just said was racist, she didn't lke it.
According to this Newsnight poll for the 大象传媒, 52 per cent of white working class people think immigration is a bad thing, compared to 33 per cent of white middle class people. More than half of those questioned feel noone speaks for them. So is that true - tell us this morning... and tell me about your working class roots ..
The season of programmes about Britain's white working class (as the 大象传媒 describes them) are what they are. But why have the noble and ENGLISH hymn, Jerusalem to accompany the trailers and the programme?
Why not 'Men of Harlech' or 'Scotland the Brave'?
Are we talking about Britain or England? I'm not sure the 大象传媒 know the difference any more -
To all you 大象传媒 people, can you get it into your skulls that England is not Britain - or even Britain-Lite (in spite of what ZanuLabour keep telling us).
i feel the white working class are overlooked, is it the case of the squeaky wheel gets the oil? the more certain elements of society complain the more attention they receive.
i also feel id cards would protect me and society from terrorism, crime and things like benefit fraud.
this is the first time i have contacted any media, so i am part of the silent majority.
Some argue that the working class should move up the social ladder and allow the new working class to take their place and if they don't then tough luck.
I think it is unfair to the working class.
They say immigrants take all their jobs and this is true to an extent as agencies prefer to employ immigrants as they don't trust the working class to accept low wages and abusive jobs.
I think it is about culture really. I mean, there is even hatred between scots and english and mancs and cockneys!!
I suppose that is why we have countries in the first place to keep with our own and tribes etc.
It may even be in human nature to survive to only trust those like you and that includes the working class.
My dad's side of the family come from the east end of London. They lived around Victoria Park, in fact the house that my dad grew up in is across the road, dad said that when he was a boy he used over the wooden fence rather than use the entrance. My dad had a number of different jobs, before being up into the army during wwwII. After he was demobed in 1946, he took up an apprenticeship and became a gentleman's hairdresser at Bethnal Green hospital, where he was to meet my future mum. I grew up in a terraced house in east London. I have 3 brothers, we all went to the same schools, comprehensive. We have all worked in factories at some stage of our lives, one of us has worked as a dustman for about 30 years, another has worked as a kitchen porter for another of years, the other cleans busses, while I'm a porter/messenger at a bank in the city.
Well done Victoria!. You couldn鈥檛 have proved the point better !
In a programme about the white working class who got the least airtime ?
You鈥檝e guessed it - the white working class !
Says all we need to know about the 大象传媒
No wonder the English feel under-represented
Me ? Born in the East End. Bombed out twice. Raised in requisitioned houses and council estate. Now lower middle class middle-Englander and you can't get lower than that in the eyes of the Corporation
i am *furious* at what I've been hearing on the show regarding this issue. I've included my thoughts belwo but would be more than happy to defend them on your show.
Bah Bah White Sheep
The 大象传媒鈥檚 鈥榃hite鈥 series has, oh-so predictably, turned up little but reaction, prejudice and ignorance. The myth that somehow the white working class has been abandoned in favour of ethnic minorities has taken a firm grip on the gullible, stupid and racist. The falsehood that political correctness has somehow irredeemably changed our society in favour of foreign scroungers, would-be terrorists and shifty eyed eastern Europeans has been, tragically, seized on by many incapable of finding a solution to their own problems and those in wider society.
I鈥檓 really having trouble dealing with the retards responsible for propagating the New Vogue: Anti Muslim Urban Myths. Actually that鈥檚 too kind. Malicious lies and ignorant nastiness is much more accurate. At this point, I should make it clear that I am not pro-Muslim in any way, shape or form. In fact anyone, buying into any religion, to such an extent that they think the slaughter of innocents will earn them a Heavenly ticket to ride, is deserving of nothing but the deepest contempt, disgust and vilification. But there鈥檚 something else at work here and it鈥檚 simply the same old, racism, bigotry and stupidity given the semi 鈥榣egitimate鈥 cloak of 鈥榬espectability鈥 by ostensibly opposing terrorism and it鈥檚 vile, frankly. Hypocrisy and Orwellian Doublespeak of a very dangerous kind.
Let me give you a few examples: we had a young, woman call into Victoria鈥檚 programme complaining that she didn鈥檛 receive a grant to set up her own business because she was the 鈥渨rong Ethnic mix鈥, her words, not mine. On closer questioning by Ms Derbyshire it transpired she was unsuccessful due to the agency running over their budget. Nothing to do with race at all yet this passed, seemingly unnoticed, by anyone on the show and subsequent callers.
I had an email from someone a while back that purported to tell the true story of an altercation between a Muslim woman and a checkout girl at Woollies. So the story went, the Muslim girl objected to the shop girls Union Jack badge, accused her of racism and murdering her countrymen etc to which our patriotic checkout girl, in a fit of right wing fervour, declared herself proud of 鈥極ur Boys鈥 (don鈥檛 you just want to puke at that phrase?) who were bravely defending our noble land from murdering gangs of terrorist foreigners鈥 and if she didn鈥檛 like it then why not piss off back to Iraq? We recipients were then urged to forward the email to as many people as possible, to show 鈥極ur Boys鈥 how much we support them and to send a message to murdering Muslims that it鈥檚 our country and if 鈥榯hey鈥 don鈥檛 like it then 鈥榯hey鈥 can pi*s off back home.
Normally I growl and delete this trash but on this occasion I thought 鈥渂ollocks, right back at you!鈥 so I replied to everyone on the email, must鈥檝e been about 20 of us, you know the sort of thing, and starkly declared it to be a pack of lies offering anyone with concrete, documentary proof of this incident taking place anywhere in the UK, not just Woollies, then I would divvy up a ton. Surprise, surprise, no takers. Not even one, pathetic, half-baked attempt to make an easy 拢100. Because it was a fabrication from start to finish, of course. What was disturbing, though, was that it didn鈥檛 matter. Too many people are all too ready to believe this sort of poisonous propaganda without giving its accuracy a second thought. Obviously because it taps into the ignorance and prejudices these mental defectives鈥 already hold dear and, given the volatile climate that currently exists between the Muslim world and the West, it is a disgrace.
Another one doing the rounds at Christmas was the post 911 equivalent of Bah Bah Whitesheep. Shockingly, we learned employees around the country were banned from putting up Christmas trees in offices and workplaces as this celebration of debauched Christian excess would offend our Muslim Brothers and Sisters and, therefore, constitute a racist act. The moment I heard that one I groaned. The predictability of it was just mind numbing. Sure enough, various people I encountered, both virtually and in real life, over the following few days, puffed up their English chests, whipped themselves into a frenzy of nationalistic self righteousness and declared, again sooooo predictably, that things had gone too far and that this was yet a further example of, wait for it....POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!
Of course it never happened. Anywhere. Despite extensive trawling of the internet and in-depth enquires of a variety of reputable sources I could not find any supporting evidence at all of any employer, anywhere issuing such a ban for any reason even close to the one outlined above.
Of course this phenomenon is not new and not even exclusive to Muslims, far from it in fact. I well recall similar dirty, smears doing the rounds in the 80鈥檚, usually peddled by tacky, toilet paper, tabloids like The Sun, The Daily Mail etc . Back then it was fashionable to bash so called 鈥楲oony Left鈥 councils and if it meant black people had more grief to deal with as a result then that was just tickety boo: Two for the price of one. Typically, a North London Borough would be the hated institution. Places like Islington, Hackney and so on, variously banned black bin bags because they were deemed racist and a generation of pure-white, pre-school, Anglo-Saxon angels were forever traumatised and morally ruined because they were forced to sing Bah Bah Whitesheep.
First into the gutter was The Daily Star in 1986 who attributed the Bah Bah Whitesheep lie to Hackney Playgroups followed by the Daily Mail in 1987 who fancied giving Islington the blame. To give the paper credit, though, it really knows its readers because it repeated the lie in 2000, this time heaping the opprobrium onto local government in Birmingham, secure in the knowledge that the brain dead racists and Colonel Blimps鈥 that constitute the papers core audience would be too dense to notice the difference. Incredibly, its sister rag, The Mail on Sunday, took it out for another spin in 2005 this time changing the location to Aberdeen. And still people fell for it.
Mark Twain once perceptively observed that 鈥淎 lie is halfway around the world before the truth has put its boots on鈥. The bottom line is this: there are no fiendish plots to dupe the white working class into a life of poverty, hopelessness and unhappiness to the advantage of foreigners, simply the age old political tactic of divide and conquer coming into play. What drives every society is class not race and, frankly, the examples I鈥檝e heard on the show to the contrary are nothing more than bare faced lies at worst and pitiful scapegoating at best. Ethnic minorities do not enjoy a better life than us. It鈥檚 a total myth with no supporting evidence at all.
So here鈥檚 a radical suggestion: next time some plank regurgitates any of the above lies, why not politely ask them to provide some proof? You could then suggest that independent thought is good for the mind and that ignorance, stupidity and prejudice are not really effective substitutes for truth, accuracy and humanity. Just a thought...
I think if you go back through history any sort of change was considered challenging, bad or detrimental in some way. Until you know someone is considered to be part of that change which is happening and guess what they ar just like you...
I have lived in England all of my life and am British through and through. I am white working class and I live in Peterborough, right in the middle of the area featured on The Poles Are Coming. To this day I feel I have never suffered through Peterborough becoming a multi-cultural area in fact quite the opposite.
I have children aged 18, 20 and 22. Whilst talking about this subject my 22 year old son expressed more extreme views than I was comfortable with and when discussing this with my father I was informed that my grandparents were illegal immigrants on Ellis Island in the 20's having gone over from Poland and Russia. This i relayed to my son. Maybe we all need to look at how we are here.
I am from Jewish descendency and feel that the ground swell of racial, religious and cultural extreme views is not to dissimilar to what was happening in 1930ish Germany.
I feel that the problems are not the fault of the people who want to move here but the fault of our government who have not put the infrastructure needed in place.
I am pleased the 大象传媒 have done this series as it has opened up discussions and through these maybe things can change for the better for EVERY person regardless.