Good for you Stephen. No doubt the man concerned was a curmudgeonly old fool. Can't stand bigotry.

Which reminds me, what do you think of the responses here......
http://corporatepresenter.blogspot.com/2006/10/spooks-on-bbc-last-night.html

Well, I'm sorry to find you on the wrong side of the divide here.

First, none of you should be so arrogantly rude to interpose your views on the private 'conversation' between a man and his wife, unless invited. None of you were and so 'Bugger Off' was the absolutely appropriate response. Mrs Prodnose and the rest of you should have done what he asked and minded your own business.

Secondly, he was reciting an old childrens' rhyme. There is no reason why any of these should be adulterated to meet your prissy concerns.

Or are you about to bowdlerise Jerome Kern's 'Old Man River', Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice' or Charles' Dickens' 'Oliver Twist''?

Since, I am informed, some black people refer to themselves as 'niggers' then just who are you to object?

Yes, but was he right? Which lift?

Steady on GeoffH. OK, you have a point but you and I weren't there were we. We have to assume that the "n" word was belted out at a decibel loud enough for the gathered mass to hear clearly.

Belted out indeed. People at the other end of Oxford Street could probably have heard it.

If GeoffH above feels so strongly about the matter, I suggest he takes a stroll through Liverpool 8 to test his theory.

Within the word "nigger" lie a whole load of assumptions: black people are shiftless, black people are less than human, black people are cowardly, black people are dishonest. That is why the use of the word by white people is offensive. That some black people use the word about themselves is neither here nor there. Many Jews use the word "Yid" to describe themselves (it means "Jew" in Yiddish). Who would argue though that the use of the term by white people is highly offensive? Ditto the word "Jew" as opposed to "Jewish."

To put it in terms that even the GeoffHs of the world can understand, when a European gentile refers to someone as a Yid (and also Jew until recently), he means someone who is dishonest, dirty, cowardly and not one of "us." When a Jew employs the word Yid, he simply means Jew.

What I find laughable is the notion that this couple would somehow be less vile just so long as their racism is not overheard. Would Hitler's speeches have been less racist if they had been delivered in private?

Lookit, the English have never been an oppressed minority (unless you want to go back to distant times), so they have never had the privilege of having an offensive label attached to them (not one with any racist bite anyhow). In order to feel the same kind of offense as black people or Jews, it would not be enough for the label to be attached. The English would also have had to be beaten, burned, gassed, owned and despised for a number of centuries.

Unfortunately, the reality is that there are just far too many Geoffs in Britain. It's why I believe that Jews are no more safe in your country than they were in Germany in 1933, Austria in 1938 or Britain in 1940. It's why I believe they should leave.

Britain like France is a very beautiful country. It's just a shame that in both cases many of the inhabitants are such terrible little shits.

Oh, grow up.

A childrens' rhyme is chanted and we're on the verge of a fresh round of gas chambers. Pathetic.

I note that while so-called racist language in relation to black people and Jews is deplored you find it acceptable to dub the inhabitants of Britain and France (meaning, of course, the English and French) "terrible little shits".

I also note there are candidates here for editing literature from Enid Blyton to Shakespeare on the grounds of their particular sensibilities. What a load of latter-day, self-appointed censors.

“Hate is pretty much rampant everywhere you go. There are no white, no black, no colour... only those that choose between fear and love. It’s nice to sit there and go, ‘Wow... look at all those evil people hating so much. White versus blacks. Blacks versus white. Purple Martians versus trailer trash. Aren’t they evil? Aren’t I enlightened?’

“Uh... Can anyone point out the hypocrisy in that? Labelling is... so... old. Come on, quit it with the Oprahisms. That’s the TV talking. Quit it, quit it. Let’s go. Evolve, children, evolve...”
--Bill Hicks

Last person having commented five months ago, probably wasting my time commenting--but if I can stumble across this page months later, maybe others will; and maybe Stephen Pollard takes notice of people commenting on old posts.

Although not a fan of S.P., I regard him as one of the thinking, sincere Left; thus when google brings his site up in a search I read the articles, and have even saved some. So I am disappointed by this post, as I expected better of him--not a great deal better, him being a lefty and all, but a little bit better.

Jeremycj chimes in with a “Good for you Stephen.” For what? What did S.P. do to merit commendation? With all due respect to S.P.--who might be a wonderful man with a heroic past that would be the envy of Col. Tim Collins--but what did he do on this occasion? Except add his look of “breathtaken horror” and rather wear his conscience on his sleeve with this post on his website. And also mildly compliment British society for progress according to his lights (as opposed to Joshua who berates us for being “such terrible little sh**s”).

Then Jeremycj tells us “we have to assume”. No: we might assume but we don’t have to assume. As it is, S.P. confirms Jeremycj’s assumption by describing the volume of the rhyme’s delivery: “Belted out indeed.”

S.P. described the couple as elderly. The elderly are commonly deaf, and thus speak unintentionally loudly. Might deafness have caused the man's loudness rather than boorishness? And as GeoffH noted, it was a children’s rhyme: the gentleman was not loudly voicing an opinion that they “should all be rounded up and sent home” or worse. He was passing the time, waiting for a lift, reciting a rhyme from more innocent times. But then the spectre of liberal tolerance raised its intolerant head.

They were “elderly”--how elderly? In their eighties? The man would then be of an age to have seen service in WW2: it would be ironic to castigate an old man for reciting a nursery rhyme when, for all we know, he had stormed Normandy’s beaches or flew missions over Germany in order to defeat a genuinely (and murderously) racialist regime. Or if he was younger, bear in mind that National Service did not end until 1960--he might have fighting the good fight against communist terrorists in Malaya, Mau Mau in Kenya, nationalist terrs in Cyprus or Chicoms in Korea. Even if he did none of those things, don't the elderly deserve some respect--some tolerance even when they don't entirely conform to modern liberal mores? Or are liberals too busy displaying their tolerance to be tolerant?

There weren’t even any... well, take your pick from the 97 racial categories listed here, at least 14 of which might merit the particular appellation used. If there had been a [insert this week’s PC term] there, then fair enough, it would warrant a good old British disapproving clearing of throat and frowning nod... and in response to that the potentially-offended gentleman might well have received apology. We will never know if that would have happened--there was no-one there with justification to be offended, and the poor bleeder wasn’t given the chance anyway.

Joshua’s post criticises European gentiles, the French and the British. But he isn’t racialist or anything. He describes this elderly couple as “vile”, no less. “Vile”! Because an old man recited an ancient nursery rhyme--a rhyme that has to modern ears an unfortunate word tucked in it, but just a nursery rhyme nonetheless. The old guy--and it was just the old man, not his wife, but her innocence is not enough for her to escape being described as “vile” and “racist”--the old guy probably never even thought about it, and would like as not be very offended himself to learn that he was being held up as being next to Hitler (who, incidentally, never ever uttered the “n” word--maybe we can nominate Adolf for Best Contribution to Race Relations?).

May God save us all from the tolerance of liberals.

With earnest respect, S.P., should you read this, I commend to you not only the Bill Hicks quotation above, but Matthew 7:3-5 as well (motes and beams).