[Malcolm Armsteen]

Nice.

[Boiler]

There is a point on there though - what does make him so angry? Answer that and we'll have a much better society.

Piece on the BBC today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0q751vlxw1o

When I eventually encounter the gang, I'm faced with a 14-year-old girl in pink leggings and Crocs.

"I'm not claiming to be innocent because I'm not," she tells us. "I've threatened people and I've hit people, I'll admit to that."

Her mouth is blue with bubblegum and expletives. "The second you get into one bit of trouble with the police, you fall into it too deep and you can't get out," she adds.

She says an injury forced her to give up sport and that behaving badly offers an alternative energy release. "I found that I get the same adrenaline boost from being in trouble with the police and being missing and stuff."

But there's little remorse. "I regret what I do, but I don't say sorry," she says to cheers from the rest of the gang.

Again: why so angry?

[Youngian]

The problem with the police ignoring these attacks is that traders may have a whip round and hire their own 'police.' And little girls end up getting very hurt and crying for their mum.

[davidjay]

Classic bait and switch, beloved of scammers.


I know this is the celebrity age where a know nothing off the morning telly gets an automatic IN to political debate.
The absurd is strong in this one.

Should we really elevate somebody's mum's opinion just because an offspring can swim fast+.
Is there a heirarchy:
* Speaking as a muvva.
* Speaking as a sportsman's muvva.


+ Mother of an athlete, not mother of a soldier / sailor / airman.

Read the article and:
It's not her flag
It's not on her property
It's not affected her.

And of all the people who could have been interviewed it just happens to be one with a son who does it for Britain. What are the chances, eh?

[kreuzberger]

Recent travels have suggested that flag-shagging is not solely a British past-time. It's just that in India, they do it rather better.

[AOB]

I saw a clip on Instagram recently ,which was from a few weeks ago, of some knuckledraggers putting up a flag on a lamppost outside a pensioner's house. He came out and politely asked them not to do it. He received dogs abuse in return. I'd like to think he has a couple of sons with the tenacity of Liam Neeson's character from Taken, who saw that clip, and settled the score at a later date, but will have to be content with the probability of it being taken down a couple of days later.

On the plus side, I've noticed sentiment against flagshaggers and also Reform, likes and comments wise on posts, are consistently as high as far right YouTube video viewing figures, which are depressingly high. It may seem from the one sided barrage from the media that the far right are currently the majority, but that's far from the case in reality, the distain for those people and what they stand for is there in abundance. You just have to search for it, unlike the stuff coming the other way which unfortunately as I say is a barrage.


Labour shouldn't be kowtowing to these people today with the immigration policy changes. They won't gain their votes, but might lose some of their own. They need to focus on the economic side of government, get better PR in and go after corporate tax dodgers.

[davidjay]

If it's the clip I saw, one of the flagshaggers was filming the elderly couple while another said, "You're going to be famous." Doing that outside someone's house is intimidating and surely breaks the law. It's also a long way from ordinary people showing patriotism.

[Abernathy]

Well, the whole enterprise never was the spontaneous demonstration of proud patriotism that it pretended to be, and that some dimwitted borderline racist numpties in news bulletin vox pops tried to claim that it must be - and where’s the harm in that, eh ?

It is, and always was, a concerted, co-ordinated, and deliberate campaign of nativist, racist intimidation.

[davidjay]

Well, the whole enterprise never was the spontaneous demonstration of proud patriotism that it pretended to be, and that some dimwitted borderline racist numpties in news bulletin vox pops tried to claim that it must be - and where’s the harm in that, eh ?

It is, and always was, a concerted, co-ordinated, and deliberate campaign of nativist, racist intimidation.

There was never any chance it weas going to be spontaneous or innocent. From the off, anyone interviewed began talking about immigrants almost instantly and it didn't take long to see what would happen if anyone objected to this harmless show of patriotism. I'm only surprised there was no real violence.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

See the first post in the thread:
viewtopic.php?p=95303#p95303

[Youngian]

3. Not giving in to hate, includes not hating the people who are putting up flags. We HAVE to be more elevated than that. These people have stories. They have reasons. We don’t have to agree with them but the least we can do is listen

I have little choice but to listen as they and the politicians that echo them never shut the fuck up about their 'legitimate concerns.'
I placed some information about the blood donor service coming to town on a local flag shagger thread. Not to be Tony Hancock smug about it but putting down a different kind of marker for a civic patriotism that's positive. I'd love to think it was thought provoking and some of the 'patriots' will be inspired to make a simple gesture. But pull the other one.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I didn't mention that the following night the Sound Lounge had all its windows smashed, £10k... almost put it out of business but the crowdfunding raised £40k in a couple of days. Shows where the real sympathy lies, I hope.

No-one arrested, police investigation lasted all of 10 minutes.