UKH

Failing Grayling, Kalamity Karen, Liz Truss, the disgraced Liam Fox, thick as mince David Davies, Andrea Leadsome , Dominic Raab, Boris Johnson  (for chrissakes! ) ...

Don't the Tories have anyone who isn't utterly stupid and Incompetent? 

Dominic Grieve.

Agreed but which portfolio is he in charge of? 

I never thought I'd say this, but......michael Gove doesn't seem completely clueless, just the usual background level of self serving graft, like radon in a cornish cellar, just expoure to Tory instead. Still harmful in the longrun, mind.

Two cameramen filming lions on the Serengeti and the lions are getting restless as they haven't eaten for a few days.
One of the cameramen replaces his heavy work boots with a pair of trainers.
The other one remarks: "You won't outrun a lion in those"!
The trainer wearing cameraman replies: "Who cares, I'll outrun you...". 

Phillip Hammond? 

He's not exactly flavour of the month with his party though is he ? 

To be fair, that's about as fine an accolade as it's possible to get for a Tory right now.

And to be equally fair, pretty much the same could be said for Labour right now too.

So now you want not stupid, competant *and* popular with tories. Tricky... 

It's not the politics, it's the arrant stupidity which is so alarming. Whatever I think about Labour they really haven't had chance to demonstrate such comical  bathetic ineptitude as the people on the short list above  

'Better to keep your mouth shut and have everyone suspect you're an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt" springs to mind.

Oh I don't know, they have given it a pretty good shot. The fact the Tories are still in power surely makes Labour even more inept than the inept party.

"non-minister for trying not to f*ck it up too badly"

I rate Rory Stewart as well.

Yeah me too until he started to defend the indefensible ("80% of people support..."). I presume Amber Rudd was considered a safe pair of hands until today, not the worst gaffe but at other times would have been more than a page 7 foot note!

Rory Stewart. Prisons minister. Former governer in post war Iraq. Actually cares about people and the issues that confront them. Old school, one nation Tory. Not on my side of the political devide but I have plenty of respect for his intelligence and compassion. 

Likes the odd walk.

Bit ironic that she was criticised by someone who said: "White people love playing 'divide & rule' We should not play their game.".

Ken Clarke is a goodun. I had a soft spot for Heseltine too. The current crop need a good dose of glyphosate. Toad is right though, Gove is bloodthirsty but he's no boob. 

I think there's been more than one critic but yeah sure, shrug it off, I wouldn't expect the party of Windrush, Islamaphobia, hostile environment and Peter Harris to be too concerned about something like this. 

Lets get some perspective of the situation.
Rudd was actually being supportive of Abbott in that she was saying that Abbott receives more than her fair share of abuse due to her being a woman and *coloured*. 
It might well not be the current acceptable description, but it's fairly clear that Rudd's intentions were honourable in her reference to Abbott. 
The fact that Abbott decided to reply to this in the manner that she did is perhaps more indicative of Abbott's philosophy than anything else...   

Let's get some perspective on the situation.

Amber Rudd is the Home Secretary and if she can't manage not to use racially sensitive language (no matter how well intentioned) then it is a gaffe and given the subject of the thread is the competency of the govt I'm not sure what it is your disputing. Sounds like you might want to indulge in a bit of whataboutery, Abbott bashing or vent about PC gone mad so I'll step aside and let you crack on.

What is the current correct way to describe someone when their colour is key to the description.? (I'm not trying to be reactionary here, I genuinely want to know) 

I believe "person of colour" is the correct term, or at least it was when Benedict Cumberbatch said "coloured" in a TV interview.

Work and pensions now, was Home Secretary, your point still stands. 

Am I alone in finding the constant moving of the politically correct goalposts here really pretty confusing. I have to say that Amber Rudd has my sympathy in this; the comments were clearly entirely well intentioned - an acknowledgement/apology that she did not use the currently acceptable word and move on should be all that is required.

Not just you I’m sure. If you keep changing the speed limits, don’t put any signs up and then park a speed camera there, you’re going to catch some speeding motorists...

How “coloured” is in essence different from “person of colour” is beyond me. As is who gets to decide what triggers the outrage. 

I used to have a soft spot for Clarke until I read his autobiography.

Apparently he has never been wrong in his life - just occasionally misunderstood.

Not entirely suprising for a lawyer. 

Cumberbatch was on a U.S. talk show when he said that, and the term 'person of color' is considered by many in the U.S.A. to be the preferred term, however it has its critics and isn't (yet) the norm on this side of the pond.

I suspect the reaction against 'colored' comes from its use in the U.S.A. before segregation came to an end, it was used officially to define a sub-class of citizen so had derogatory associations.  As with many things the U.K. has been influenced by U.S. media and imported entertainment although the term "coloured" didn't have the same history in this country.

Sadly that is not how party politics works ;(

Yes.  I can quite imagine Amber Rudd's thought processes; nearly saying 'person of colour' and then thinking, 'hang on, I know that's the preferred term in the US but Diane isn't American, maybe I should say 'black', but as a middle class white person that sounds quite offensive too... She has a bout half a second to process all this and what comes out is 'coloured'.

In the context, it couldn't have been more obvious that she didn't mean to offend anyone, any more than Cumberbatch did.  That Diane Abbott chose to see a momentary political advantage rather than the sisterly support intended tells me quite a lot about her. 

A well-known black climbing friend assures me that, if in doubt, you should go with 'black'.    

Yes, I've always quite liked Diane Abbott, but she has gone down in my estimation over her reaction to this.

No mention of Leadsom today - suggesting a consultation with Foreign Office ministers regarding a definition of Islamophobia because, well, Muslims are foreign?

youtube.com/watch?v=VcPfZj0nX4Q&

The difference Robert is that you aren’t the Work & Pensions Secretary and the Home Secretary until not that long ago, with a team of people around you to help with such things. Not knowing the correct term, does suggest someone out of touch.

However, we are all human, even Amber Rudd and it can’t be easy being one of the few sane members of the Cabinet at the moment.

There's a vast difference between a poor choice of words in a live interview and Karen Bradleys' woeful performance.  Either it shows a level of ignorance that should embarrass any MP, let alone a Northern Ireland Secretary, or she was flying a right-wing kite to see how much of a rumble of approval arose from the back benches.  I'm not sure which is worse.  

I don't think we are disagreeing.

The reason I object to calling people "coloured" is that it presupposes that there is a default normal skin tone, and that anyone who isn't the default has had something done to their skin, that they've been "coloured" in. And therefore there is an otherness about them. 

"Person of colour" expresses exactly the same sentiment. It just uses more syllables to do it.

It's like someone getting upset when they get called retarded, but they're totally fine with being called "person of retard".

It drives me nuts that people react to words without ever stopping to think about the meaning of them. 

Which word is ok with you? And how do you know the people you're referring to agree with you?

I now take photos of people and refer to them by their average RGB numbers.

My daughter is half white British and half black Kenyan.  She gets a 'little tetchy' about being called black, doesn't want to be called coloured (etc) or mixed heritage.  She is fine with mixed race.  Or brown.   Twenty years ago I worked with a kid of similar background who insisted on being called half caste.  Maybe it's a little more sensible to accept times and terminology change as does the ability to be offended.

I don’t think anyone reasonable would object to that if there was some official standard of the correct terminology. The problem is that every individual gets to pick their own list of acceptable terms and then act like you’re basically Hitler if you don’t guess correctly. 

I have some sympathy with someone getting it wrong. 

Or the context in which they’re said. 

"Black" or "brown" are better, in that they are at least and attempt at being descriptive rather than circumlocution. If i was in Rudd's postion i would have said "BME".

People may not agree with you, but as long as you can demonstrate that you've thought about your choice of words, no reasonable person will hold it against you. 

I like him too. I just can't fathom why on earth a decent, intelligent person would be a part of the Tory party.

Cameron and May have both paid lip service to one-nationism. Everything they've done while in power has been completely in spite of that political philosophy.

Interesting.  When I was a teenager in the 70s, 'half caste' was definitely a term of abuse.

You don't think some people might object to being called ethnics? Or just unreasonable people? 

I like that phrase. So it's ok to use it to refer to my thickest pupils?

Despite slowly turning in to a grumpy old man I don't shout at the radio very often but I heard the interview at lunch time then I heard the reaction from Abbot on my way home and shouted "you pathetic point scoring bastard" at the radio. 

I'm just waiting for some professional finder of things to be outraged over decides to add to this argument. "how dare you not only call Dian Abbot a coloured woman, as a member of the LGBT comunits I am outraged that you assume Dian identifies as a woman just because (he/she/it/they not sure the correct term here) has a femenin name and dresses female. 

Is 'Afro-Caribbean (origin)' acceptable?

That's disappointing but, as you say, not shocking; a genuine capacity for self-reflection is probably more of a liability than an advantage in law, let alone modern politics.

It's not hard to avoid especially out-dated terms; Amber Rudd's specific choice of language hasn't been acceptable for 40 years or more. 

You're right though, terminology changes over time and there are disagreements over the appropriateness of the various current options (see link below). As a white person, choosing the right words can sometimes feel like a bit of a mine-field.

On the flip-side, if the extent to which one is affected by race and racism is having to invest a little effort in being sensitive with language, one should probably be grateful for being so privileged... 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/22/black-asian-minority-...

And how do you actually do that without dedicating yourself to the perpetual who-can-be-most-offended competition on Twitter?

There’s a long list of words that are clearly offensive, but picking the ‘correct’ word to describe a persons race/skin tone/etc is not just something that requires a little effort, it basically requires that you be in a group where that sort of knowledge is front of mind.

As I said, I have some sympathy with someone making an error and I think Abbott was being a bit of an arse by trying to make political capital out of it when the overall pint was supportive of her. 

Again, this is merely descriptive so in my view its fine as long as it's accurate. 

Agree with this.

Karen Bradley has shown herself to be totally unsuited to the job of Northern Ireland secretary. She's probably lost any trust from half the people of NI and should really be resigning.

Compared to this, we really shouldn't even be discussing the Amber Rudd interview. In a supportive speech she mangled her words. So what. The political point-scoring around this has been totally unedifying. 

Perhaps Rudd got confused over which was acceptable between "coloured" and "person of colour". Given that they've got exactly the same goddamn meaning, I sympathise.

Agreed about Abbott. The point scoring was ungracious. 

There was some discussion on R4 about how unpopular the NI portfolio is and how it therefore tends to to be given to ambitious second-raters (which I thought was a bit harsh on James Brockenshire).  However, being a bit dull is one thing, but to say something so inflammatory at the very time that an important decision on prosecuting the soldiers involved is about to be made, without apparently even realising why this might be an issue, is staggering.

Unless, of course, her thoughts were with the DUP at this difficult time.  If so, any remaining grown-ups in the cabinet will not be best pleased but that isn't really a problem, I suppose.  Nobody remotely loyal to May is likely to be sacked for anything so trivial.  

Just checking. Is this the same Diane Abbott? Just to make sure there are no racial stereotypes here. Oh no...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/8994068/Diane-Abbott-White...

If I understand things correctly I do have sympathy for the British troops. It seems that terrorists on both sides were given an amnesty by the good friday agreement but the armed forces weren’t. I may be wrong on this though. 

But as you say, the language used by Bradley and her level of ignorance on more than one occasion has been appalling. 

Yes, they make Corbyn's front bench of very average people look quite appealing by comparison. With one or two exceptions - Keir Starmer stands head and shoulders above anyone on either side; John McDonnell and Barrie Gardner are also pretty bright for my money.

'Person of colour' is an appallingly clumsy appellation. Three words where one would do. Who approved it?

I thought 'black' was still acceptable, no? 

I think "colored" is still acceptable in some contexts, otherwise the NAACP would have changed its name by now.

It does seem that way. If there's evidence to charge someone, (be they soldier, policeman, republican paramilitary or loyalist paramilitary), with a crime then it should be pursued, regardless of who they are. It does appear to be a very one sided process, especially with the 'letters of comfort' issued to known terrorists.

Agreed

"If i was in Rudd's postion i would have said "BME"."

I agree, bunching people into an acronym shows a level of  deep understanding and sensitivity. Just don't make a mistake and say BSE when referring to Diane Abbott

Jack Straw got picked up for using it by a woman in the audience on 'Question Time' IIRC.

But unpicking the Good Friday Agreement even more at this very sensitive time seems crazy to me.  The timing could hardly be worse.  

Ken Clarke!

Ken is very frail these days. Saw him at the cenotaph in November and he looked about 110.

Esther McVey ... Gob smacking stupidity   Please make it stop 

Unfortunately it seems there's a substantial dollop of malice in with that stupidity, as evidenced in her refusal to apologise for blatantly lying to all and sundry about fabricated EU scare stories she was promoting as fact, designed very specifically to promote anti-EU sentiment and utterly without foundation.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/esther-mcvey-slammed-for-sharing-deb...

Apparently she's since deleted her tweet but even an acknowledgement that the story wasn't true seems too much, let alone an apology for pushing it.

By insider accounts, Gove was appreciated when he was Justice Minister.

Can't say the same about his period i/c Education though - awful

Esther McVey is a complete turd. 

You think she should have just kept he gob shut then?

Yo might think differently if you were the one being labelled though, and with all the connotations and racism that can come with.

It fine being white and not retarded, on here telling people how they should feel, but a lifetime of shit and abuse might just change your outlook a little.

My point (which you deleted when you quoted me) was that "coloured" and "person of colour" express the same sentiment. That's just a fact, and facts don't change depending on your perspective. 

I think Diane Abbott should keep her gob shut a lot more than she does. It would stop a lot of the inane drivel she cones out with. And, I can assure you, that's got f*ck all to do with her race...

They do to you, but they certainly wouldn't be the same in 1970s South Africa for instance.

They are very different if you're not white also, my son's mixed race, and while he'd usually understand the difference, and people making the mistake, he said it would depend who was saying it and in what context and how it was said.

The two phrases most certainly are not the same, if you think they are them you're deluding yourself.

You only need to look at some of the arguments regarding anti-Semitism to see how "same sentiment" phrases can mean very different things to different people, at different times.

Well done you then, and should we not be calling out anti-Semitism so much too.

How do you propose we learn if everyone keeps the gob shut?

We'd still be going around calling black people niggers, if that was the case.

She could have responded in a constructive fashion as opposed to an accusatory one.
It's what most people would have done when someone defending you makes a mistake but where the overall meaning is positive.
 

Ok let's try this:

(1) Colour[ed]
(2) [Person of] colour

Whether you address someone using (1) or (2), you are describing them using the concept of colour. Using the ending "ed" or prefacing with "person of" does not alter the substance of what you are saying. Only the presentation is different. 

Whether you object to a person being described using the concept of colour is up to you, but what you're telling me is that you object to the presentation but not the substance. That's just illogical. 

Again this is not a matter of opinion, it's a function of language.
 

Again, easy to assert when it doesn't affect you.

Pakistani lads in our town call each other Paki, so is it OK for me to call them Paki's too, after all it's not an opinion, just a function of language.

This does seem unnecessarily reductionist.  First, it doesn't matter what you think it means, what matters is what the person to whom it is addressed takes it to mean.  That doesn't mean we can't be generous to someone who misspeaks, depending on the context and circumstances.

Second, on the linguistic point, even the word 'colour' has different meanings.  Indeed, one of them is the concept of meaning depending on context.  Experience colours our beliefs.

That sounds like linguistics for the post-truth era. Language works because there is a degree of objectivity. I type "cat", you get a picture in your head of a cat. This happens for every word and it relies on the fact that we've collectively agreed what the words should signify. And there are multiple ways of expressing the same idea, such as with this example.

My point is that "person of" is not a substantive change, it's a presentational one. You appear to disagree, but you haven't told me what the substantive change is. In your view what does "coloured" mean when applied to a person? And how does "person of colour" differ from that meaning? 

I'm presuming the 'coloured' in 'coloured person' is being taken as definitional, in the same way as 'disabled' is in 'disabled person'. Whereas the 'of colour' in 'person of colour' is being taken as descriptive, in the same way as 'with disability' is in 'person with disability.

Seems to make sense by analogy, although linguistically it seems a lot easier to semantically separate the two versions in the disability example than it is those in the colour example.

I think it's more accurate to say that "coloured" and "person of colour" express the same literal meaning. They clearly don't express the same sentiment, especially in the view of US black listeners. Or should I say US black listeners in this decade. 

I'm with Rudd on this one. Honest mistake made in speech that was supportive of Abbott. Very quick and full apology given. 

This thread has greater importance now that we hear rumours that May might offer her resignation as the price of getting her deal agreed next week by the DUP/ERG. The "spectrum of outcomes" that the political declaration requires to be negotiated over the next 18 months if the deal goes through is quite an alarming prospect if, say, Johnson is in charge of the negotiations. Rudd as PM would be infinitely preferable IMO.

Martin

Agreed on your disability example. But I think you realised as you wrote it that's it's not analogous. "Person WITH disability" contrasts with "person OF colour", the latter being clearly definitional.

I like your picture idea and it works great, for me, as an example of the difference, the word "coloured" brings a picture of signs of the type, "No coloureds", or "Coloureds Only" the phrase "of colour" gives me the picture of a person with darker skin.

Obviously, this won't be the same for everyone, and maybe it's an age thing, I'm old enough to have taken a stance against apartheid in SA so it might be I'm more informed than many younger people.

Regardless of the linguistics though, as has been stated above, if you know it's an issue for a large number of people, why not be respectful, for their sake, it doesn't really cost you anything.

I think Rudd made an honest mistake and I think Abbott could have handled it better too. What's harder to decide is looking in from the outside how "people of colour" should feel about it.

Yes, fair one.

I realised nothing of the sort. Saying that "it seems a lot easier to semantically separate the two versions in the disability example than it is those in the colour example" is very different from saying that "it's not analogous".

The very fact that the colour comes first and the person later is enough to make a difference in perception, even if logically very similar. A Person who happens to be a non-white colour is a very different thing to a Coloured-thing that happens to be a Person. And yes, I'm aware that I'm exaggerating for effect, but seeing as you dismissed my more nuanced version above as being not even my opinion, I think emphasis for clarity is entirely justified this time.

My mistake. I didn't mean to misrepresent your stance. Sorry about that. 

Thank you. A rare and valued admission on here