100% ENGLISH, TV Tuesday 14th

[richard 10]

I'm not sure what makes a person english. It's lots of things.

 

Here's some questions whose answers can determine englishness, please add suggestions:-

 

When struggling for conversation do you talk about the weather?

Was it better "back in the day"?

Do you know the rules of cricket?

Which team do you support? (pick any sport here...)

[LordChaverly 10]

Tebbit's background is not 100% English but he can quite legitimately claim to be of predominantly English ancestry. No amount of multiculturalist posturing can change that. Great numbers of intelligent and educated people are perfectly aware that their genotypes contain DNA from a variety of population groups. In Tebbit's case, the 'Southern European' input is most likely from the pre-Celtic Iberian population group who have contributed greatly towards English, Scots, Welsh and Irish makeup. That the bulk of Tebbit's ancestry comes from the Northern European tribal groups [Celts, Angles, Danes etc] is not in question. It was stretching the truth to suggest that the [the name escapes me] female campaigner for 'the ethnic English' was '100% English or Romany?' merely because a proportion of her genetic makeup is probably of Romany Gypsy origin. As the woman herself said, the fact remains that the bulk of her genetic ancestry comes from the Northern European tribal groups who became known as the English.

 

One reflects that there appear to be emotional and political forces hard at work and bent upon the 'deconstruction' of English identity. Many of them are working in the media, and programmes of this nature which seem to suggest that there is no basis for any notion of English identity beyond social construction are great multiculturalist propaganda. Will there be a television programme which attempts to debunk notions of 'Scottish', 'Pakistani' or 'Jewish' identity? I doubt very much that there will be.

 

Excellent points Timo. The subtext of such programmes is that the English (or British) are all immigrants anyway, so that they have no rational basis for criticising more recent waves of immigration. Its a completely bogus argument, which perhaps reached its nadir in Eddie Izzard's poorly researched and tendentious 'Mongrel Nation' TV series. It is not a new phenomenon however. Many years ago a critic of Enoch Powell convinced himself that Enoch had a touch of the tarbrush because of his relatively dark complexion. No doubt his aim was to find some killer fact about Enoch's ancestry which would nullify anything he ever said about immigration. The critic (whose name escapes me) therefore sought to trace Enoch's genealogy, expecting to find that he had an Indian ancestor of some kind. He found nothing. Instead, Enoch's forbears seem mainly to have originated in Wales (but there again, aren't the Welsh descended form one of the lost tribes of Israel, or, as Kingsley Amis famously said, descended from a tribe of swarthy dwarfs, slathered in woad and sheep ****? Either way, they could claim ethnic minority status).

[Heyesey 11]

Excellent points Timo. The subtext of such programmes is that the English (or British) are all immigrants anyway, so that they have no rational basis for criticising more recent waves of immigration. Its a completely bogus argument

 

...so a battery of proven facts don't constitute a legitimate argument any more? No wonder you guys can't ever admit you're wrong.

[timo 10]

...so a battery of proven facts don't constitute a legitimate argument any more? No wonder you guys can't ever admit you're wrong.

 

Everything that Lord Chaverly and I say is of the very greatest importance and enshrined in absolute, intrinsic truth. We are beautiful on all planes. In short, forum Gods.

[royjames 10]

I thought the prog very interesting,not sure if they are trying propogate the theory that there is no such thing as being english,the sample was hardly large enough to say one way or the other.

I would offer to have the test without the slightest hesitation,I am all for the truth will out.

[LordChaverly 10]

...so a battery of proven facts don't constitute a legitimate argument any more? No wonder you guys can't ever admit you're wrong.

 

You miss our point entirely, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has read any of your previous posts. It is the use to which 'facts' of this kind are likely to be put which is the subject of our posts on this thread. Contrary to the claims of the multiculturalist propaganda machine, it makes not a whit of difference what our genetic make up is. The fact is that on these islands we had a largely settled population for around a thousand years before the mass immigrations of the post-war years. The migrations during the period I mention were relatively small in scale and the migrants were soon assimilated into the general population (thank goodness, the divisive doctrines of multiculturalism were not around to impede this process of rapid assimilation).

[donkey 10]

Everything that Lord Chaverly and I say is of the very greatest importance and enshrined in absolute, intrinsic truth. We are beautiful on all planes. In short, forum Gods.

 

You need another identity to make up the Holy Trinity.

[timo 10]

I thought the prog very interesting,not sure if they are trying propogate the theory that there is no such thing as being english,the sample was hardly large enough to say one way or the other.

I would offer to have the test without the slightest hesitation,I am all for the truth will out.

 

The presenter implied that Carol Thatcher's so-called 'Middle Eastern' ancestry revealed a significant degree of Arab or Semitic admixture. It more likely reveals some ancestry from the Neolithic peoples whose genetic traces can be found throughout all European population groups.

 

In the case of the oafish, achingly-unfunny and charmless Gary Bushell, I was not in the least surprised to discover that he had a significant Sub-Saharan African ancestry. As a matter of fact, I have often thought that his phenotype [physical appearance] suggested some African admixture. He will have inherited the Duffy gene from a fairly recent black ancestor I would imagine, and possibly one who was brought to Britain from West Africa as a slave.

 

I have often wondered if Andrew Lloyd-Webber has some ancestral connection with a primitive, fossil people who originally lived in a remote enclave and are now entirely lost to history. Try as I might, I cannot imagine which known human population groups [whisper it, 'human races'...] could have possibly contributed to a visage of such spectacular grotesqueness. His face looks as if it is inside out. Poor, untalented old fool.

[donkey 10]

You miss our point entirely, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has read any of your previous posts. It is the use to which 'facts' of this kind are likely to be put which is the subject of our posts on this thread. Contrary to the claims of the multiculturalist propaganda machine, it makes not a whit of difference what our genetic make up is. The fact is that on these islands we had a largely settled population for around a thousand years before the mass immigrations of the post-war years. The migrations during the period I mention were relatively small in scale and the migrants were soon assimilated into the general population (thank goodness, the divisive doctrines of multiculturalism were not around to impede this process of rapid assimilation).

 

Have you considered the possiblity that the programme makers were more interested in showing up the narrow-minded ignorance of those who regard themselves as being genetically superior, than trying to wear away the resistence to mass immigration.

[LordChaverly 10]

Have you considered the possiblity that the programme makers were more interested in showing up the narrow-minded ignorance of those who regard themselves as being genetically superior, than trying to wear away the resistence to mass immigration.

 

But the two are often conflated, either implicitly or explicitly, by the multiculturalist/pro mass immigration lobbies - i.e. they tend to assume that opposition to mass immigration stems from 'narrow-minded ignorance' or from feelings of genetic superiority, which in my view is patent nonsense.

[donkey 10]

But the two are often conflated, either implicitly or explicitly, by the multiculturalist/pro mass immigration lobbies - i.e. they tend to assume that opposition to mass immigration stems from 'narrow-minded ignorance' or from feelings of genetic superiority, which in my view is patent nonsense.

 

Maybe in your case - and that of many others - it is patent nonsense, but it can't be denied that a fair proportion of the anti immigration camp is made up of troglodytes and red-necks.

 

Ironically, these types are the ones who believe themselves to be genetically superior, whilst displaying a lack of imagination and degree of inarticulateness that would shame a baboon.

 

The arguments for a radical review of immigration policy are done more damage by this lot than any left-wing conspiracy in the media, or pc brigade.

[Heyesey 11]

The fact is that on these islands we had a largely settled population for around a thousand years before the mass immigrations of the post-war years.

 

Not true. Of course, pointing this out won't make a blind bit of difference because your opinion is not susceptible to things being true or otherwise, as you've amply proven.