I'm No Racist by- Tory MP

[DeanoGV]

A Tory MP has denied being racist after he told a constituent there were more black criminals than white ones.

 

Bob Spink said the problem was being ignored because of political correctness, despite hard evidence.

 

He said that while he deplored racism the sources of crime had to be identified.

 

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1242089,00.html

 

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION?

[JoeP]

Well, a little number crunching should soon provide the answer.

 

Of equal interest to me is where Denis McShane feels he can publish private correspondence and get away with it.

 

Remind me never to send an email to an MP!

[LordChaverly]

This incident proves once again that it is no easier to have a sensible discussion about race than it was decades ago. Its interesting that this story has appeared at the time when various leftist groups are planning to boycott and picket a CRE conference because the head of the CRE, Trevor Phillips, has been openly asking awkward questions about various race issues. Ken Livingstone is leading the attack dog pack against Phillips, and making similar charges to the ones made by MacShane against Spink.

[Green Web]

Well, a little number crunching should soon provide the answer.

 

Of equal interest to me is where Denis McShane feels he can publish private correspondence and get away with it.

 

Remind me never to send an email to an MP!

 

I dont think the email was supposed to be private, he is obviously after support for his party.

[JoeP]

I dont think the email was supposed to be private, he is obviously after support for his party.

 

Obviously McShane is stirring - but what I don't undesrtand is how he got the email excahnge?

 

Someone must have forwarded the whole thing on to McShane. The fact that the exchange then shows up in the public eye at this time makes me agree with LC.

[LordChaverly]

This is the story I mentioned earlier about Livingstone's boycott of today's CRE conference. Perhaps Phillips thought he could ask candid questions about race without any trouble because he is head of the CRE and black. If so, he was wrong.

 

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=13290&grp=47&cat=399

[fr8neck]

Are there more 'black' victims of crime than 'white' ones, or don't we gather that type of data?

 

Why are these things always 'discussed' in regard to 'ethnicity' rather than, say, 'colonialism in England- the problems it throws up for both colonialists and native English.'?

 

Or isn't that 'allowed'?

 

There's no way of testing this but my suspicion is that if all post war immigration had been blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Germanic types: the outcomes would be similar if the circumstances of class origin/education/treatment since arrival, had been the same.

[James7x7]

Were his actual words, "I'm no racist, I've got lots of friends who are black"?

 

This incident proves once again that it is no easier to have a sensible discussion about race than it was decades ago. Its interesting that this story has appeared at the time when various leftist groups are planning to boycott and picket a CRE conference because the head of the CRE, Trevor Phillips, has been openly asking awkward questions about various race issues. Ken Livingstone is leading the attack dog pack against Phillips, and making similar charges to the ones made by MacShane against Spink.

 

It's more complicated than that. Trevor Phillips is a relentless self publicist with an agenda. In the past he's made sweeping statements that contradict the available evidence. An intelligent discussion about race is not his number one priority.

 

There is a serious debate about race going on, but it's not one that can take place in the mainstream media because all the reactionary idiots (on both the left and right) jump on the bandwagon and try to force their own agenda. We know that some ethnic groups are overly represented in the prison population. Spink pointing this out doesn't add anything to debate, and the way it has been handled in the press is hardly edifying.

[cgksheff]

The qualifier "pro-rata" appears to be given little prominence in these articles and debate.

 

If the MP said "there are more black prisoners than white", he was very wrong.

Somewhere between 80% and 85% of the prison population IS white.

 

The percentage, however, of non-white prisoners does exceed the average percentage of non-white adults in the overall population.

[F. Sidebottom]

The qualifier "pro-rata" appears to be given little prominence in these articles and debate.

 

If the MP said "there are more black prisoners than white", he was very wrong.

Somewhere between 80% and 85% of the prison population IS white.

 

The percentage, however, of non-white prisoners does exceed the average percentage of non-white adults in the overall population.

 

Well lets add social status in.

 

The percentage of non-white to white prinsoners, versus the percentage of non-white to white in the population versus the percentage of non-white to white living at a lower level of social spectrum (i.e. above/around the breadline).

 

I'm sure if there was an equal number of non-whites living in leafy suburbs instead of inner city slums then the proportion of non-white to white prisoners would probably be equal to the proportion of non-white to white population.