The Poolie Bunker

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12141863

Watch the PC Brigade have a field day with this.. Well said Jack!

The EDL are a bunch of moronic racist thugs.

Jack Straw is pretty spot on.

The 2 shouldn't be mixed up but you can guarantee the thugs are creaming in their pants about it.

EDL racist?...nottingham leader was arrested in peterborough recently because of his speech...his name Guramit Singh !

have you got a tin hat Mr Posh

hi chess....what a day yesterday...brill dayout

I find it astonishing that you mustn't be racist if your surname is Singh. A good Indian, probably Sikh, surname. Those Sikh fellas have nothing but love for Muslims..........

will have to tell our lass.....she will have to chuck me !

I know this has been done to death but can anyone explain to me how you can be racist when you moot views against a religion? Anti religion(insert "appropiate" religion or belief) yes racist no.If that was the case every atheist in the country must be a racist.

Alien is sort of right.

The Sikh state, i.e. the Punjab, came into being after the partition of India after WW2.

Read up on it fellas.

Not a lot of love lost between the Sikhs & the Muslims because of long historical & religous divisions in the Indian sub-continent.

Singh is the religous surname for all male Sikhs . It means Lion.
Kaur is the religous surname for all female Sikhs. It means Princess.

Guraint Singh is anti-Muslim but for religous reasons.
He's an EXTREMIST Sikh hence his connection with the EDL.

At the recent EDL march in Leicester EDL thugs were said to have attached shops owned by Sikhs

Seems some EDL members don't seem to know their lime pickle from their mango chutney.

As for Jack Straw seems like he's trying to curry favour with some of his constituents before he finally has to hang up his boots.

WTF is he on about.

Most sex offenders are white blokes . Yes, some Asians & Black guys too. Sex offending isn't about race & culture . It's about exploitation, power & opportunity.

Fucking pathetic. Why can some people never accept that not every Asian is perfect, arrest an Asian rapist and you're a racist.

Jack Straw is spot on but it seems that even discussing it brings the tedious claims of racism.

If a religion becomes an ethnic identity then people can be racist against it. A good example is being Jewish. Most people accept that the Nazis were racist against Jews, they didn't accept that a Jew who said they didn't believe in God stopped being a Jew, they killed them anyway. Most of the Jews I know aren't religious but they still regard themselves as being culturally Jewish.

If you argue against particular teachings of, or versions of, Islam you aren't necessarily being racist at all. If you generalise about 'the Muslims' or lump everyone from an asian background together as Muslims then you probably are being racist.

Judging from the young Muslim men I've known over the years I'd say there was a sizable minority who took the view that non-Muslim girls were alright for a bit of fun but that Muslim girls were for marrying. Maybe some criminals use this attitude to justify their crimes but that is very different from there being a cultural link to sexual abuse that makes Muslims more likely to offend.

To put it another way, plenty of posters on here call women slags, slappers, tarts etc. You can argue about whether those are sexist terms or not but one thing is for sure- they do come up in excuses for rape and sexual abuse. That doesn't make all the people who use them rapists or abusers though.

In the link below there's a good article from the last British Society of Criminology Conference on the EDL:

http://britsoccrim.org/v10.htm

Those defending the EDL may want to read something sensible before they openly associate with the organisation.

An interesting read from someone who is clearly an eminent authority. I have no dispute that the EDL is indeed unhelpful to the debate and dangerous but no more dangerous that the more extreme Muslim gangs. I reject labels like Nazi which is clearly and by design emotive. By definition a Nazi is someone who was a member of the German National Socialists in the 1930's. As for Fascist, not sure on that one either if you judge them by the real meaning of the term.

What is true in my view is that there is a real danger that the EDL and its kin remove the seriousness from the reality of the issue. We have a national problem with the EDL et al but we have a more serious problem with Muslim fundamentalism.

PS: I am neither a member nor a supporter of the EDL.

Quoted for truth. One of the most lucid explanations I've seen.

Hopefully none!

I wish I was good enough to write my daughter's essays.

I get the impression from the bairn's work that this sort of 'essay' is just a training exercise in using facts to back up an opinion. It can really stress 1st years out, because it's not the sort of approach A levels have prepared them for. In this case, the facts might be complicated but what it might boil down to is just 'do you think it's ever justified for the state to over-ride individual rights?' Or something like that?

You've just done what we hate; you've substituted the question asked for one you'd rather answer! If that was the question we wanted you to answer, we'd have asked it! As a lawyer, I'd want a technical analysis of the decision with some commentary on the wider issues.

Then have a joint

Well, not quite 'substituted', Mr Man, as I don't know exactly what the original question was!
I was taking my cue from the fact that chip said it was a case about whether it was right for the government to deviate from article 15 of the Human Rights Act.
In other words, is it not a moral question at heart?

Er, no. It's a legal question. The mistake many first year law students make is to substitute moral (or policy) analysis for legal analysis. It's not the same.

Theyre pussycats really

Yeah, she could have interviewed all those "outraged" Pools fans who said they'd never go again if we sent little old Billingham out of business for asking for our money.

My daughter, who is a third year law student, handed in a 2000 word essay on Human Rights this week and has a 3000 word essay on Counter Terrorism due in next week.
Never a dull moment eh?

Well, I wouldn't want to argue that legal analyses and moral analyses are the same.
However, 'is it right for the government to deviate from article 15 of the Human Rights Act' is a classic Ethics question. Naturally, if the lecturer wished it to be considered, instead, from a legal perspective, the student woild have been appraised of this requirement.

Why not let her do it herself and let the essay flag up her weaknesses (and other strengths) to the lecturers. If she gets it done by you how are they supposed to judge her progress?

I have this old fashioned idea that they go to school to learn it for themselves.

Theres helping and theres helping. I was in trouble when I won the egg and spoon race for my little lad last summer. I tried to argue I was being a supportive parent and only 'helping' but it didn't wash.

That's why I think that coursework is bollox and assessment should be exam only.

Working on an egg and spoon racecourse.........whatever next !!!!!!!!!!!!