To think Helen Goodman hasn't done anything wrong?

[wasonthelist]

Hunt started it - he mentioned his wife and said we all had to start being more Chinese.

Hunt could have kept his stupid trap shut. He didn't have to mention his wife.

The 'go back to your own country' comment is a often used by racists.

It was a stupid thing to say, but she wasn't trying to be racist. I think her point was that Chinese work ethics are questionable and hardly something Britain should be aspiring to copy or something that can justifiably be used in a discussion about cutting tax credits. It just backfired.

But she didn't say 'go back your own country' catford

BBC says she tweeted - "If China is so great, why did @Jeremy_Hunt's wife come to England?"

FWIW I agree OP. And feel that Jeremy Hunt's comments about UK workers needing to emulate the Chinese are stupider than Helen Goodman's cheat.

And it doesn't make her racist ffs

tweet not 'cheat' fgs.

Your right, of course, SeaMagic but it does have that sort of flavour. I should have said it sounds rather like 'go back to your own country'.

I agree with Seamagic but I do think someone in HG's position should/would have known how her tweet would have been received.

It smacks of publicity seeking on both sides tbh

If China is indeed so great why doesn't the whole family go there? Nothing racist about that - it is a valid question, especially as Hunt opened the debate and involved his wife.

That is leaving aside the irony in being told by a Conservative that we need to emulate a Communist State.

Well, I don't like the tweet but not because I think it sounds remotely racist (it isn't).

Living in a country - whether or not you belong there by right of birth - doesn't mean you have to love everything about that country.

I am a republican. I wouldn't be impressed with someone telling me to leave the UK because we have a monarchy!

Yes, Leaving, I feel the same about being told what views I can hold and being told I'd be better off in Cuba etc- but it's all about context. Hunt told us all he has a Chinese wife and opined that we needed to be more like the Chinese - he should be challenged on that.

I really wish Hunt would eff off to China.

I don't think Goodman was being racist, she was making a reasonable-ish point, given Hunt's stupid remarks about how we should all be more like the Chinese. Of course she probably should have realised that you can't say anything these days without political opponents jumping up and down and squealing about how offensive it is, so from that point of view she should probably have kept quiet.

I see what you mean catford but it wasn't some random comment tweeted by HG in which case I could understand people wondering if she has some sort of issue with Chinese immigration to the UK.

No, HG was responding to the twunt FH's statement [as reported by BBC]-

"The government is right to press ahead with cuts to tax credits - despite claims millions will be worse off - because the UK must become as hard working as China, Jeremy Hunt has said.

The health secretary said the cuts - combined with a higher minimum wage - would send out the right "cultural signal" to low paid workers.

And he said he did not "buy" claims people would be left out of pocket."

So yes, why is JH's wife in the UK then? Could it possibly be that there are benefits to living and working in the UK that China cannot provide??
Benefits that JH and his wife would like to avail themselves of but low paid workers just need to learn to work harder for the benefit and glory of the great British state their own benefit and the satisfaction of an honest day's labour.

Jeremy Rhyming Slang does have a thing for telling us how his wife is Chinese and the Chinese way for everything is better - so why she is here rather than the pair of them going in to live in China, where apparently everything is soooo much better is a bit of a mystery.

Presumably because it isn't actually better there and he knows full well that in China he'd be a nonentity. Something we can only hope for.

Can there really be many of even their own supporters who think Hunt is right about China (or sensible to say it)?