To be deeply disappointed in John Cleese

[drspouse]

I have no idea if this is typical but he just tweeted that London isn't an English city any more
What is it then pray tell? What's not English about it??

And I'm not complaining, I would rather live here than the predominately white area I grew up in.

London had an Indian MP in 1895, so not quite sure what periods are being compared.

What irked me about Cleeses tweet was the fact he cited his ex-pat chums views as proof ...

Yet "Turkish" or "Polish" shops in the UK are going to be distinct from such shops in other European capitals.
Turkish or Polish families living in England take things from English culture, their home culture, and other cultures.
Their children will be eating "English" foods and "Polish" foods, watching CBeebies, attending English medium schools and learning to read using Biff and Kipper in English as well as going to Polish school (where they will talk in English to each other as they play), buying school clothes and play clothes from Asda with English slogans on, etc. etc.

They will be living different lives to Polish families in France, Poland or the US.

and many of them don't want English people working there....

Well that's not very diverse is it

Not being born in England (you move here, you take British citizenship, you are now English)?

No. You are British because you have British citizenship. I couldn't move to Wales and suddenly claim to be Welsh because I have British citizenship because I wasn't born in Wales and don't have Welsh parents.

Yet "Turkish" or "Polish" shops in the UK are going to be distinct from such shops in other European capitals.

Obviously. My point is that many of them do not advertise job vacancies in English, only in their native language, which seems like they only want people who share their heritage working there.

English culture, their home culture, and other cultures.
Their children will be eating "English" foods and "Polish" foods, watching CBeebies, attending English medium schools and learning to read using Biff and Kipper in English as well as going to Polish school (where they will talk in English to each other as they play), buying school clothes and play clothes from Asda with English slogans on, etc. etc.

I never said or implies that they didn't!

I agree with what crazy says about the liberal left - however, a white British person's view on how well other cultures have blended in with her village might not be the same as those people's own view - I'd like to hear what they had to say.

And racism is about power and in this country white people have the power - specifically white men. So I don't agree with this idea that a BAME person saying something negative about a white person is equal in any way to a white Brit/European being racist about a BAME person.

But the liberal left certainly have a lot to answer for - I can't disagree with that at all.

I agree that it doesn't feel terribly English. You'd be hard pressed to find an English person where I live. In my block of flats, there is one English family. I'm not English. There's a sense that you know what you're getting when you encounter an English person - other cultures/races/religions/colours/creed etc., well it's hard to pigeon-hole them. I like to know/assume what I'm getting. Sometimes you just never know what you're going to get. That can be disconcerting.

I also agree that there is very little integration now. There seems to be an extraordinarily high number of recent immigrants who are now raising their first generation English children here. There is a lot of mistrust from all sides. That's as a relatively neutral observer (Irish immigrant).

If you go to places outside London, I've found people are friendlier and more homogeneously English. I find English people are generally friendly - some other nationalities just aren't 'naturally' friendly.

the liberal-left will say that the ethnic minorities want to live in an area with a lot of people of their culture, because if they moved to a predominantly white area, all the horrid, nasty, racist white people will bully them and drive them out. Because that is what all white people do apparently.

Things are better now than they used to be, but certainly in the 50s and 60s, when a lot of South Asian and Caribbean families first arrived, things were very difficult.

My Indian ex’s family settled in Coventry in the 60s, and he recalls being spat at in the street and being scared of taking certain routes to school for fear of what would happen. These experiences have marked him and his siblings, and is it therefore any surprise that people settle where they have each other’s support.

Every time Enoch Powell made a speech, things would be even harder for a while. We don’t have Enoch Powell now but we do have Farage and his dog whistling posters, and Boris with his utter ignorance. Intolerance has been on the rise since the referendum, and I don’t blame people for keeping their wits about them and for sticking together.

There can't be a rational, civilised discussion about this issue when anyone who questions it gets shouted down as racist.
Why does there need to be a discussion about it at all? What is the question?

He is absolutely correct, London is full of foreign people, you don’t see many actual Londoners any more.

He said it wasn’t an English city. He is not correct. It is the capital city of England.

The Commonwealth island of Nevis?

Official language English?

That Nevis?

And London isn't an English City... it is, and has always been, more than that. As otheres have said, what the fuck is society coming to when you can't discuss anything to do with different nationalities withut cries of "racist"?

Differences are real. They are what makes the world an interesting place. Yet to ask about those differences, in some cases to even notice them is, racist!

It isn't only racism that has bbecome this way. Almost anything that sets one person, one place, one culture, one food etc etc etc out as different from any other. It is tiresome, exhausting and will ensure the homogeneity of the bloody universe!

It needs to be stopped. We need to be as NON PC as we can, reclaim diversity and curmudgeonliness!

@IsabelleLinton

John Cleese is referring to culture, not race.

When our mayor tells us that ‘diversity is our strength’ - why is it necessarily a strength? It’s not a strength if people have vastly differing cultural norms and have nothing in common, no shared way of life, no shared values or history, but just happen to live alongside each other, not always happily.

We never look at other cultures and bemoan the fact that they’re not diverse enough. When I studied in Japan, I only came across two English-speakers the whole year I was there. They’re keen to preserve their unique culture and yet we don’t accuse them of racism or xenophobia. I didn’t think that what they needed was a few more Greek restaurants! It shouldn’t be so hard to have a conversation about the issue of culture. What was so wrong with Britain or British culture that we thought we needed to change it?

London has changed enormously over my lifetime, and I’m not thirty yet. It hurts people when communities that they love disappear.

Agree with you too!

In fact, yours is one of the best posts on here.

It seems that it's only the UK - well ENGLAND mostly - that you are not allowed to be sad or pissed off at the English (or British) culture going down the pan, and lots of areas being totally different to how they used to be.

As you said about Japan, they have their own language, hardly anyone speaks English, and the vast majority of their population is from that country and that ethnic group/culture. Yet it's wrong when Brits want the same thing.

Many other countries (in addition to Japan,) AND other cultures are allowed to stay the same, and are allowed to not want to be 'watered down' with other cultures. Not the UK though!

And I agree with you when you say 'how can 'diversity' be a good thing, when it's just bundles of different ethnic groups, living side by side, but not integrating, not communicating with each other, and with no shared values or history.

Some of them who moved here from another country, continue to live in exactly the same fashion as they did in the country they came from, whilst demanding everyone kowtows to them and their culture. This alone creates divisions and resentment.

It's like the English flag. Every country in the world is proud of their flag, and allowed to fly it with pride, (including Wales and Scotland!) But God forbid you fly your ENGLISH flag You're a xenophobic, bigoted, racist little Englander!!!

Doesn't help that the bloody far-right have stolen it as one of their emblems!

There is a certain section of the liberal left who love to crow about the benefits of diversity. However they tend to live in naice streets with predominantly white neighbours & send their kids to outstanding primaries (after gentrification has taken place & house prices have pushed out immigrants who originally settled there) but buy their humous from the Turkish deli as opposed to Sainsbury’s because you know diversity!

whilst demanding everyone kowtows to them and their culture.

They don’t though. How do they do that?

@CassianAndor

I’d disagree with you there. The vast majority of the British population is white - it therefore makes sense that there are more white people in positions of power. I was the only non-white in my school, believe it or not, but it never occurred to me that I was any different to anyone else. Racism is racism is racism. I don’t like hearing it from anyone, regardless of skin colour. And it’s not an issue I’ve encountered in this country. I’ve lived abroad and been subjected to all kinds of racist abuse - never in Britain. We’re a remarkably tolerant, kind place. I don’t think we realise how unusual it is, in fact!

He is totally right. My best friend was born in Covent Garden and lived around the West End her entire life. There were actual communities around there. That is gone now. A lot of the housing stock has been bought up by foreign investors and there is massive ethnic cleansing going on, with a lot of the places now seldom used crash pads for oligarchs.

Oh do educate yourself......A cockney is defined as someone who was born within the sound of Bow Bells. This refers to St Mary le Bow in Cheapside. Nothing to do with the east end.
From Wikipedia: 'A study was carried out by the City in 2000 to see how far away Bow Bells could be heard, and it was estimated that the bells would have been heard up to six miles to the east, five miles to the north, three miles to the south, and four miles to the west.'
The Whitechapel Hospital is only 2 miles (Brick Lane 1.6m, Stepney 2.6m) from St Mary-Le-Bow so of course it's something to do with the EastEnd.

Put it this way, if you go to Ireland, you pretty much know what you're going to experience. If you go to England (outside of London), you know what you're going to experience and what to expect.
London is quite a mix, and you can't really typify it in any meaningful way. So you can't really say it's 'very English'.

That's all he was saying.

John Cleese in Fawlty towers has always toyed with crossing the line between PC/non PC (before PC was even a term). 'Don't mention the war!' anyone? Basil, the long suffering, 'stupid Spaniard' etc. Some of his other stuff I've seen, such as a sketch he does on English sport, ridicules the English for their pomposity.

Comedians often venture where polite society daren't.

Here's the clip I refer to about English sports

Firstly please don't patronise me with 'don't panic'.
Secondly having taught early years for 13 years I have seen the detrimental effect not having English has on children's early learning. And I'm not only talking about white children; there are many Asian children who were born here and come in speaking English and there are many Asian children who come in with no English. Those with no English find it more difficult communicating their needs, understanding and following stories and instructions, picking up reading and writing, and so on. They are behind English speaking children. The bright ones will catch up quickly. The average or less bright ones will continue to be behind.
Most of the children I have taught have had English as an additional language and also a 'home' language. They should have both. If any of us lived in France, Germany, Poland, etc and our children were born there would we really be sending them to school with only English and no French, German or Polish?

I’m surprised this is news - I went to London for a job interview in 1997 and was surrounded on the tube and in shops by so many nationalities & hearing so many languages. I remember going back home and commenting on it & that was over 20 years ago.

would we really be sending them to school with only English and no French, German or Polish? - yes I think that does happen the other way around, and I know anecdotal stories like this. A family goes somewhere knowing little of the language, and the children pick it up first through school. A sort of forced full immersion which does work.

What this thread shows is that a lot of white English people really love being around other white English people