To wonder why the media are not reporting on the homophobia and racist comments made by Boris

[YungMAMA]

"In the most recently discovered comments, written in the Spectator magazine in 1999, Johnson said: “Across the country, there are many Tories who wish their party leadership would speak up more strongly against, say, gays in the military, or the cowing of the police by the Macpherson report, or the arrest of General Pinochet, or the impending abolition of the oath and the cap badge of the RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary], or the abolition of the hereditary peers and foxhunting. They are, of course, right.”

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/09/new-controversial-comments-uncovered-in-historical-boris-johnson-articles?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet

This is not a defense of Corbyn thread. Just wondering why the media continously cover nonsense such as the Queens Speech thing. Yet ignore the extensive racist, sexist, elitist and homophobic comments made by Johnson.

I think it is a disgrace those like the BBC, SKY etc are not reporting or barely mentioning this.

Good question. The mass media in this country is noticeable ‘government supporting’. They’re all over Corbyn like a rash if he dares to have his glasses on wonky ... but Boris gets away with appalling statements and behaviour. Vote tactically on Thursday to stop that horrendous individual getting a majority.

You do have to wonder. The things he’s said show he’s unfit for any public office to be honest.

They do though, just not something from 20 years ago because well, it was twenty years ago. There has been quite a bit about various racist and classist and sexist remarks that are sufficiently recent. To be honest I’m more interested in the bad things he has said in the past five years (of which they are plenty). Obviously to an extent it is ironic and/or shit stirring but only to an extent. It’s certainly just as worth reading and considering as Jeremy Corbyn’s antisemitism queens speech nonsense which, while cringeworthy, really wasn’t important, I do wonder why you’d feel compelled to lie though. I don’t watch it, never have in my life, why would i?

*wueebs speech was nonsense. The antisemitism of course is a very serious issue which I would never minimise.

How did you get to hear about these comments if they weren't broadcast or reported?

Why is the Queens Speech nonsense ?

Because Its realitively minor thing. Compared to the lies Johnson has told throughout the campaign. And the figures simppy made up by Priti Patel yesterday.

How did you get to hear about these comments if they weren't broadcast or reported? That...

Why is the Queens Speech nonsense ? Because it suits one political perspective to say so!

More of the increasingly ludicrous, self aggrandising, politically bereft shite we are lumbered with. The Cult of Me has so much to answer for!

I've been wondering the same thing about Jacob Rees-Mogg's antisemitic dogwhistles in Parliament.

And those were in the last few months, not decades ago.

Barely a peep from the media.

The Prime Minister has a habit of referring to Muslim women as “letterboxes,” black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles,” and gay men as “tank-topped bum boys.”

Which begs the question – how can various members of his government bring themselves to share a platform with him? Surely Sajid Javid and Nadhim Zahawi are as offended by his remarks about Muslim women as they are about Corbyn’s alleged antisemitism? If not, why not? Javid sounded genuinely offended in the live Conservative leadership debate and the candidates promised an immediate enquiry into Islamophobia in the Conservative party, but despite the prompting of the Conservative Baroness Warsi, Johnson seems to have conveniently forgotten his promise.

Does party Chairman James Cleverly not feel any discomfort when people who share his West African heritage are referred to so disparagingly? How do prominent Conservatives such as Kwasi Kwateng and Suella Braverman, whose parents came from Africa, feel about this?

As a mother with an apparently stellar CV, how does Andrea Leadsom feel about working mothers being accused of bringing up sons who were ‘more likely to mug you’?

As a proud Scot, how does Michael Gove feel about the poem that Johnson published in The Spectator which described Scots as ‘a verminous race!" and included the line that "The nation deserves not merely isolation, but comprehensive extermination".

Why do these Conservatives just shrug and look the other way and expect the British voters to do the same? Remember, even his close former colleagues have long since found him out. In the opinion of former Conservative minister Nick Boles, Johnson is “a compulsive liar who has betrayed every single person he has ever had any dealings with.”

As you probably missed this, Ress-Mogg called some remainer MPs "the illuminati". In fact he specifically said it in response to Oliver Letwin, whose background is Jewish.

Hansard: bit.ly/2PRFzZ8

I did wonder if "illuminati" is one of those terms which gets bandied about in Parliament and the meaning become diluted. But, nope. Hansard shows only one other use of it in the last 200 years – and that was by Bill Cash in 2016, also about the EU.

Boris’s remarks are reported - how else would you know about them? People just don’t seem to care. And, tbf, they don’t care about Labour’s cancerous anti-semitism problem either: despite a slew of pretty shocking revelations, Labour has actually managed to narrow the Tory lead.

I'm with @ChristmasSpirtsOnTheRocksPleas.

It was 20 years ago. It was not that remarkable, in 1999, for people to express negative views about gays in the military. I'm not excusing it, but do we need to dredge up things from two decades ago like this? He's done plenty in the last five years that I object to. If we keep banging on about comments made in the Spectator in the last millennium, it makes it sound as if there's nothing very much wrong with what's happened more recently.

I've been wondering the same thing about Jacob Rees-Mogg's antisemitic dogwhistles in Parliament. Barely a peep from the media.

Yes they did - in the Guardian;

"In October, Jacob Rees-Mogg was condemned for calling Soros the “remoaner funder-in-chief”, which the Labour peer Alf Dubs said was straight from the antisemitism playbook. Lord Dubs has since retracted his comments, said there was no clear evidence of antisemitism and apologised to Rees-Mogg."

The BBC named George Soros as the biggest individual donor to anti-Brexit campaign group Best for Britain:

"The biggest individual donor is international financier George Soros, a Hungarian-born US citizen, who has given Best for Britain £800,000 in total so far, with £400,000 of that coming since the start of the year through his pro-European Open Society Foundation."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44331013

Everyone knows the Conservatives are right wing reactionaries. It’s their thing. People who vote for them do so knowing that. Labour are supposed to be left wing and tolerant. When they’re not, it’s news. Dog bites man doesn’t make the front page. Man bites dog does.

A few weeks later, Rees-Mogg was in the Commons again, whistling about George Soros.

www.thejc.com/comment/comment/jacob-rees-mogg-george-soros-parliament-brexit-eu-antisemitic-remarks-opinion-comment-1.489706

I don't know that Rees-Mogg is actually antisemitic himself... but he's clearly not averse to whistling up support from those who are.

Thanks, Clavinova, for underlining that it's more than one occasion on which Rees-Mogg has done this.

The "illuminati" jibe was in September; the Soros whistle in October.

Were Jacob Rees-Mogg's Soros comments antisemitic? Not for the reason you think
www.thejc.com/comment/comment/jacob-rees-mogg-george-soros-parliament-brexit-eu-antisemitic-remarks-opinion-comment-1.489706

But interestingly, there may actually be a sinister element to Mr Rees-Mogg’s comments which has completely passed everyone by.

His description of Mr Soros as the “remoaner funder-in-chief” – as crude and tedious as it is – can be defended by Mr Soros’s support for Best for Britain, which was established after the 2016 referendum.

(The investor has, by the way, made no secret of his donations to the group, saying his opposition to Brexit is borne of nothing but his affection for the UK)

But, crucially, Mr Rees-Mogg also claimed Mr Soros was “one of the major funders – allegedly – of the Remain campaign”, for which there seems to be absolutely no evidence for. Neither Mr Soros nor his Open Society Foundations are listed by the Electoral Commission as donors to the official Remain campaign. It is possible, in theory, that he could have indirectly helped the campaign – although there doesn’t seem to be any proof of this in the public domain. Accordingly, no credible media outlets have reported that Mr Soros gave any financial backing to the official Remain effort.

None of his critics seem to have picked up on that point.

So why does Mr Rees-Mogg assume this is the case? Could he perhaps be susceptible to antisemitic prejudice?

The JC has invited the Conservative Party and his office to clarify his claim.

Calling Mr Rees-Mogg an antisemite simply for pointing to a wealthy Jew's financial contributions to foreign political movements is not necessarily antisemitic. But assuming he funded the official 2016 Remain campaign – with no basis – may indeed have come from a dark place.

The media has a ridiculous habit of casting everything in contrasting opposites, so if Labour has a problem with antisemitism then the Tories have a problem with Islamophobia.

But that's not real life. Antisemitism can come up anywhere (and is growing). Ignoring it because it doesn't fit some media narrative is shit.

As PP's have said, it must have been reported for OP to hear about it.
Perhaps it didn't make headlines because most people don't care that much.

Definition of illuminati from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press:

"people who claim to have a special understanding or knowledge of something"

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/illuminati

"Roadmap to avoid Brexit to be sent to MPs and peers"
"George Soros-backed Best for Britain pushes for second referendum on Theresa May’s deal with EU."

Jun 2018:
"MPs and peers will be sent a roadmap next week detailing how they could stop Brexit by the George Soros-backed Best for Britain group, which has amassed £2.3m in donations to spend on a nationwide lobbying effort to persuade parliament to change its mind."

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/01/roadmap-to-avoid-brexit-to-be-sent-to-mps-and-peers

Capital I, clavi.

(And maybe use a grown-up dictionary!)

Honestly, it's not much of a choice is it, Boris or Corbyn? We're playing 'racist top trumps' with one incumbent and one potential leader of our country.

Capital I
Perhaps you should direct that comment to PerkingFaintly as well, then you could write to Michael Rosen and correct him...

I'm not trying to correct you! Sorry, I should have posted at more length but MNing in between other things. The Illuminati reference only makes sense if you know there's a group called that. The word itself has different connotations from the group name.