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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Laurence Fox is an ignorant, spoilt brat.

642 replies

longwayoff · 20/01/2020 22:49

What is wrong with this fool? Apparently in James Delingpole's podcast, heavy sigh, he criticises Sam Mendes for featuring a Sikh soldier in WW1 film. Ever heard of the British Empire, Laurence? How many Indians died for Britain? AIBU to say LF is being deliberately divisive and provocative and evidently doing his own publicity?

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ScreamingLadySutch · 21/01/2020 20:10

"On Question Time, when the actor Laurence Fox also dismissed the suggestion that Meghan had faced racism and said that, as countries go, we were really quite nice and non-racist, there was uproar in the ‘woke’ echo chamber of social media. The rest of the country simply nodded and said: “Too right, mate.”

An audience member (naturally, she turned out to be an academic and regular BBC contributor) then accused Fox of “white privilege”. That charge is supposed to intimidate its target into silence. Refreshingly, Fox refused to be cowed. He pointed out that nervousness surrounding the issue of racism meant that “things like the Manchester grooming scandal get ignored”.

How painfully true that was. In the very week that an excoriating 150-page report revealed that Greater Manchester Police (GMP) knew of grooming gangs sexually exploiting almost a hundred girls, some as young as 12, “in plain sight”, Question Time did not feature a single question on the topic.

The BBC was keen to indulge the notion that a cossetted multi-millionairess had been a victim of racism, while completely ignoring girls like Victoria Agoglia, who died after having her 15-year-old veins filled with heroin so she could be raped by dozens of “Asian” (Pakistani-heritage) men.

I ask you, which case is of greater national significance? A duchess who leaves the Royal family after 20 months because it’s “not working for me”, or the revelation that police officers turned a blind eye to scores of children being grotesquely violated because to arrest their tormentors might look like cultural insensitivity?"

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/tolerant-nation-time-shamed-grooming-gangs-prey-girls/

Clavinova · 21/01/2020 20:15

He's just someone who I see whilst watching ITV3

You keep mentioning ITV3 - he had a resurgence as Lord Palmerston in ITV's Victoria last year;

www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-05-12/victoria-lord-palmerston-laurence-fox/

RunningAwaywiththeCircus · 21/01/2020 20:16

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chomalungma · 21/01/2020 20:17

It isn’t what “men” say at all. It’s what some men say, some deny, some are indifferent to, others accept that it goes on but is not practiced by them or theirs, others actively practice, and so on ad infinitum

FFS Not all men.

Happy.?

Men as a class,
As a general group.

chomalungma · 21/01/2020 20:19

On Question Time, when the actor Laurence Fox also dismissed the suggestion that Meghan had faced racism and said that, as countries go, we were really quite nice and non-racist, there was uproar in the ‘woke’ echo chamber of social media. The rest of the country simply nodded and said: “Too right, mate

Someone who has no experience of racism said that this country was really nice and non racist and was told that his 'white privilege' meant he was unaware of racism and there was uproar about that.

Can you hear yourself?

RunningAwaywiththeCircus · 21/01/2020 20:25

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Leflic · 21/01/2020 20:53

So he’s not “ allowed” to say he doesn’t think it’s racism?

chomalungma · 21/01/2020 20:58

So he’s not “ allowed” to say he doesn’t think it’s racism

Of course he is allowed to say it,.
OTOH, it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that he is very likely to experience it so how can he justify that opinion?

TheRealMcKenna · 21/01/2020 21:04

So he’s not “ allowed” to say he doesn’t think it’s racism?

Of course he’s allowed to say it. I can name a dozen well-known ‘personalities’ who’ve been saying exactly the same in newspapers, podcasts, blogs and on Twitter over the last couple of weeks. Some have large followings, some small. People are more than free to disagree.

What really boils the woke brigade’s p*ss is the fact that the majority of the QT audience agreed with him. They don’t get the fact that unwashed masses are well and truly done with identity politics.

chomalungma · 21/01/2020 21:08

They don’t get the fact that unwashed masses are well and truly done with identity politics

Challenging racism is not identity politics.
Making things more equal is not identity politics

It's been around for centuries - challenging the status quo and bringing about social change.

Unless you have a problem with social change for the better?

RunningAwaywiththeCircus · 21/01/2020 21:11

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RunningAwaywiththeCircus · 21/01/2020 21:13

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JamieVardysHavingAParty · 21/01/2020 21:15

But I was actually thinking of the kids' Maid Marion series written by Tony Robinson. Although the character in Prince of Thieves doesn't hold water for me, either.

Barrington was the part that stood out for you, was it?

But it's okay that King John lives in Nottingham, then? And the singing, the eating of mud, the constant chat about Robin's GCSEs (he did Textiles, IIRC), Marian's best friend selling double-glazing and the episode where Snooker the peasant invents Snooker all passed muster, did they?

Besides, I suspect Tony Robinson intended it as a deliberate anachronism to go with all the others. On the voiceover on the DVD box-set, he explains that he named the character Barrington after a (white) cricketer of the time, because it was funny.

Monkeynuts18 · 21/01/2020 21:31

I’d never heard of this man until he started spouting this anti-woke stuff.

JamieVardysHavingAParty · 21/01/2020 21:53

Let's see. What other highlights were there in this stunning historical drama?

Ah, hang on, my bad. King John wasn't portrayed as living in Nottingham in Maid Marian (and her Merry Men).

It was actually... Worksop.

V. historically accurate. There was an episode with aliens in season 3, btw.

But seriously. The show's humour revolved around anachronistic jokes. This is like complaining that it's cold inside a walk-in freezer. I'm... appalled, tbh.

Is there anything black actors would be allowed to be in without someone objecting?

Planeplane · 21/01/2020 21:57

JamieVardysHavingAParty

I think the crystal maze episode was a high point!

JamieVardysHavingAParty · 21/01/2020 22:04

That one was so good, but my favourite of all time has to be the one where they fundraised for Colin's Release.

I still remember that at odd moments and cackle.

chomalungma · 21/01/2020 22:10

Assuming you mean unlikely, why does he have to “experience” it to know it exists

That's not what I said - and nor what he said.

I haven't experienced racism but I know it exists because of stories that friends have told me as well as the experiences I hear from BAME people.

If I said that racism didn't exist, because as a white person, I hadn't seen it or experienced it, then I don't think my opinion on it not existing would count for anything.

chomalungma · 21/01/2020 22:16

I form opinions all the time about things I have not “experienced” as does everyone else outside the wokerati echo chamber

It must be very difficult for a person to have an opinion that for example was that something DOESN'T exist (such as racism, sexism, homophobia) if they aren't the kind of person who would be in the receiving end of such thing.

Much easier to have an opinion that racism / sexism does exist when, even though they haven't experienced it, they have heard evidence from people who have experienced it regularly.

Still, that does not stop people explaining that racism, sexism, homophobia etc don't exist because they haven't experienced it and are are not the kind of people who would experience it.

OrangeCinnamon · 21/01/2020 22:46

Actually this is what happened

Audience says opinion that Meghan was treated in racist way by press

"Laurence denied this was the case, calling Britain ‘the most tolerant, lovely country in Europe’, and adding: ‘It’s so easy to throw the card of racism at everybody and it’s really starting to get boring now.
(She didnt throw the racism card at everybody clearly)
The audience member replied: ‘What worries me about your comment is, you are a white privileged male who has no experience in this’ –

She didnt call him a racist at all ...she said she was worried about the opinion he expressed ...perfectly reasonably. He'd already said she was boring just for expressing her opinion , rolled his eyes shouted and talked over her.

So whose opinion do we think was shouted down here?

Putthekettleonplease · 21/01/2020 22:59

I love him. Finally someone who speaks the truth. And I love Katie Hopkins. And piers. And trump.

Take that mums.

OrangeCinnamon · 21/01/2020 23:06

Yes we are all 'Mums' Hmm
Great first post !

TinklyLittleLaugh · 21/01/2020 23:35

Hmm. Just watched his music video on you tube. He is a cringingly, embarrassingly bad singer songwriter. I can’t even make fun of it; just so shocked at the level of self delusion he must have to think his music is anything anyone would want to hear. Just so pathetic.

Honestly, he makes that guy off DIY SOS sound like Bob Dylan.

OrangeCinnamon · 21/01/2020 23:38

@tinklylittlelaugh always say no matter how great a songwriter Bobby Dylan is he really can't sing for toffee. Lozza must be really bad Grin