...to be absolutely disgusted by Michael Gove's comments?

[MaryMcCarthy]

I suppose we all knew what Thatcherism and the modern Conservatives were about, but to hear it spoken out loud, with such disdain, just makes me so angry. Whether he said it last week or last century I'm just boiling with rage at how such callous sociopaths can rise to such high positions of power. I dare say we need a revolution in this country.

Sounds like standard stuff for a Tory politician, as a pp pointed out, Boris has said and published similar.

If those are your views then fine, vote for them and be honest about it. But it winds me up no end when people claim to be liberal and open minded and appalled by this sort of stuff and then make up excuses for why they need to vote Tory anyway.

Not a fan of Micheal Gove particularly (who I think has many skeletons in his cupboard, if his dancing in the Aberdeen club is anything to go by). However, for the Independent to bring comments from 30+ years ago is pathetic ! This is desperation from the left. The same woke nonsense nearly ruined Ollie Robinson Test Cricket career before it had started.

I do wonder if some current left wing politician / journalist or blogger had been recorded suggesting the killing of Maggie Thatcher or all Tory voters thirty years ago , would show the same verve in advocating their cancellation !

Would you advocate...

@peewitsandy hmmm would I want ALL MPs behave to behave with integrity and not be racist, sexist, classist, homophobic and downright rude about my Northern heritage, well yes!

I despise him so much.. a vile excuse of a man..

@riotlady

Sounds like standard stuff for a Tory politician, as a pp pointed out, Boris has said and published similar.

If those are your views then fine, vote for them and be honest about it. But it winds me up no end when people claim to be liberal and open minded and appalled by this sort of stuff and then make up excuses for why they need to vote Tory anyway.

^this

I’ve never met a conservative voter who didn’t have a nasty small minded streak about them

Sorry, can't get worked up over something said 40 years ago.

The comments are horrible and I don't believe anybody who isn't prejudiced would have said them.

However, I do think it is important to note they are in debates. the 'art' of debating in these settings is to entertain and shock the audience with your rhetorical flair, embarrassing and unsettling the opposition, and taking any conceivable position to confuse the opposition and push home points. In these debates, you don't even choose which side you argue - you are allotted a side. This system preserves the pure concentration on the art of making an argument, rather than any link to your true conviction...... in fact the art of convincing others if something even you don't believe is prized highly. So you should not assume that anything anyone says in a debate is something they actually believe.

Despite that, his comments still reveal a prejudice and unpleasantness that I don't think anyone who was not that way could fake!

TheHouseILiveIn

I heard rumours prior to this, so when I heard him speak about others especially the woman, I assumed that was all about him not the woman at all.

Isn’t this man supposed to be a committed Christian?

@itsgrand

I'm not sticking up for him as such but to be fair though it was 40 years ago? the world is a different place now and there is more awareness and consciousness than there was in the 80's. Rightly or wrongly racism, misogyny, middle class snobbery, xenophobia and Thatcherism was the norm.

Nope, that's bollocks. Well, except for when the boys from the private school came round ours to play rugby. Then we heard words that we'd only read about as being from American history or from national front thugs being said in cut glass accents.

They lost. Very, very badly. And were told they were not welcome back by our equally posh (and subsequently knighted) headmaster for being Everything England Should Be Ashamed Of (or as he muttered to us as the brand new minibus drove off the 450 yards to their grounds, 'Racist little bastards').

@BraveGoldie

The comments are horrible and I don't believe anybody who isn't prejudiced would have said them.

However, I do think it is important to note they are in debates. the 'art' of debating in these settings is to entertain and shock the audience with your rhetorical flair, embarrassing and unsettling the opposition, and taking any conceivable position to confuse the opposition and push home points. In these debates, you don't even choose which side you argue - you are allotted a side. This system preserves the pure concentration on the art of making an argument, rather than any link to your true conviction...... in fact the art of convincing others if something even you don't believe is prized highly. So you should not assume that anything anyone says in a debate is something they actually believe.

Despite that, his comments still reveal a prejudice and unpleasantness that I don't think anyone who was not that way could fake!

I think presenting an opposing point of view is different to using racial and homophobic slurs.

Gove was born in 1967 so is now 54. He said these things in the late 80s, early 90s, so not 40 years ago, but even if he had, I was a student in 1981 and I can confirm remarks like that were totally unacceptable to most students, and increasingly unacceptable to the general public.

He is utterly loathsome.

I've never voted Tory in my life and have no plans to start now, but I will just add that the Tories don't have the monopoly on misogyny, homophobia and racism. Plenty of it in every political party, unfortunately.

I'm a northerner but I do quite like Michael Gove.

People quick to say Tories are sexist, racist, homophones etc but those stereotypes are also given to red wall northerners?

The funniest statement is "the happy south". Who in the south is happy? I see the south as typically non stop work, long hours, long commutes, public transport, high crime.

Make your mind up, Bob. Are stereotypes true or not? You've just reeled off a list of nonsensical ones for The South, whatever that means. The south of England covers Cornwall and the rest of the West Country, the depressed seaside towns of Kent and East Sussex, and then the huge variety of Brighton, Southampton, Reading, Cambridge, Oxford, the Cotswolds, East Anglia, the Fens, the loadsamoney commuter towns of Essex, Hertfordshire etc, as well as London.

@mustlovegin

It was 30 years ago. OP you should calm down - there are professional muck stirrers out there (not to mention the professionally and perpetually offended)

Who do you support that you seem to find so holy?

One of the highest figures made horrible racist and homophobic comments. Why should we ignore it?

Newsflash- Tory= prick!

Yanbu though op. Revolution needed but won't happen on this narrow minded little country.

Ugh. This loathsome twat is the reason our teenagers study dead white men on the English and English Literature curriculum and why I left teaching. The writers have to be British. And when women appear they are mad, maids or missing entirely. It's a shame what he did

The man is a vile, nasty person. He is in the right company, as far as I am concerned. Tory scum.

Do you know what, I expect better from Tory MPs. There must be plenty of pleasant, upstanding citizens out there who have never thought this was appropriate behaviour, but who share the Tory parties economic values. Why does the shit rise to the top? Why does everyone (including their own voters) have such low expectations of the Conservatives that this nonsense gets a pass?

I have many an issue with Keir Starmer but I can’t imagine him coming out with any of this crap in his youth...

Blimey I’m sure I said some shit as a teen at college. I’d hope no one forty years later was holding me accountable.

@Bluntness100

Blimey I’m sure I said some shit as a teen at college. I’d hope no one forty years later was holding me accountable.

Who are you? Are you in Public service?

40 years ago golliwogs were used on jam for advertising and sold as toys - people blacked up and performed as minstrels etc. It was hardly the progressive society of now!

Bollocks. I left my (quite posh) school in 82. People were talking about "political correctness" back then because many many of us back then (not just youngsters) railed against racism, sexism and the rest. We made it impossible for Robertson's jam to keep up with their Golly logo (yes, they didn't use the last part of the original word for quite a while before they finally gave it up).

People like Alexei Sayle were coming in with "alternative" (not always excellent or acceptable) comedy yo counter the likes of Les Dawson's MIL "jokes" etc etc.

Racism, especially among mainstream politics, wasn't entirely acceptable, and it did shock people when masks slipped.

@Bluntness100

Blimey I’m sure I said some shit as a teen at college. I’d hope no one forty years later was holding me accountable.

If you said things that were racist and homophobic and you were possibly about to be foreign secretary, I hope they would.

Stop saying it was 40 years ago. It was 28 years ago. Certainly not the "norm". No one I know has ever said anything like that, especially in a public speech ffs. I hope voters see what these people think of us.