...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.

@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.

I would be absolutely be holding you accountable if you were representing me in parliament.

@moynomore

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.

This. The posters on here trying to make excuses for him is depressing, and speaks volumes.

I am a couple of years older than Gove and I lived in the southeast of England, socialising mainly in upper middle class circles, in the late 80s and early 90s. If I had heard someone spouting this shit at a dinner party I would either have left, or, if it was my own party, asked them to leave. It would not have been "the norm". As it was, I clearly did not hang around in such twat circles, so that never happened.

I happen to utterly depise Gove for many other reasons, so this does not really make much difference to my already rockbottom opinion of him. The chat around it however says quite a lot about other people (the ones who seem to think this was"the norm" and excusable twenty-five years ago).

Sorry, thirty years ago...

The people making excuses for him are the reason why this country is such a dysfunctional, divided mess. I realise people will have voted YABU because I failed to reference the actual quotes, but still it's shocking how many people are seemingly not bothered. With attitudes like this we deserve everything that coming to us, as a country. And very little of it will be good.

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.

Well that's at least as stupid a stereotypical sweeping statement as any about the north. Does the south somehow just mean 'London' in your books?

@MaryMcCarthy

The people making excuses for him are the reason why this country is such a dysfunctional, divided mess. I realise people will have voted YABU because I failed to reference the actual quotes, but still it's shocking how many people are seemingly not bothered. With attitudes like this we deserve everything that coming to us, as a country. And very little of it will be good.

This. I agree.

for the Independent to bring comments from 30+ years ago is pathetic!

They are certainly hypocritical:

Dad’s Army, review - The Independent 2016

Captain Mainwaring is still vain and pompous; Sergeant Wilson remains his diffident, quietly subversive self; Private Fraser still thinks we’re doomed; Private Walker is still selling nylons; and Jones, veteran of all those scrapes with the Kaiser’s army and the fuzzy wuzzies, who don’t like it up ‘em, you know, (it’s the cold steel), is still manfully resisting the urge to panic.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dad-s-army-review-mainwaring-s-men-are-back-and-better-ever-a6835911.html

@Clavinova think about the phrase 'two wrongs don't make a right'.

Or do you think Gove's comments about Northerners, 'loose' women, black and gay people shouldn't be challenged now they have surfaced?

He said it many many years ago, not exactly last week.

And I hate the bloke.

Give could stand on the roof of Downing Street screaming the N word tomorrow and Clav would still defend him.

I think Michael Gove should apologise to Leon Brittan's family, but I can't get worked up over a phrase from Dad's Army he repeated in 1987.

And "This House Prefers a Woman on Top" appears to be a regular comedy debate at the Cambridge Union. The 2019 Michaelmas debate lists comedian Yuriko Kotani as one of the speakers - her bio on the card states; "... she has supported such acts as Puppetry of the Penis on their tour." Who were the other speakers with Michael Gove in 1993?

think about the phrase 'two wrongs don't make a right'

Indeed, but this is John McDonnell speaking at a comedy night in 2014;

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-42682854

@clavinova deflection yet again

Gove is currently Minister for the Cabinet Office so people are going to be fairly digusted that someone in that position has previously made homophobic, racist,sexist remarks and been scathing about Northerners in public forums.

The Guardian 2009 -
Dad's Army: the best kind of comedy...

Of course Dad's Army was not politically correct (Corporal Jones used to reminisce about fighting the "fuzzy wuzzies"). But its underlying decency and generosity of spirit insured it against changes in attitude.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jun/27/dads-army-comedy-tv

I was around in 1987 and you didn't refer to black people as 'f w**s' unless you were a racist or Alf Garnett.

[quote Clavinova]The Guardian 2009 -
Dad's Army: the best kind of comedy...

Of course Dad's Army was not politically correct (Corporal Jones used to reminisce about fighting the "fuzzy wuzzies"). But its underlying decency and generosity of spirit insured it against changes in attitude.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jun/27/dads-army-comedy-tv[/quote]
The use of offensive language in this post.

The number of apologists on this thread makes me so sad.

Dad's Army is set in WW2 in the 1940's by the 1980's people were much more aware of using offensive racial slurs or are you suggesting Gove was calling black people FWs in the 1980s in an endearing old-fashioned way?

Dad's Army is set in WW2 in the 1940's

And the debate was on the British Empire - we didn't have much of an empire in 1987.

In 1987, when Mr Gove was in his final year at Oxford University and serving as president-elect of its debating society, he spoke in favour of the motion “This house believes that the British empire was lost on the playing fields of Eton” as part of an intervarsity debating competition at the Cambridge Union.

Oh so he was being historically rascist, and that's therefore acceptable?

@santaslittlehohoho

It's things said 30-40 years ago? I understand holding people accountable for things they say, however people change huge amounts in that amount of time. I don't understand this way people will look 40 years into someone's past to be offended? By today's standards they're hugely offensive things to say, 40 years ago things were very very different.

That’s just an excuse

@moynomore

The number of apologists on this thread makes me so sad.

Same!

emuloc
The use of offensive language in this post

Somewhat surprised to read your post at 11.20 - I find those words offensive.

This is difficult. I really hate Gove (as pretty much all my fellow teachers particularly do) and really want him to be utterly lambasted and ousted from political office for this. The things he said are absolutely vile and disgraceful. But my usual stance is that I'm not in favour of 'cancelling' people based on trawling back decades and finding things they said when they were very young. People change. I mean, maybe Gove still thinks those things and maybe he doesn't. I suppose it's justifiable to hold politicians up to higher standards than some actor or singer who made sexist remarks when they were 18 though...

Clavinova, are you saying that what he said wasn't racist, or that racism was okay?