Simone Clarke and the BNP

[lionheart]

Anyone been following this here ?

Yes I have.

The ENB holds very different views to SImone Clarke, so is it irrelevant what her personal political position is as they won't be promoting it? Or will the fact that her position is public make a difference? There was a bit about deciding whether to keep her on based on how far she could use her job to push these political beliefs.

There was a piece in yesterdays Times about a protest outside one of her performances.

This is interesting Times article on it
sugar plum fairy vs the forces of darkness
not sure I entirely agree with it though

and one about the protest here
13th January

I think the whole issue raises some interesting questions - especially I think about freedom of speech.

It strikes me that perhaps she has partially misunderstood the BNP manifesto. She admits she didn't understand all of it.

I wonder if the BNP Member for Barking and Dagenham's comment on her mixed-race child will give her pause for thought.

I'm confused at the moment - does she have a child with her boyfriend or are they talking about the possiblity of her having a child?

I gathered from the article that they had a child - may have misunderstood.

re-read it you're right they have a daughter.

There was a part about her saying that she didn't fully understand the policies - is that gonna change her mind?

Should she be sacked or should her private politics be considered irrelevant?

Does it make a difference that she's a memeber of the BNP rather than say an extreme left wing party?

I think sacking someone for their political views is wrong, however extreme and distasteful they may be.

I'm with John Stuart Mills on that one.

I would have thought that hearing a party representative saying that her daughter woul be dilluting our race would make her think twice - or at least help her to understand why people have a problem with her belonging to the party.

there's a strange discordance between a star of the English National Ballet and being a card-carrying racist and facist twonk isn't there?

I know quite a few ballerinas, and they're all half-crazed through lack of food.

Lack of food, or not, the naivety here is quite astonishing.

I agree you can't fire someone for their radical political views but I can see where it might make her working conditions uncomftorable. Her fellow ballet dancers have just as much right to freedom of speech.

We saw her as the Sugar Plum Fairy before Christmas.
I personally don't think it's fair on the rest of the audience to stand up and disturb the performance.
I didn't know her political views when we went on Sat 23, it would have made me watch with a different perspective.
When you go to a ballet you don't like to think about the personal lives of the dancers too much. Is that wrong?
It's an annual treat for sweet little girls.
Perhaps she is mis-informed and not media trained, I think using her position to present her political views is what spoils it.
But other people in the public eye do the same.
Dislike politics in the arts in general. Stick to what you're good at.
Can somebody sum this up for me better than I can myself, please?

I would purposefully NOT GO to a ballet featuring a performer with publicised racist / facist views

much as I will no longer see a Mel Gibson movie

'cos they're total twunts

agree with lionheart....what stunning naivety..in a 36 year old too!

so, i guess part of it is , she is a member of the BNP, which is clerly a greater news story thatn being a member of the labour party......

but she admits to not really understanding the policies of the BNP..which gives credence to my understanding of their recruitment drives and manifestos......picking on the bug bears of badly controlled immigration and taxes being wasted, to suck people in ..then it becomes clear they would really like to strip Britain back to its anglo saxon roots..but as someone else said, how far back would oyu have to trawl to find a 'true brit'? i am certainly not one, i don;t have anglo saxon roots !

or see any new woody allen movie.....

I think she's incredibly stupid. She is clearly not au fait with BNP policy because her partner is 'foreign' and they have a mixed race child. I also hope that when she reads the BNP comments about her child that she will realise what she has got herself mixed up in.

I saw her dancing just before Christmas for the West London Ballet School Xmas performance (my stepmother's cousin is a pupil). As soon as I heard about the furore I remembered her name from the programme AND that she was married to the co-star Yat-Sen Chang who is Cuban.
I am staggered at her naivety, particularly since a ery sizeable proportion of prof ballet dancers in the UK are not British and given she has a daughter who is of mixed-race.
I agree that it would be wrong, though, to fire someone for their political beliefs. But also agree that she should keep her views to herself - that in publicising her membership she has put the ENB of being in the position of having to make political decisions when they should be apolitical.

She didn't publicise it - she was outed.

Sorry - yes you are right Aloha.
She has however spoken publically about her membership since then, when IMO it would have been better for her to say nothing and to voice no political opinion.

I agree she has put the ENB in a bad situation. I'm sure they are very unhappy about being associated with those people. She should resign.

agree with Booboo - half crazed with lack of food, that is the problem. Either that or she is just not very astute. Some reporter worth their salt should seek out her response to the BNP politician's comment about her daughter.

I don't think she should be fired but I do agree that she is both naive and not very bright.

That comment from the BNP counsellor (although he said it was not the party view ha ha) should surely show her the real foundations of the BNP.

I cannot believe anyone with a immigrant boyfriend and mixed race child could seriously join the BNP, anyone with an ounce of sense anyway!

Agree with everyone here that Simone Clarke has shown great naivety in her political affiliations
I would certainly not choose to see anyone perform who was open about their membership of a racist organisation - but she was outed, as people say. I do wonder who else in public life is a closet BNP sympathiser and probably much more effective as a result.

What can her partner think of all this?

I'm black and the whole thing has left a very bad taste in my mouth. Yes she is entitled to her views but the broader consequences of this is that people like me, who already regard things like ballet for the white middle classes, will have that view reinforced, which is wrong because quite a few of their dancers are non-white. It unintentionally sends out the message to non-white kids that ballet is not for them and the fact that one of their dancers is comfortable to justify her political affliation to a racist party reinforces that.

I feel sorry for her daughter. She will be one confused kid.