The Fall Out Continues - thread 6

[TheShadowyFeminist]

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@WouldBeGood

This is a tweet by the charming Mr Arthur. On Romanian beggars.

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Does no one do any due diligence anymore? FFS!

They have a perjurer, an anti- semite, a racist and Not Safe in Taxis- I wonder who their homophobic, disablist and transphobic members will be?

Oh dear Alex Arthur is digging himself a bit of a hole. Well, it will be interesting to see how this gets handled.

@MissBarbary

They have a perjurer, an anti- semite, a racist and Not Safe in Taxis- I wonder who their homophobic, disablist and transphobic members will be?

That's shaping up to be a joke - a perjurer, an anti semite and a racist walk in to a party conference...

They're already got several GC women so it will no doubt be claimed the transphobe box is ticked too

@ATieLikeRichardGere

Oh dear Alex Arthur is digging himself a bit of a hole. Well, it will be interesting to see how this gets handled.

If they've got any sense they'll ignore it. My gut instinct is that there will be a large number of people who won't actually disagree; many will probably think "well not the nicest wording but he's got a point"

I used to live in central Edinburgh and for a while organised begging groups were definitely a major issue. My understanding is it was thought there was possibly people trafficking involved. I walked past them daily. There were a couple of people in particular who always held up a printed sign in a plastic pocket with a picture of their family on it and a wee story about them underneath. I saw this every couple of days for months so I recognised it instantly when I went to Sweden and saw someone sitting begging outside the train station holding the exact same sign. Same picture. Still in English too!

I guess what I'm saying is people observe and draw conclusions. Sometimes they make twatty comments about those observations, and post them on twitter. His comment is certainly unpleasant and unkind. But I can't help thinking many people will have noted similar things and as a result this may not be the big deal in real life that twitter is making it out to be .

Guess we will see how it pans out but I'm not sure Alba is going to be heading down the SNP route with trying to tightly control their candidates views and voices. With so few they can't afford to anyway!

Agree with all of that stats. Resonates equally in Glasgow.

I think the framing was ignorant & tbh it's why Twitter is such a terrible place for discussion in general but particularly on complex subjects. There's some truth in what he's said but he's expressed it in a way that's offensive.

I worked on a project a few years ago mapping crime in certain areas in Manchester & the pattern on street crime is v similar across the UK especially in large cities. There are people who beg who are in dire straights, often with mental health problem and/or addiction issues etc. and that's one of the areas this boxer says he's got concerns on, having grown up & lives/lived in a deprived area in Edinburgh. And there were also people arrested for begging who weren't homeless, but were picked up/dropped off in cars from outside the area (those without an address were referred onto support services as an alternative to conviction with any prison time etc.) and who had homes but chose to do this instead of work etc. It is a problem with some people who are 'on the street' who beg but have no need & aren't actually homeless or have any addiction issues (they were often drug dealers as well, pushing drugs onto others on the street who were vulnerable & were addicted). But they weren't limited to 1 particular demographic & that's where the ignorance comes into what he's said.

He might well have witnessed illegal/fake begging scams, or he might have witnessed people who were trafficked & coerced by criminals etc. It's the limiting it to a single demographic when he's really not got the knowledge to know that's the case that's the issue.

But it's why Twitter for this stuff is terrible & at the very least someone should have been on top of this to ensure, if he's not stupid & is a 'decent guy' as many I've seen on Twitter say he is, his social media should have been cleaned up before he was announced. If they'd been planning this for months, that should have been high up the list of things to cover.

It's piss poor vetting/due diligence. And for a party that wants to be taken seriously, it's a terrible look for both the candidate & the party.

We (maybe not us, but some people) seem to have come to a way of thinking whereby something like a single comment or transgression is taken as revealing the person’s inner truth, and one that we consider absolute and enduring. I would argue that, in reality, this statement probably gives away very little about the guy. He may or may not be a racist and he may or may not care about the homeless. We didn’t know before and we don’t know now.

From boxer to economist - this morning’s Alba candidate is Dr Jim Walker.

I'm not denying it's ignorant, not in the slightest. I'm just not sure it will put as many people off as is perhaps being made out. Like many things on twitter it may not make much impact beyond it.

A lot of people will have observed the people he was referring to, and will be thinking "he's got a point." There was a distinct group who claimed to be Romanian (doubt they all were) who many were aware off/had problematic experiences with. I think too that Brexit showed a non trivial proportion of the population had big issues with migration from eastern European countries in particular. With it being list instead of constituency IMO there may well be enough people who don't give a crap and it will be more about Alba as a whole than him personally. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out

Agree re piss poor due diligence. But that's what happens when you try to set up a political party quickly and on the quiet.

It puts me off. He sounds thick as fuck.

With his vaccine tweet too.

But then I’m not the target market for this mince.

Yeah it puts me off as well. Though to be honest, even just him being a boxer puts me off. I’m probably boxerist. He seems to have made a fuller apology for the vaccine thing than he has for the beggars thing. I think this is all going to appeal to some and alienate others.

I'm kind of torn on it - I think my issue is twitter, as already said, doesn't reveal much about the person as whole but certainly is used to absolutely shred people who (due to the character limit) reduce complex stuff down to something either not reflective of what they actually think/know, or just encourages restrictive stereotyping when discussing something. I hate the way the whole 'cancel culture' works, especially based on twitter (for the restrictions on expression) but then people do use it as though they're having banter with their mates while publicising that to their followers. We're at the point that I just loathe the way the online pile ons happen (especially when it's from people who don't have 'clean hands' themselves - see the twitter history of the SNP OFI convener for some highly offensive/similarly ignorant output) while thinking where people are that stupid to post ignorant stuff (especially in the case where someone wants to be elected) they kind of bring it on themselves.

I think we're passed the point where people don't know their online output is taken way out of context when it comes under scrutiny & it's it's a brutal process to have to endure.

He's put out an apology but not stepped down. It's a pity that he has some decent points to make about the people where he's from and their restricted/limited life chances & then posts stupid stuff about a demographic who (excluding the ring leaders) have just as shitty a time but happen to be immigrants etc.

Wonder who the next 'big name' will be? We've got some economist today so far.

It’s not just one tweet.

I don’t agree with cancel culture, but I think someone who wants to be elected to govern people should not hold those views.

I'm not so sure it'll play out as badly as we assume. AS seems to be setting up the party in total contrast to the existing set up at holyrood. Particularly the SNP, which is very "controlled", with elected members who come through the ranks with degrees in politics, through assistant/ researcher posts in the Parliament, maybe SpAds (or whatever they are in Scotland), or via local government/ councillor posts. I think AS may be trying to harness the public feeling that made the brexit party such a success - distrusting politicians and wanting more "men of the people" (or women?!) in parliament. Who tap into what actual people feel, and not just the politically minded on twitter or student politics who seem to drive policy at the moment. It might be quite clever, in that there are enough people with the existing credentials (existing MPs and councillors, albeit slightly off-field ones, that economist chap and so on) and some entirely new blood to focus on a different demographic.

It may of course backfire, in that there are too many unconventional people for "traditionalist" voters to want to associate with. But it also may serve him well.

As someone who opposes his main policy I'm obviously not his target voter (or maybe I am? At some point they are going to have to start trying to persuade people independence is a good idea, and I'm really not persuaded by the current lot) so it doesn't appeal to me. But I can see he may be trying to get the "old labour" kind of setup, with people who aren't smooth and manicured, but have had "proper jobs" and are a bit rough round the edges but with the confidence to speak up for their communities and get people's respect.

I think like UKIP, Trump et al it will appeal to a certain demographic who feel failed by the main parties and politics as a whole. But like them, it’s still pretty despicable.

Well yes. But it is a tactic that worked with those parties! There seem to be enough people that fit that description that it's worth targeting them. Even if we "wish they were better people"

Yes, sadly I’m not suggesting it won’t work!

I think the fault lies with the failures of mainstream parties to consider the issues that actually affect people.

Meanwhile, Ms Sturgeon keeping the anti-Salmond battle going. This is all really unpleasant

George Kerevan has joined Alba

I think social media is pushing everyone to extremes. I thought this was good recently - it’s mostly about actual warfare but about halfway down the role of Twitter comes in: unherd.com/2021/03/anarchy-is-coming/

Are the ones joining Alba MSPs with small majorities hoping to maintain a seat in gov?
I know the media talk of an snp majority, or did, but there's been so much bad publicity/ Humza s bill etc I wonder if they're worried.

George Kerevan and Craig Berry issued a joint statement with Lynne Anderson www.thenational.scot/news/19196818.snp-common-weal-groups-george-kerevan-craig-berry-quit-join-alba-party/

There does seem to be a renewed focus on the economics of independence.

I agree. It's (partly) why labour fell apart in northern England in the last GE, and the tories swept up with their simple no nonsense 3 word slogan. Not sure going on about supermajorities and detailed descriptions of the weirdnesses of the AMS are that no nonsense 3 word slogan, but hey...

I partly hope NS stops banging on about him soon because I worry for her blood pressure, but also hopes she carries on, as it's making her look more worried about him than she probably needs to be.

I obviously don't want any more independence seats, but part of me is kind of hoping he does reasonably well at the expense of other indy politicians, just to see the fall out... Hopefully they'll spend the next term tearing chunks out of each other and never get round to sorting a referendum. But then the sensible part of me thinks whoever is in government should spend their energies in governing properly re recovery/ education/ NHS/ drugs/ poverty and not sniping at their ideological rivals (or even colleagues in this case). But it wouldn't be Scottish politics without constitutional whinging I suppose.

But it wouldn't be Scottish politics without constitutional whinging I suppose

Brilliant !

I agree @ResilienceWanker. I think he might be making a solid play for the disenfranchised in exactly the way Farage (and later Boris) and Trump did. So they are, by the look of it, going to be broadly GC. They're recruiting people who aren't politicians, who are rough edged but "real". They're also going for the more radical indy folk who feel that Sturgeon isn't doing enough - the folk who want a plebiscite, the Wings fans who feel SNP has come to represent a different type of people.

It may not be a stupid strategy for the list system.