Monday 7 February 2011

Racism is everywhere

Sometimes I get the overwhelming urge to rush back to hospital and place myself back in traction. At least when I’m safely tied to a hospital bed there’s less chance of me seeing things that will send my blood pressure to dangerously high levels.

Today my blood pressure has been needlessly cranked up thanks to one Sonia Carr of Warminster. This humourless and sour individual has cost the taxpayers of Wiltshire thousands of pounds by reporting a chairman of a local health watchdog for racism.

Mrs Carr was at a meeting of Wiltshire Involvement Network (that’s WIN, in case you hadn’t already got it) when the chairperson of the group commented that rumours of pending changes to the NHS were likely to spread like wildfire. The expression the chairperson actually used was: ‘You ­cannot help the jungle drums.’ The 70-year-old responsible for uttering such a viciously racist comment was one Anna Farquhar, a former bigwig from the Citizen's Advice Bureau and a lifelong member of the St John Ambulance service.

Incidentally, the meeting was held in the notorious ghetto of Potterne Wick, a mere petrol bomb's throw away from the dangerous inner city of Devizes, in the hideously multicultural county of Wiltshire. Mrs Carr immediately challenged Mrs Farquhar at the meeting for the dreadful faux pas. Mrs Farquhar then apologised and carried on with the meeting.

Unfortunately, Mrs Carr, who just happens to be a member of Wiltshire’s Race and Equality Council, wasn’t satisfied and wouldn’t let things go. She decided to report Mrs Farquhar to the local council and a six-month investigation ensued, resulting in a ten-page report on the incident. At an estimated cost of £10,000, the report is an absolute bargain at just a grand per sheet of A4. Tsk... anyone would think we were in an age of austerity or something.

Mrs Farquhar and her fellow committee members were then asked to accept the report’s findings that the language had indeed been racist. It seems that for something to be racist, all that’s needed is for one person to be offended by something someone says: that’s all it takes.

Because Mrs Carr thought ‘jungle drums’ was a racist comment, the law says it must be racist by virtue of the fact that she thinks it is. In effect, Mrs Carr has acted as judge, jury and executioner. She claims she wanted a more fulsome apology from Mrs Farquhar and for her to be subjected to equality and diversity training. No doubt she’d also like her to wear sackcloth and ashes just so she can feel morally superior. According to council sources, Mrs Carr has plenty of ‘form’ for this sort of thing having raised allegations of racism against against the police, the fire brigade and council officers.

I daresay that Mrs Carr’s chums at the Wiltshire Race and Equality Council were very pleased with her as they could end up delivering the race and diversity training. I mean, what else do they do for the staggering £113,463 of public money they receive to spread this sort of poison? By the way, a mere £216 of their funds were donated by private individuals... that's not exactly what I call a ‘grass-roots’ organisation.

Mrs Farquhar quite sensibly refused to accept the legitimacy of this McCarthyist nonsense; as a result, the invertebrates running Wiltshire County Council have now banned all members of Wiltshire Involvement Network from all council premises and meetings – after all, they're practically members of the Klu Klux Klan, aren't they? The group’s funding has also been withdrawn.

How could such a ridiculous situation arise in a country that’s supposed to be a developed nation of intelligent people? How does someone like Mrs Carr manage to persuade an entire county council to partake in her hideously distorted view of the world? It’s political correctness gone mad, I tell you.

15 comments:

  1. So the idea is for us all to join The Big Society, giving of our time and talents for free, and if we do we are liable to be harangued and vilified for the most innocent of thoughtcrimes.
    I'm sure Mrs Farquhar has better things to do with her time than be diversified trained and I suspect her time and experience will no longer be freely given to The Big Society, leaving a gap to be filled by the properly diversified professionals.

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  2. Don’t you just wish the protagonists could bury the hatchet or is that too Native American? Let’s hope that this self-righteous correctness will go the same way as Spanish Practices – though an interesting correspondence may be found on http://www.igreens.org.uk/spanish_practices.htm

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  3. The only apology that Ms Carr should have received was "I'm sorry you feel that way."

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  4. With large budget cuts on the way Mrs Carr showed a great deal of enterprise by going out and nabbing a racist on the mean streets of rural Wiltshire. However, she needn't have bothered as all she has to do when her organisation is threatened with cuts is to declare the move as racist. Job done!

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  5. I just checked and the term is in my oxford English Dictionary!
    So trebles all round! The OED is "racist" too.
    Frankly I believe the correct response to this sanctimonious twaddle is the Churchillian.
    Two digits, rampant!
    TTFN :)

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  6. One thing you can be sure of when the cuts come, it won't be the thought police who will be getting the axe. It will be the front line staff who do proper jobs. Why do I know this is true without even checking? Am I a mystic. No but I do know that insanity will rule the UK until it is on the brink of chaos and then sanity will come back into fashion

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  7. UK isn't the only place needing to endure such idiocracy. We had ONE complaint about "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits and so our CBSC (Canadian Broadcast Standards Council) banned it. Apparently ONE person in Newfoundland was offended by the word "faggot". It took this dipstick 25years to get offended. But it only too ONE person! Good gosh some person has WAAAAAYYYYY too much time on their hands! Probably aren't homosexual either. (there wasn't an uproar from that segment when the song came out so it must be someone related to Ms. Carr)

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  8. Mad ? Mad? no not mad bloody insane, I used to live in an area of Birmingham that is mostly African/afro Carribean... when they hear the local gosip they refer to it as 'heard this earlier on the jungle drums'... I'm glad she and her dictat friends have been banned from the council... justice is somewhat sweet sometimes.

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  9. How daft can this country get? Jungle drums, I always understood to be a means of communication before telephones were invented. Likewise beacons on Scottish hills when the English were coming. Sorry if that sounds racist too.

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  10. ive jus recently come out of walsgrave hospital in coventry the staff there were brilliant cannot fault them one bit
    but the food was disgusting i cudnt stand it an that was jus the soup and ice cream i was eatin when i did manage to b able to eat something i was nearly sick it was terrible i wouldnt feed it to my dog
    i have been to jail embarreing to say but the food there was 10 times better than what they were serving at the hospital we had fry ups at the weelend im sure that would go down a treat with the hospital patients if they got to have a fry up
    i was in hospital for nearly 2wks an i lost a stone in weight as i cudnt afford 2 go and in eat in the canteen as the prices were sky high

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  11. are you a fussy eater in day to day life?

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  12. My mother was in Ruh Bath food really bad also care is better for the oldies with families who fight for it . The old people who have no one are neglected. These are the people who suffered the war. They also like my mum do not want to bother the staff. The Bristol cancer holistic treatment is good food and caring, it was in the papers this week that loneliness kills. The old people in my mothers ward looked so alone. Surly we owe our older generation so much more.

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  13. I have just watched Dispatches tonight. As a nurse I am very sad to see that young/old patient's have to eat what can only be described as slop.(Although not in all hospital's)I was lucky to work on a ward that did care very well for their patient's, ensuring that a healthy diet was provided. If the patients did not like the meal's a snack menu was provided. If this was not suitable we also encouraged family memebers to bring in food (although not always the answer!!). What a shame that we cannot provide all hospitals with good food options.

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  14. “ 'A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person'
    The above definition is for the purposes of initial recording. Just because an incident is alleged or perceived to be racist does not mean that it is racist. But it does mean that it must be recorded and investigated. "

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