Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I like that Piers Morgan brought Chaka Khan on to talk about Megan Markle's interview.

[Zanza]

Government Is Considering New Delays To EU Import Checks To Avoid Food Supply Disruption

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/brexit-northern-ireland-style-approach-to-delaying-checks-on-eu-imports

Taking back control! 

It is completely asymmetrical right now: free for all for EU exporters, getting hammered by massive rise in trade barriers for British exporters. Strange policy...

[Sheilbh]

The always excellent David Olusoga on the Harry and Meghan interview and modern Britain:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/09/harry-and-meghan-interview-this-is-not-just-a-crisis-for-the-royal-family-but-for-britain-itself?CMP=share_btn_tw

Harry and Meghan interview: This is not just a crisis for the royal family – but for Britain itself
David Olusoga
At the couple's wedding the nation looked confident, modern and at ease with multiculturalism. Was living up to that image really so difficult?


Well-wishers during Harry and Meghan's wedding. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
Tue 9 Mar 2021 06.00 GMT

In my mind, the wedding of Harry and Meghan is for ever linked to another event from the recent past: the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012. Just like the royal wedding on that sunny day in Windsor, the opening ceremony in the Olympic stadium was a moment in which Britain projected to the world an image of itself as a confident, modern country; one that was effortlessly global and at ease with its multiculturalism, with its ancient institutions adapting to changing times.

Take a look at the headlines from across the world today to see how others see us now. Then contrast the shock and the sympathy being expressed for Meghan and her family beyond our shores, with the simmering contempt still being incubated and transmitted by the toxic parts of our tabloid press.

What last summer – the summer of Black Lives Matter and the toppling of Edward Colston's statue – revealed so clearly was that millions of people in Britain regard racism as an American, rather than a British, problem. In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, journalists and commentators, in newspapers and on television, repeatedly dismissed any suggestion that the movement that had risen up in the US was of any relevance to the experiences of black people in the UK. "You're not putting America and the UK on the same footing," Emily Maitlis told George the Poet on Newsnight.

Today, despite these denials, millions of people in the US and elsewhere are busy discussing Britain's very real problems with race and racism, as never before. Yet while headlines around the world focus on the claims that questions were asked within the royal family about the skin colour of a then unborn child, parts of the British media remain committed to another project. Most black people who have worked in one of our big institutions, or stepped into the public eye, are well aware of the fundamental law of racial physics that operates in modern Britain. The terms of this law are simple and universal: they state that a white person or institution accused of racism has suffered far more than a black person who has been the victim of racism.

Within hours of the royal interview, and in accordance with that fundamental law, Piers Morgan accused Meghan and Harry of speaking untruths and suggesting that "everybody in the royal family is a white supremacist" – an ugly tabloid exaggeration appended to a culture-war dog-whistle. The fact that the same programme turned (alongside other guests) for comment to Megyn Kelly, an infamous Fox News presenter with a dubious record on race issues (her show was cancelled after she made controversial comments about blackface for which she apologised), is as telling as it is disturbing; a sign of where we as a country may be heading.

Dismissing the idea that race was a factor in the tabloid hounding of Meghan or in the neglect she appears to have suffered at the hands of palace officials – like denials of racism elsewhere in British life – performs a necessary function. It allows those inclined to do so to cling to the belief that we are, as Laurence Fox gushed last year, "the most tolerant, lovely country in Europe". In order to deny the role racism has played in the hounding of Meghan, Andrew Pierce of the Daily Mail went as far as to strip her of her racial identity. "Do you look at her ... and see a black woman? Because I don't. I see a very attractive woman," said Pierce, during an astonishing radio call-in segment on his LBC show, in which he dismissed racism as a factor in the mistreatment of Meghan while simultaneously exhibiting exactly the sort of racism he claims does not exist.

When racism is acknowledged in Britain, it is portrayed not as a structural, social problem, but as a minor, if regrettable, fact of life – one that black people have to tolerate and learn to live with. Appeals for help or support are often mischaracterised as requests for special treatment. That attitude, or something close to it, appears to have prevailed within the institution that royal correspondents respectfully call "the palace" and what Meghan and others call "the firm". "What was different for me was the race element," said Harry about the treatment his wife has endured. That difference appears to have been invisible to the keepers of tradition and the guardians of protocol.

Be in no doubt this is the most serious crisis "the firm" has faced since the death of Princess Diana – according to some, since the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936. But this is not just a crisis for the royal family – but for Britain itself. Yet rather than use this moment to embark upon an honest national conversation about race and racism there will, I fear, be further demonisation of Meghan and Harry. Trapped in denial – about everyday racism, structural racism, slavery and empire – there are parts of British society that appear incapable not just of change but even of its necessary precursor: honest self-reflection.

The truth is that the task of living up to the image that we have twice projected across the world, and becoming the country of the 2012 Games, a land with a black "princess" and a mixed-race child in the line of royal succession, was simply too difficult. It would have involved controlling our out-of-control press and replacing platitudes about multiculturalism and delusions of being a "tolerant, lovely country" with hard self-reflection. It would have demanded a reckoning with the difficult truths of our imperial history.

When Meghan and Harry abandoned Britain and gave up their lives as members of the royal family, they made their choice. By allowing the press to drive them out and standing by the tabloids and the phone-in hosts rather than Meghan and her family, we, as a country, appear to have made ours.

    David Olusoga is a historian and broadcaster

And - as in every single issue in British life there is an age/Brexit division:

From the "how much sympathy do you have for Harry and Meghan" question:


Although only 3% of people think they should have kept their taxpayer funded security detail

[Syt]

If there was no or little racism or xenophobia in the UK, Brexit wouldn't have won the vote.

[Tamas]

If there was no or little racism or xenophobia in the UK, Brexit wouldn't have won the vote.

Yeah, it gave them a nice, politically correct outlet.

[Syt]

If there was no or little racism or xenophobia in the UK, Brexit wouldn't have won the vote.

Yeah, it gave them a nice, politically correct outlet.

... for the moment.

[garbon]

Moving this here given OTT is moving on.

Yeah - I agree with this. But isn't part of the issue with Trump also his role as President and his use of his power/what he did. I suppoes the ability to propogate/impact of that individual regardless of intent. So I think you can be fairly merciless for politicians and broadcast journalists (subject to apologising, learning and improving - I regularly think about Naz Shah's change on anti-semitism as something really positive but also far too rare).

I think that's fair though would add that in our age of social media, your average person also has the possibility of their message propogating far wider than they could have ever expected. I think of things like that woman walking her dog in Central Park who never expected her racist words/actions to become internationally known.

But from that article I don't really see particular issues with his apology. They both feel like they're real apologies rather than "I apologise if anyone was offended" and he was fired from the BBC which I think was the right decision.

The first apology - I agree there's more issues with this one:

Except that wasn't actually his first apology, more like his first crafted one.

His first 'apology' was on 8 May.

Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased. Soon as those good enough to point out it's possible connotations got in touch, down it came. And that's it. Now stand by for sweary football tweets

Then 2nd apology on 8 May

Once again. Sincere apologies for the stupid unthinking gag pic earlier. Was supposed to be joke about Royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys & race, so rightly deleted. Royal watching not my forte.
Also, guessing it was my turn in the barrel.

Then defiance on 9 May after being fired

The call to fire me from
@bbc5livewas a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity. Took a tone that said I actually meant that ridiculous tweet and the BBC must uphold blah blah blah. Literally threw me under the bus. Could hear the suits knees knocking. #Fuckem

The apology you cited as his first only appeared on 10 May. So 2 not-really-an-apology apologies in and after a sacking.

Not exactly germane, but to clarify, what you've listed as the '2nd apology' was actually just a continuation of his tweet thread apology on 10 May

And for what it's worth Danny Baker isn't a journalist. He's a radio DJ - he used to host TV shows like Pets Win Prizes and compilations of people doing football trick shots. For the last 20 years he's been a Saturday morning radio DJ and I think football call-ins.

I'm not sure that's really a distinction with difference here as he's a media personality paid for by the BBC. Going back to Shola's statement it was about media coverage of Meghan and one example was what a BBC broadcaster tweeted.

[garbon]

He claims he was well aware of the racist trope, it just didn't cross his mind when choosing it. I don't see how that would be beyond credible, sometimes people just don't think it through.
He's used chimps in suits to mock royals before, maybe that would go some way in explaining it. An honest mistake still seems plausible to me.

Actually that's what he claimed on 10 May after being fired and after angry tweeting for a couple days. He first said it would never occur to him such a connection as his 'mind not diseased.'

Now, I'm not sure what he said in his LBC interview (from 9 May when he was fired) but based on his tweets (which caused the storm and where is 'apologies' were composed) what I see is someone who posted a racist trope, took it down claiming ignorance, got testy for a couple days/was fired and then only once it was clear the story still had legs came out with a full, unequivocal apology.

I'm still unsure how I feel about the punishment. I feel this article sums up my stance better than I could.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/12/as-danny-baker-found-we-live-in-an-age-of-damnation-not-forgiveness

Do these consequences include being sacked? In most cases, no. It's becoming increasingly common for employers to sack employees for comments made not in the workplace, or as part of their job, but as private citizens. From academic Steven Salaita, whose appointment was blocked by the University of Illinois for tweets about Gaza deemed antisemitic; to Angela Williamson, an employee of Cricket Australia, sacked for tweeting about the Tasmanian government's abortion facilities; to economist Maya Forstater, dismissed from the thinktank Centre for Global Development for tweeting about trans women that "men cannot turn into women" – employers are increasingly policing the views of workers.

It's a trend that should worry us. Employees should be judged by their ability to do their job, not their political views. To accept that employees should be sacked for their political views is a dangerous path.

Baker's case is more complicated. For someone who is a public face of an organisation, as a presenter is, the image they project is, to a degree, part of their job. "Protecting the organisation's image" has become one of the excuses for sacking employees for their views expressed as private citizens. That trend should be resisted. Nevertheless, it's not unreasonable in certain cases for an organisation such as the BBC to consider the image of a presenter.

Baker's case is different, too, because he was not sacked for his views but for an error of judgment. My view is that a tweet, racist but not designed to be so, which was deleted, and for which he apologised (albeit half-heartedly and disingenuously to begin with) should not be a sacking offence.

All of us make mistakes, even egregious ones. Those who recognise their mistakes, and try to correct them, should be treated with a degree of generosity.

At the time of his sacking, he'd only made disingenuous apologies. I'm not sure how his later full contrition should factor employment decisions that had already been made.

I'm also not sure why it would have been preferrable for BBC to keep him thus sending the message "it's okay, we all 'accidentally' tweet out well known racist tropes at some point."

[garbon]

But didn't he apologize for those? A quick search says that he did. What would it advance if he apologizes for them once again, now some 11-16 years later?

Sorry - only just saw this. From memory, and I could be wrong, the palace apologised for the nazi outfit and made that story go away. I don't think he ever did, because royals don't really speak. I don't think anyone commented on the recording of him in the army.

I feel like you do need to address saying stuff like that - and it's entirely fine to apologise, and say that you've learned from that mistake, you've improved and you would never do that again. But I'm not entirely comfortable with just skating past it.

So looks like it was mixed. There was a printed statement in the 1st person with a non-apology apology printed in Telegraph about the Nazi outfit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/world/europe/prince-harry-apologizes-for-nazi-costume.html

In the statement, Harry said he was "very sorry if I caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone."

"It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize," he added.

And army bit was apologised for but only by the palace.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7822574.stm

A statement from St James's Palace, regarding the term "Paki", said: "Prince Harry fully understands how offensive this term can be, and is extremely sorry for any offence his words might cause.
"However, on this occasion three years ago, Prince Harry used the term without any malice and as a nickname about a highly popular member of his platoon.

"There is no question that Prince Harry was in any way seeking to insult his friend."

The statement continued: "Prince Harry used the term 'raghead' to mean Taleban or Iraqi insurgent."

I'd agree that as they continue on their media empire building, it would make sense for him to revisit these moments, give a sincere apology with an eye towards how he had grown.

In fact, it would just underline what he has said about he really didn't fully understand the racial issues until marrying Meghan.

[Sheilbh]

I think that's fair though would add that in our age of social media, your average person also has the possibility of their message propogating far wider than they could have ever expected. I think of things like that woman walking her dog in Central Park who never expected her racist words/actions to become internationally known.

That's a really fair on example and I wonder if that's the impact of the individual (and we can definitely impute bad intent with that woman). A white woman in Central Park calling the police on a black man and saying he's harassing her is going to have an impact and she knows it will which is precisely why she made that threat.

Except that wasn't actually his first apology, more like his first crafted one.

Fair - I was just going off what was in that article and what I'd understood and thought his apologies seemed more fulsome than normal - especially in comparison with the examples from Harry above of "apologising if he caused any offence or embarassment".

I'm not sure that's really a distinction with difference here as he's a media personality paid for by the BBC. Going back to Shola's statement it was about media coverage of Meghan and one example was what a BBC broadcaster tweeted.

I sort of agree - I was just correcting the description of journalist. But thinking about it I wonder if it is more severe coming from a journalist because - especially with the BBC as opposed to a hack for the Sun or whatever - it's sort of taken seriously by people. I think that message is really bad and as you say he is a broadcaster on the BBC, but it would have, perhaps, even a worse tone/impact if it was someone like Kirsty Wark posting it.

Edit:

I'd agree that as they continue on their media empire building, it would make sense for him to revisit these moments, give a sincere apology with an eye towards how he had grown.

In fact, it would just underline what he has said about he really didn't fully understand the racial issues until marrying Meghan.

Yeah - I mean I think those are brilliant examples of insincere/shallow sounding apologies. And I think ultimately the sincerity would partly need to be an issue for British Asians because I think that word has a particular weight and context here - while it's not offensive or intended to be offensive elsewhere in the same way.

[Sheilbh]

The Society of Editors has had quite an interesting generational, gender and platform split in their response to this story:

Society of Editors in turmoil over its Meghan statement
Some board members 'deeply angry' about claim racism was not a factor in coverage of Duchess of Sussex
Archie Bland
Tue 9 Mar 2021 23.14 GMT

First published on Tue 9 Mar 2021 19.23 GMT

The media industry body the Society of Editors was in turmoil on Tuesday night with some members of its board said to be "deeply angry" over a statement it put out claiming that racism was never a factor in coverage of the Duchess of Sussex.

More than 160 journalists of colour and the editors of the Guardian, Financial Times and HuffPost have objected to the statement, written by the SoE's executive director, Ian Murray, which argued that Meghan's claims that parts of the media were racist were "not acceptable".

Following the backlash, discussions were under way over the publication of a new statement intended to address the concerns. But the Guardian understands the SoE's board was split over the wording of that statement, with a dispute over the phrasing of a possible apology and some urgently demanding a clear change in tone.

There were calls for an emergency meeting to address the decision to release the statement, which one member said was "deeply unfortunate".

The SoE draws members from nearly 400 national and regional outlets and says that while its members "are as different as ... the communities and audiences they serve", they "share the values that matter".

The board split came after 168 journalists, writers and broadcasters of colour from across the British media wrote an open letter describing the SoE's initial statement as "laughable" proof of "an institution and an industry in denial".

In the interview, Meghan summarised the couple's view of much of the British media by saying: "From the beginning of our relationship, they were so attacking and incited so much racism."

Murray said on Monday that the claims were "not acceptable" and made without "supporting evidence", insisting that the UK media "has a proud record of calling out racism". In a piece headlined "UK media not bigoted" he said the tone of tabloid coverage was simply driven by "holding a spotlight up to those in positions of power, celebrity or influence".

The signatories of the open letter – including staff and contributors at the Guardian, Metro, Grazia and Channel 4 – say they "deplore and reject" the SoE's defence, which they argued "shows a wilful ignorance [of] not just the discriminatory treatment of Meghan ... but that of other people from an ethnic minority background".

The letter concluded: "The Society of Editors should have used the comments by the Sussexes to start an open and constructive discussion about the best way to prevent racist coverage in future ... The blanket refusal to accept there is any bigotry in the British press is laughable, does a disservice to journalists of colour and shows an institution and an industry in denial."

The row reflects a fierce debate over the extent of the media's culpability in the issues raised by Harry and Meghan, with the Daily Mail most frequently cited. Articles raised as evidence of discriminatory treatment include those saying that Meghan is "(almost) straight outta Compton" and has "exotic" DNA.

Murray's statement was immediately the subject of controversy on social media and in private. A tweet from Press Gazette linking to the statement was viewed more than 13m times, the trade publication said, with most of more than 3,000 replies disagreeing with the defence of the industry.

Earlier, the organisation's board was divided on whether it was an appropriate reaction. "It's incredibly frustrating because that is far from a universal view in the media," one said. "It's tone-deaf."

The statement was not cleared with the board, although another member pointed out that statements were routinely issued without approval. "I don't think there was anything out of turn about this," they said.

The Guardian has requested an explanation for how the statement came to be published. Its editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, said: "Every institution in the United Kingdom is currently examining its own position on vital issues of race and the treatment of people of colour. As I have said before, the media must do the same. It must be much more representative and more self-aware."

Roula Khalaf, the editor of the Financial Times, also disagreed with the statement. "There is work to be done across all sectors in the UK to call out and challenge racism," she said. "The media has a critical role to play, and editors must ensure that our newsrooms and coverage reflect the societies we live in."

In a BBC interview on Tuesday, Murray defended the statement and reiterated that he felt negative coverage of Harry and Meghan had been balanced by earlier positive coverage. He responded to the suggestion that the "straight outta Compton" headline was an example of the problem by saying: "I'm not au fait completely with areas of ... California."

On Twitter, the HuffPost UK editor, Jess Brammar, wrote: "I'm aware I won't make myself popular with my peers but I'm just going to stand up and say it: I don't agree with statement from my industry body that it is 'untrue that sections of UK press were bigoted'." Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, the editor of gal-dem, said the SoE "simply deny there's any issue".

Others suggested that the statement suggested a failure to grapple with the underlying structural issues that some have identified as a factor in coverage that goes well beyond the royal couple. "Pains me to say that my industry has been in denial about its institutional racism for all the two decades I've been in it," said Sathnam Sanghera, a columnist at the Times.

The Society of Editors did not respond to a request for comment.

They've now updated their statement - still not quite sure they're there:

[Tamas]

  These and the royal press releases are just terrible.


I am finding these and the discussions around the whole thing quite illuminating (as one of these articles you shared Sheilbh also pointing out). About racism in Britain, I mean. Seems like it is done in a very British way - more of a silent contempt hidden behind aloofness toward the issue, that slips out at the edges like the tabloids. As opposed to the more "direct" way in America.

[Sheilbh]

These and the royal press releases are just terrible.


I am finding these and the discussions around the whole thing quite illuminating (as one of these articles you shared Sheilbh also pointing out). About racism in Britain, I mean. Seems like it is done in a very British way - more of a silent contempt hidden behind aloofness toward the issue, that slips out at the edges like the tabloids. As opposed to the more "direct" way in America.

I don't think it makes much difference for people who are experiencing it (with the big difference that the UK is generally a less lethal society than the US) and I think I'd put the tabloids at the centre of British life in a way however much people like me might disdain them - and it allows people like me plausible deniability. But I think Larch's point around Raheem Sterling is spot on and Sterling has started to actually point out the difference in how young black and white footballers are covered - there's also been a recent study of commentators in football using the cliches of "pace and power" about black players v  intelligence, control, technical skill about white players. It is everywhere, it permeates things - and what I've highlighted there is about black people but I think there are similar but different bigotries about British Asians etc. And it's there in large part because we consume it. I've always had mixed views on the powers of the tabloids because I don't know how much impact they have in forming people's opinions rather than reflecting them entertainingly in a product we want to buy to feel outraged with, or at.

I think we are more American on this and I think there's a US v continental Europe split emerging on race. I think we are influenced hugely by American discourse - which is more advanced, perhaps unsurprisingly given that the UK as a whole is about as diverse as one of the Dakotas - and that shapes our approach. I think that is in contrast to parts of Europe. The FT data viz guy sort of touched on this in terms statistics around ethnicity and covid - in the UK and the US there are relatively developed stats (a little bit better in the UK because of a single healthcare provider), but in much of Europe it's banned for the state to collect race based statistics so it's unknown. Even where it isn't banned, for example in Germany, it's a state based issue and there's been recent stories that only two states have collected this data (I think Berlin and Hamburg - but I could be wrong there was a German journalist's thread about this recently on Twitter). And I do think there is an emerging difference between a sort of data and theory/identity politics based approach in the US and countries like the UK that are very influenced by the US v the sort of principles based/officially colour blind approach in parts of Europe.

On the wider point around the royal family though I thought Marina Hyde was really good and particularly enjoyed her examples that what the British people want and have always wanted isn't a fairytale or dull dutiful Dutch style royals, but drama and villains which is possibly part of the power of the tabloids:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/09/harry-meghan-royal-family-hrh

But we know all this. Perhaps the last truth some dare not speak about royal dysfunction is their own addiction to it. Speaking my own truth, I note I am writing another column about the drama – the second in three weeks. And for all the outrage yesterday, there was a sense of high excitement to many people's engagement with the latest bombshells, as they condemned/supported the dramatis personae thrice hourly on social media. I was reminded of the woman I met in Windsor the day before Meghan and Harry's wedding, who was one of those camping out to see the happy couple. "It's terrible what they've done to her," she fumed to me of the tabloids, three of which she had bought that morning and was working her outraged way through.

There's plenty of precedent here. Contrary to the pompous way in which it is often discussed, people loved the abdication crisis. The whole drama gave them quite the lift in otherwise depressing times. I've quoted a passage from Evelyn Waugh's diaries here before, but let's wheel it out again: "The Simpson crisis has been a great delight to everyone. At Maidie's nursing home they report a pronounced turn for the better in all adult patients. There can seldom have been an event that has caused so much general delight and so little pain."

The shock death of George VI was also luxuriated in, according to the Bloomsbury Group diarist Frances Partridge, who noted "bulletins of thunderous gravity and richly revelled-in emotional unbuttoning".

"The whole effect is of ham acting," she continued, "and a lot of nonsense is being talked about the relief necessary to our tortured feelings. What the public is feeling is a sense of great drama, not at all unpleasant."

My own long-held belief is that a sense of great drama is what people truly want from the royal family. It's not what people SAY they want, of course. People say they want dutiful ribbon-cutters who speak in platitudes, and only biannually. They say they want fist-gnawingly dull copy about how the Queen is wearing a brooch she wore on her honeymoon to this or that engagement, and what that might mean. They say they want 1,500 words of torpid and painfully uneventful bollocks about William and Kate boarding an easyJet flight. But what they really want is high drama, pure mess, grotesque villains and a side to take.

And Hilary Mantel's piece on royal bodies from when Kate was pregnant:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

Antoinette as a royal consort was a gliding, smiling disaster, much like Diana in another time and another country. But Kate Middleton, as she was, appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished. When it was announced that Diana was to join the royal family, the Duke of Edinburgh is said to have given her his approval because she would 'breed in some height'. Presumably Kate was designed to breed in some manners. She looks like a nicely brought up young lady, with 'please' and 'thank you' part of her vocabulary. But in her first official portrait by Paul Emsley, unveiled in January, her eyes are dead and she wears the strained smile of a woman who really wants to tell the painter to bugger off. One critic said perceptively that she appeared 'weary of being looked at'. Another that the portrait might pass muster as the cover of a Catherine Cookson novel: an opinion I find thought-provoking, as Cookson's simple tales of poor women extricating themselves from adverse circumstances were for twenty years, according to the Public Lending Right statistics, the nation's favourite reading. Sue Townsend said of Diana that she was 'a fatal non-reader'. She didn't know the end of her own story. She enjoyed only the romances of Barbara Cartland. I'm far too snobbish to have read one, but I assume they are stories in which a wedding takes place and they all live happily ever after. Diana didn't see the possible twists in the narrative. What does Kate read? It's a question.

Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character. She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture. Diana was capable of transforming herself from galumphing schoolgirl to ice queen, from wraith to Amazon. Kate seems capable of going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation. When her pregnancy became public she had been visiting her old school, and had picked up a hockey stick and run a few paces for the camera. BBC News devoted a discussion to whether a pregnant woman could safely put on a turn of speed while wearing high heels. It is sad to think that intelligent people could devote themselves to this topic with earnest furrowings of the brow, but that's what discourse about royals comes to: a compulsion to comment, a discourse empty of content, mouthed rather than spoken. And in the same way one is compelled to look at them: to ask what they are made of, and is their substance the same as ours.

I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn't have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren't they interesting? Aren't they nice to look at? Some people find them endearing; some pity them for their precarious situation; everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it's still a cage.

[Maladict]

He claims he was well aware of the racist trope, it just didn't cross his mind when choosing it. I don't see how that would be beyond credible, sometimes people just don't think it through.
He's used chimps in suits to mock royals before, maybe that would go some way in explaining it. An honest mistake still seems plausible to me.

Actually that's what he claimed on 10 May after being fired and after angry tweeting for a couple days. He first said it would never occur to him such a connection as his 'mind not diseased.'

Now, I'm not sure what he said in his LBC interview (from 9 May when he was fired) but based on his tweets (which caused the storm and where is 'apologies' were composed) what I see is someone who posted a racist trope, took it down claiming ignorance, got testy for a couple days/was fired and then only once it was clear the story still had legs came out with a full, unequivocal apology.

I'm still unsure how I feel about the punishment. I feel this article sums up my stance better than I could.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/12/as-danny-baker-found-we-live-in-an-age-of-damnation-not-forgiveness

Do these consequences include being sacked? In most cases, no. It's becoming increasingly common for employers to sack employees for comments made not in the workplace, or as part of their job, but as private citizens. From academic Steven Salaita, whose appointment was blocked by the University of Illinois for tweets about Gaza deemed antisemitic; to Angela Williamson, an employee of Cricket Australia, sacked for tweeting about the Tasmanian government's abortion facilities; to economist Maya Forstater, dismissed from the thinktank Centre for Global Development for tweeting about trans women that "men cannot turn into women" – employers are increasingly policing the views of workers.

It's a trend that should worry us. Employees should be judged by their ability to do their job, not their political views. To accept that employees should be sacked for their political views is a dangerous path.

Baker's case is more complicated. For someone who is a public face of an organisation, as a presenter is, the image they project is, to a degree, part of their job. "Protecting the organisation's image" has become one of the excuses for sacking employees for their views expressed as private citizens. That trend should be resisted. Nevertheless, it's not unreasonable in certain cases for an organisation such as the BBC to consider the image of a presenter.

Baker's case is different, too, because he was not sacked for his views but for an error of judgment. My view is that a tweet, racist but not designed to be so, which was deleted, and for which he apologised (albeit half-heartedly and disingenuously to begin with) should not be a sacking offence.

All of us make mistakes, even egregious ones. Those who recognise their mistakes, and try to correct them, should be treated with a degree of generosity.

At the time of his sacking, he'd only made disingenuous apologies. I'm not sure how his later full contrition should factor employment decisions that had already been made.

I'm also not sure why it would have been preferrable for BBC to keep him thus sending the message "it's okay, we all 'accidentally' tweet out well known racist tropes at some point."

I suppose it comes down to whether or not you believe the sincerity of his, admittedly much later, full apology. He also didn't handle that part well, to be sure. But from what I've seen of him over the years, and various progressive/lefty types coming to his defense, I'm inclined to believe him. YMMV, of course.

And I don't think you should necessarily sack someone for making a mistake, especially a first offence. I'm sure the twitterverse has combed through his online past, finding nothing odious as far as I know.

[Tamas]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/10/two-teenagers-placed-in-foster-care-after-weight-loss-plan-fails

Just what the hell. The civil court judge highlights that the kids are in a loving family and very polite and nicely brought up, but since the parents didn't manage to make them lose weight, they are being placed into long term foster care.