Is this Cameron's Sepp Blatter moment?

[Bryn]

A voice of sanity, albeit tinged with religion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=ONjix3M1ehY

[Lateralthinking1]

Thanks Bryn - and absolutely. He has my "vote". I believe he speaks for the overwhelming majority. It is for me the common sense, moral and dignified view.

[Lateralthinking1]

I do have a few more slightly meandering thoughts.

The Clarkson moments which went directly into millions of homes took place in a studio where those targeted couldn't immediately answer back. Had strikers been there, the tone of the piece is likely to have been very different with the programme being reduced, even further, to an unedifying scrap. That they weren't there suggests to me that those involved were very careful to ensure that they couldn't be accused of a breach of the peace. So the item was only broadcast from the strong position of knowing how to defend themselves from suffering, say, the consequences of a Bill Grundy. To me, it was both low and cynical.

People will seek to politicize the tram incident. The woman was either speaking up for the "real white Britain", albeit poorly "because she was working class" - flippin 'eck, can the working class speak? - or she was a horrible racist for shouting abuse, hence she needs to be verbally abused herself and "did you notice she was like a mental person, you could see it in her face, the cow". On the first, I'm sorry but one gets weary of the privileged few who miss something like Belfast and want some other confrontation. As for the second, that isn't the stance of someone who is genuinely upset. It is more like a version of the kind of fieriness and opportunism one might associate with someone like Edwina. Any chance to be on some form of television screen.

Partially what we see here is an alternative side to the riots which hit Croydon hard. There we had a multicultural anger at a perceived fault line between the haves and have nots. Actually it was more complex than that summary but that was a significant part of its essence. Here we have what emerges from people when that is clamped down on and someone triggers what is happening underneath. Tensions caused by Governments' policies which have placed many in a state of fear and anger. They are generally accommodated in normal life but are inclined to surface the tougher it gets, particularly when the unexpected happens.

Croydon has experienced one of the most rapid changes to racial mix in the country. I believe it has placed extra pressures on all. It takes time for all people to adjust. More time than has been permitted here. Mainly people want it to work and for the most part they should be applauded for managing it so well. But I am sure what we are seeing here is a dialogue about poverty that many think is about race. It is about money worries essentially, particularly in the future. New Addington is interesting because it has always been Labour, the BNP do tend to come in second there, but for the first time in its history one of the wards last time went Conservative which I think tells us much about deep desperation. I don't mean that in an anti-Conservative sense but rather in that it is just something that would have always been unthinkable. People are running out of options.

So that, I think, is the vulnerability really and why a sad woman was perceived as having power. Mental illness can often be unpretty and strangely that can denote to some a peculiar strength. But how strong is someone who has had depression for 16 years, who has been in psychiatric care in leafy Purley, who puts herself and her child in an unpopular position with many and who must be frightened by the media coverage, any legal implications and new childcare worries? Not strong at all. She is to be pitied, I think, as a victim. I really hope that she is given adequate support. In less than 16 days, the vast majority will have completely forgotten about what happened. That has to be right and for the best. Everyone has harder battles to face than the one with her.

[Mr Pee]

She is to be pitied, I think, as a victim

Nonsense.

She should be prosecuted as a racist, foul mouthed bigot.

[Mr Pee]

Because I've seen the reaction.

A bit like commenting on the reviews of a CD when you haven't listened to it then......

[John Skelton]

A bit like commenting on the reviews of a CD when you haven't listened to it then......

I think you and other contributors are missing Pilchardman's point about this. That's not saying the woman was in the right or in the wrong, her behaviour was tolerable or intolerable; it's a commentary on the desirability of what Pilchardman called in #81 on this thread "trial by YouTube and Twitter." Or in full:

After the incident, as I understand it, she was escorted home by transport police and given a telling off.

It wasn't until weeks later when the clip went on YouTube that the authorities seemed to think it required further action. The whole thing seems to me to smack of trial by YouTube and Twitter. The speculation about her mental health, and the publication of the clip, are breeches of hers and her child's privacy. I think the episode is a sad reflection on modern society.

Surely that's not hard to understand? Exactly "because I've seen the reaction." It's a commentary on the reaction, not the incident, and a commentary on exactly the kind of condemnations based on a YouTube viewing this thread has become. Whether you agree or not, that's quite different to what is being attributed here to Pilchardman. That's not 'defending' the woman's actions (or 'condemning' them) because it's the practice of doing either after the event based on social media that is being criticised.

[Pilchardman]

A bit like commenting on the reviews of a CD when you haven't listened to it then......

I could quite legitimately comment on reviews of a CD without having heard the CD. Someone might make a racist remark about a CD, and I could quite correctly say: "that is a deplorable, racist remark" whether or not I had heard the CD.

Thanks John, by the way.

[scottycelt]

Mental illness is a crime then. Lovely.

No, I assume you are being sarcastic ... no harm in that, I use that tool myself on occasion, but you must know I didn't mean and post that.

What I meant and posted was that a breach of the peace/public disorder can certainly be considered a crime and that is going further than simply 'causing offence' There is also the experience of the child to be taken into consideration, surely? You talk of protecting the weak, which should be the purpose of most law, but if you refuse to watch the clip you may be unaware of this important associated factor.

Any extenuating circumstances in the case of a perpetrator are a matter for the judge in court to decide after a crime has been deemed to have been committed and if and when a person has been subsequently charged and found guilty.I don't know anything about the case apart from the clip itself.

I also still don't see the connection with this palpably distressing event for some of those present and the recent case of the oaf, Clarkson.

[Pilchardman]

Against my better judgement I have now watched the video of the tram woman. I learned nothing that isn't in the reports.

Here it is, for those who wish to see it (contains strong language and racist terms of abuse):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i47HoiM0Au8&feature=player_embedded

(I'm not embedding it, since the woman's child appears in the still frame).

[ahinton]

We seem well and truly to have departed from all connections with David Cameron and Sepp Blatter here, do we not?...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

far from a Sepp Blatter moment on this view:

Most of the population will remember only Clarkson’s outburst about strikers rather than the exact reason they were striking. Instead of the front page story being about pensions it was about Clarkson, some might think the unions were protesting against Jeremy. Dave couldn’t have planned it better…

guess who came to dinner ......... who is an [ex?] PR man ... and who will get a knighthood for services [to broad casting]

[John Skelton]

It's only a joke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0i0RXMvzMs&feature=share

(Some may find the above offensive. Some may not. Some may not care).

[ahinton]

far from a Sepp Blatter moment on this view:

Most of the population will remember only Clarkson’s outburst about strikers rather than the exact reason they were striking. Instead of the front page story being about pensions it was about Clarkson, some might think the unions were protesting against Jeremy. Dave couldn’t have planned it better…

guess who came to dinner ......... who is an [ex?] PR man ... and who will get a knighthood for services [to broad casting]

A long-termist cynic could perhaps take that idea one stage farther by suggesting that there was a pre-planned timed conspiracy between Brown as he commenced his Chancership and the opposition at the time, that would give Brown ample time to see through a screwing up of private sector pensions before his government lost a future election to be replaced by that opposition who could then take a pot shot at public sector ones in the certainty that, by then, the two sectors would be at one anothers' throats with the former being able to claim that the latter's deal was already far better than their own and to wonder what all the fuss is about - i.e. doing what's now proposed to public sector pensions might prove to be substantially easier if you set those two sectors against one another first.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

..er the only non credible element of that thinking ahinton is that Broon could engage in anything so cooperative and impossibly long term .... on the other hand if it involved any kind of denial or masking of his complicity he's yer man ....

[scottycelt]

I feel it's just possible that it's not only contributors on one side of the tram debate who are missing any point here.

Obviously the police had more evidence to go on after seeing the video clip of the incident, whether one is a fan of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook or any other type of 'social media'.

That's the simple reality, like it or loathe it.

Having said that, I do appreciate the dangers highlighted by Pilchardman and John, especially as it's quite possible any similar video clips shown on YouTube could well turn out to be mischievous hoaxes.

Anyway, I'm just been told it's time for some Xmas shopping ...