Agree Or Disagree?

[merylpeep]

TONY PARSON writes in THE SUN newspaper: WHEN I see an ice cream van run by a woman in a full-veil, full-body burka, I no longer recognise the country I grew up in. Can this really be England in the 21st century? It looks like a scene from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. It looks like the Dark Ages in some fundamentalist state in the Middle East. But this is Dewsbury, Yorkshire, in the summer of 2015. In the bright summer sunshine, a little boy approaches one of the most evocative symbols of the season. The name on the side of the van, Rossi’s ice cream, will ring a ding-dong bell in a million hearts who remember the name from their childhood. But I can’t look upon this image with anything but despair. This is where it leads to — our mindless, unthinking tolerance for any and every culture that chose to migrate here. This is where it leads to — our very British reluctance to appear racist, or judgmental or xenophobic. Ghettos have been built on British tolerance. There are ghettos in Yorkshire, Birmingham and leafy High Wycombe. There are ghettos in East London where nobody thinks it remarkable that the wife of the President of the United States can tour a school where almost every girl is wearing the hijab headdress. Everyone dressing the same is NOT diversity. It’s a ghetto. That is the country we have created. We have invited millions in, given them British passports, lavished them with British benefits, made them recipients of British freedoms that our fathers and grandfathers fought and died for. And too often we are rewarded for our kindness with hatred. It is no coincidence that the ice cream lady in a burka was flogging her creamy wares in one of the hotbeds of Islamic madness. It is almost exactly ten years since 7/7 and the mass slaughter on London transport by four suicide bombers. That atrocity was planned from the Dewsbury home of ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan. And Dewsbury was also the home of wicked Talha Asmal, Britain’s youngest suicide bomber, who ran off to join Islamic State and detonated a car full of explosives. “A sweet-natured, friendly kid,” says the former Labour MP Shahid Malik — a spectacularly insensitive thing to say about someone who has just committed a terrorist act of mass murder. But that is how isolated sections of the Muslim community have become. That is how deluded, self-pitying and plain wrong they consistently get it. At 17, Talha Asmal was old enough to know EXACTLY what he was getting into with the bearded butchers of Islamic State. What the hell is wrong with Dewsbury, a town of 60,000 souls that has inflicted such a mountain of misery on this country and the world? And what is wrong with US that we have allowed these wretched, hateful ghettos to thrive in our own country?
We should not be surprised that three Muslim women in what are described as “very unhappy arranged marriages” choose to take their nine innocent children to live under the fanatical rule of Islamic State.Because we have not insisted on integration from the people who have come here. We have not asked for loyalty. We have not even asked for a little bit of bloody gratitude. Now we reap the whirlwind of all our kind-hearted British tolerance. Now we see we have given entire English towns and city neighbourhoods away to people who have not the slightest inclination to integrate with the rest of us. In one area of Dewsbury, 97 per cent of the population is Muslim. Ninety seven per cent! Does that statistic astound you? It astounds me. David Cameron says that UK Muslims need to do more in the fight on terror. No, Prime Minister, UK Muslims who are totally separated from the rest of British life need to decide if they really want to be a part of this country. Or not. Britain is a wonderful nation. We are ALL lucky to be living here. But ghettos are an affront to everything the British love and they have absolutely no place in British life....

[merylpeep]

...This little island is not big enough to accommodate ghettos.

And so a beautiful English summer’s day is blessed with the absurd sight of an ice cream lady in a burka.

Ooh, I’ll have a cornet with a large flake and death to the infidels, please.

[Old_Geezer]

Sorry. Is there a succinct version ?

[Zacs-Master]

I think the ghettos are already here. Dewsbury having several.

[1ozzy]

;-) Old_Geezer

[237SJ]

Well, there are certainly places that I have no inclination to visit. My aunty lives in Luton and what a dump that`s become.

[237SJ]

And my Mum originally came from Hounslow. Another dump - she got the shock of her life when I took her back there after 50 years of living in Devon. My opticians is there - it`s like walking down the street in Somalia.

[sandyRoe]

Poor people usually live in the cheapest housing. And as there's thought to be safety in numbers people from the Indian sub continent might feel more secure living among their kith and kin.
Could these two facts help to explain these 'ghettos'?

[Bathsheba]

I have to admit that's a brave article by Tony Parsons,....thanks for posting it meryl.
It's certainly given me pause for thought.

Baths
x x

[Zacs-Master]

Let's not forget that Tony P is the man who claimed that UKIP was thriving.

[mushroom25]

//Poor people usually live in the cheapest housing. //

i assume from that comment that you've never been to high wycombe, sandy?

[237SJ]

Southall - that`s another one. I remember when my flatmate and I drove through it on the way to pick up a new flatmate in Ealing. We were both from the 'provinces' and he said "My God, is this England"? That was 30 years ago. Mind you, it`s a cheap place for a good curry..

[mikey4444]

Meryl....are you able to summarise your rather long rant pease ? And perhaps include a couple of paragraphs.

[mushroom25]

Mikey, it's not meyl's rant, but Tony Parsons. Which, unless you pay to subscribe to the sun, you wouldn't even be able to see.

[Bathsheba]

@ Mikey,...it's not actually meryl's rant,...I believe it to be a word for word copy of Tony Parson's article.
I managed to read it ok.

x x

[Bathsheba]

mushroom beat me to it ^ ^ ^

[steg]

When I was a kid the ice cream vans were run by Italians here. Italians were associated with the Mafia and fascists. in Glasgow they even had the "ice cream wars"
May be its some thing in the ice cream

[whiskeryron]

// Agree Or Disagree?// AGREE

[Peter Pedant]

OG I agree

at work we were only allowed business propositions on one side of A4 and you can see why - my eyes glaze over when I see something like this

[Peter Pedant]

// I managed to read it ok. //

well it dont read like a Hardy novel
but it has some elements in common - unmerited predicted death and destruction for a start...

the copy and paste has stripped out the paragraph structure which is esential to following a logical argument ....

[mikey4444]

Well, as it was in The Sun that I wouldn't have seen it, no.

But its still a rant, whoever first said it.