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Is Our Foreign Secretary Just Making It Up As He Goes Along?

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Ellipsis | 13:59 Thu 18th Jun 2020 | News
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Is our Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, fit for purpose when he knows so little about "taking the knee" that he thinks it's to do with Game of Thrones, which features an unrelated concept called "bending the knee"? Bear in mind that he is the Foreign Secretary, the USA is one of our biggest allies and this is a key issue in the USA right now as well as here.

To quote Raab: "I don't know, maybe it's got a broader history, but it seems to be taken from the Game of Thrones. It feels to me like a symbol of subjugation and subordination rather than one of liberation and emancipation."

"I don't know", "it seems", "it feels to me" ... how can he be so clueless?

* https://talkradio.co.uk/news/dominic-raab-responds-criticism-over-game-thrones-comment-20061833449
* https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53093244
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If he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he might be better keeping his mouth shut and letting people think he’s a fool, rather than opening it and removing all doubt, as the adage goes.
14:24 Thu 18th Jun 2020
So much is going wrong for the left lately, you can understand them clutching at straws. (no matter how pathetic)
Don't often agree with him but on this he's quite right. Why should we be bullied into a load of nonsense to please a load of protesters?
What it is, is a nonsense. Raab's description seems reasonable. As for the USoA bring an ally, I doubt the population there is all of one mind, and stating an opinion isn't going to stop them being an ally.
Totally agree that no one should be bullied into anything, he'd have been better stopping at 'I don't know'.

I'm sure he isn't the only one to confuse the references and there's no shame in that.

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If you're Foreign Secretary, I think there is shame in it. He clearly hasn't got a clue what's going on.

It seems that most people who take part in AB's News section are more clued up than Raab.

It's that wicked leftie Julia Hartley-Brewer who has exposed Raab as a buffoon. As that other well-known liberal Piers Morgan said, “Unbelievable…The Government continues to shame us to the world.”
How many on here know its origins?
17.21, A very small Irishman named Micheal .
//
Bear in mind that he is the Foreign Secretary, the USA is one of our biggest allies and this is a key issue in the USA right now as well as here. //

Yeah really? This is total barrel scraping if you really think that Raab is not really concerned of it's origins.

I am more concerned that according to a new book a certain President of our ' biggest allies' was totally ignorant that we were a nuclear armed nation, independent, and could unilaterally launch.
If a man i/c of one of the most powerful nations on earth is unaware who possesses nuclear weapons I believe that is a little more disconcerting than not keeping up with the telly.
From the BBC. Just has to be true then.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53090938
If Bolton said, it must be true. He was appointed to high public office, after all.
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Yes, retro, we are unfortunate enough to have idiots in power on both sides of the Atlantic. My question was about our idiots, not theirs.

> This is total barrel scraping if you really think that Raab is not really concerned of it's origins.

He proved he's not. He hadn't got a clue. Game of Thrones ... where did he get that from?

Hartley-Brewer didn't asked Raab the meaning of taking the knee. He volunteered that all for himself. And then he used his wrong understanding of the meaning to justify why he wouldn't do it! Unbelievable.

I don't expect Raab to take the knee. I just expect our Foreign Secretary to have a clue what's going on in the world.
Must admit I'd never heard of it's origins until the BLM movement. I thought it was to do with the way GF died but then discovered through Twitter, it was linked to American sport and Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the national anthem in 2016.

The thing is no one on this planet know everything and I learn new things every day on here and other platforms. It was only today that I saw a tweet with a picture of MLK 'taking the knee'. I thought it was a fairly new concept but this showed that it dates further back.
Frankly me dear I don't give a. What seems to be sooooo important to some is trivia to others. Are you suggesting that the Foreign Secretary is unaware of the Chauvin/Floyd tragedy and the ensuing mayhem and violence in the United States and outside his office. Watching people gesturing and, learning it's origins, are the least of his priorities at the moment.
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I'm suggesting that the Foreign Secretary should have a clue what's going on in the world and, if he hasn't, he should have the political agility to keep his mouth shut and not make a total fool of himself. He answered a question he wasn't asked, and got it badly wrong.
//take the knee//

What a ridiculous expression.
At George Floyds funeral they played and sang Amazing Grace, not realising John Newton was a ..........slave trader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace

\\He deserted the navy to visit Mary "Polly" Catlett, a family friend with whom he had fallen in love.[8] After enduring humiliation for deserting,[a] he was traded as crew to a slave ship.
He began a career in slave trading.[b]

you would think if blm want to be taken seriously they would check things.
I don't think he made a fool of himself, at all.
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> What a ridiculous expression.

It describes the action, and pre-dates Colin Kaepernick. For example, here's a boxer in trouble taking the knee while the ref counts in a 2014 fight:

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/11/23/1416725915372_Image_galleryImage_MACAU_NOVEMBER_23_Manny_P.JPG
It's a feather in his cap that he didn't know about this kneeling BS in my opinion.
Never seen Game of Thrones, so don't know about that bit. What I do know is that kneeling before someone has been for centuries an admission of lower rank or submission. One knelt to one's feudal lord in the middle ages, I believe. I will kneel to God and my sovereign, but I'd need a bit of help go get up again these days, no-one else. He was quite right if he said it was an act of submission.

If I wish to show respect to someone, my cultural habit is to stand silently and bow my head - which is what I do when a funeral cortege passes by. I do not respect the B.L.M movement which has seized on a genuine injustice and used it to further its own aims. The backlash is already beginning and it will be nasty, I'm afraid.

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