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Telling tales.

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LucyThomas5 | 11:54 Thu 05th Feb 2009 | News
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Regarding the Carol Thatcher incident.

In Nazi Germany, children were encouraged to inform on their parents, neighbours were encouraged to inform on their neighbours and work colleagues on colleagues and so on.

Do we really want to get into a situation where every remark in private can have huge consequences. The clue is in the word private. We are all entitled to free speech in this country and whilst people should avoid offending others to whom they are talking, It is another step to be offended on behalf of others. That is also extremely patronising.

If every 'offensive' term uttered during a private conversation resulted in dismissal there would be nobody left in my workplace. The same is probablty true of many other workplaces.

This is a very worrying development.
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People only call it "telling tales" when they don't think the offense is serious.

Is it "telling tales" to inform the Police that you've seen your neighbour burying a body in his garden at midnight?

This was NOT a private conversation it was a loudly made remark at a workplace in front of a dozen people.

I don't know where you work but where I work racism in the workplace is not tolerated and rightly so.

Also she's not been dismissed she can work on other programs.

But as she's refused to appologise to the people on the One Show the BBC has decided it would be inappropriate for her to continue to work on that show
The government is encouraging us all to inform on our friends, relatives and neighbours who we suspect are fiddling the system.

I have been offended 'on behalf of others' because I don't like people assuming that I have the same mindset as them and will find their racist or sexist jokes amusing.

Of course, what you and others have failed to understand is the overwhelming likelihood that no-one 'informed' on Carol Thatcher. They just talked about it.

The vast majority of people who heard the daughter of a former PM say something that others in the room took objection to would mention it in conversation. Either to a mate or a collague or anyone you happened to be chatting to. From that, words gets around, bosses find out, people are asked to apologise.

The alternative is more worrying and more restrictive - that is, forbidding someone from discussing any conversation with someone who wasn't in the room. Who does that?
I listened to the Jeremy Vine radio show yesterday and was quite appalled at Carol Thatcher's spokesperson.

Anybody who is interested in this should listen to it on the BBC iplayer.

LucyThomas5

The Daily Mail has expanded on the story.

Apparently there were 12 people in the room when Ms Thatcher allegedly referred to Nadal "knocking out that g******g".

The report states that Jo Brand left in disgust and Adrian Chiles had a go at her.

She laughed it off, and this is the key bit - someone complained, and members of the production team said they were not comfortable working with her.

In that respect it wasn't really a 'private conversation'. She was still at work. She was with her colleagues.

She was invited to offer an apology and declined.

I don't know what else the BBC could've done in the circumstances...could you force the production team to work with her?

Not sure how that would've panned out.
Ethel

That's an excellent point. There's an arrogance on her behalf whereby she assumed that everyone within earshot were 'in the club'.

I wonder if she would've said it if a black member of the production team were present.

"Well at least he knocked out that g******g"

I doubt it very much.
The remark was not in Private, it was in a room of 12 people, several of whom were journalists. If that wasn't stupid enough, her refusal to apologise to the people she had offended clearly shows how standards of good manners have declined, and from a so called educated woman.

Rather than telling tales, Chiles informed his line manager what had occurred. Ms Thatcher was asked to apologise and refused. Her harsher treatment than Ross is because of her failure to apologise.

Has often happens when working relationship break down in a large organisation, she has been moved to other duties.

I don't know how long her contract is with the BBC, but I cannot see it being renewed when it is up. She is clearly a liability and has little regard for her working colleagues.
I wonder if she would've said it if a black member of the production team were present

God forbit if anyone offends a member of the 'Black Community'

How is it that these persons enjoy the sole right to be not offended?

But since there was not a Black member of the production team present to be offended, then surely she is only guilty of making an insensitive remark, rather than a racist remark.

The report states that Jo Brand left in disgust

If everone left when they were disgusted at some of the offensive and disgusting remarks that Jo Brand has been known to make, then she would have a very small audience.

I once laughed at some things she came out with, but in future I will not be paying to watch her act, buying any of her DVDs or even watching the TV when she appears on anything.

The 'Woman'? is nothing more than a hypocritical, liberal lefty, along with all other such white people who patronise Black persons in such a manner, thus doing more harm than good to race relations.

In fact they are destroying any good relations that exist. How many times have we heard that the ethnic minorities are in fact not offended, it has only been construed by Whites that have a political agenda to fulfill?
I wish Carol all the very best in her future endeavours. Just not on a television network paid for partly by black people/golliw0gs/savages.
Come off it - next we'll have people refusing to watch the BBC 'cos the're pro-Labour
I don't suppose all the digging at the BBC by the papers might be at all related with the Television interests of the owners of papers like Sun and the Mail.

No that's just daft
has there been any undisputed account of exactly what happened here? Sorry, I've lost track a bit. Any links appreciated (or a personal account, if any ABers happened to be there.)
BBC 1 's controller was on the Today program this morning you can hear it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_78 71000/7871584.stm
Its because we are trying to create multiculturalism that this problem even exists. Its now illegal to ever think out loud or the thought police will be after you. To create a crisis because of one uttered word shows the stupidity of it all. Even black people are bewildered how this has blown up out of all proportion. The BBC are the worst offenders in listening to tittle tattle and sacking her. If they were that worried about public opinion they would have sacked Jonathon Ross when they had the chance. But in that case the victim was a person who happened to be white.
Rov

SHE WASN'T SACKED!

She wouldn't appologise to the people shed offended like Adrian Chiles so they told her she couldn't work on that program any more.

Ross got a 3 month ban - she's been treated way more leniently.

White Victim syndrome is running wild here today!
Adrian Chiles and Jo Brand were offended by the remark, unbelievable!

They should be sacked for that reason alone

Tell you what Elvis

Go into your HR or personnel department at work and ask how many G0lliw0gs work for them.

Come back and tell us what happens!
thanks for that, Jake. I'm not entirely convinced by Ms Hunt; she seems to depend heavily on the rather legalistic fact that a conversation took place in a 'BBC space' and that because she was overheard, it can't have been a private conversation.

Oh, and that she didn't apologise the way Jonathan Ross did. But Ross caused deliberate offence to a particular person, on air. Thatcher abused an individual who hasn't even been named, and not on air. I'm not clear about who she should have apologised to - to Jo Brand for offending her delicate ears? To the BBC for offending Jo Brand? To the unknown player? I don't like Thatcher's language but I wonder if she isn't being made an example of much more than Ross was.
I think the "space" thing was just a turn of phrase - she was expressing racist sentiments at work.

There were at least 3 people who were offended, Brand and Chiles were just the famous ones.

And you can hardly think she was more harsly treated than Ross after all she's not been banned.


Ron Atkinson, you'll remember had to quit over his remarks
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/ron-at kinson-quits-itv-after-his-racist-remarks-are- heard-on-air-560834.html

They were broadcast accidently but were a "private conversation"
yes, I accept the idea that it was 'at work'. I still wonder about the question of whether it was spoken in private, though. It could be non-private because she was shrieking at the top of her voice; or because she was speaking normally but others were eavesdropping. (It seems odd that nobody has said who she was speaking to, or who she was speaking about.) If the significant points are that she offended an aid worker, and that she didn't apologise, they might have dropped her from the programme even if she'd spoken in her own home.

I remain uncomfortable about the idea of losing your job because of a private conversation - if it was truly private - wherever it took place.

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