Tory MP suspended for racist language

[Patrick Thistle]

Just announced on 5 Live the Tory MP for Newton Abbott has been suspended from the party for using racist language.

[Patrick Thistle]

News story here:

MP Anne Marie Morris suspended for racist remark - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40555639

[Tubby Isaacs]

Be fair, she grew up in a different world.

I mean, when she was born, Rosa Parks was only 44.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Is she related to Clarkson?

The Whip has been withdrawn, what does that mean in effect?

[Etienne]

Means that she has to sit as an independent, theoretically shrinking the majority by 2. In reality, unless she resigns, she is likely to be voting with the Tories the vast majority of the time, though the whips obviously will have less leverage.

Redwood and Cash appear to have got away with just ignoring the comment.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Ah yes, the shiny, new Tories, with their compassionate conservatism. Remember BoJo and his "watermelon smiles" bullshit? This is what these people are, the only surprise is that they don't let the mask slip more often.

[Tubby Isaacs]

[Toby Gymshorts]

Stealing that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I stole it.

[ursus arctos]

i didn't realise that this was such a popular phrase in the party.

[SouthdownRebel]

The MD of my first employer was quite happy to use this phrase on a fairly regular basis.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Brains Trust have shown up.

[Various Artist]

I've never even understood the logic in the phrase. I mean, if it were "in the coalshed" you'd at least get the idea of where the metaphor was coming from, but to my ears it's always sounded both offensive and baffling.

...I've got déjà vu here, have we done this once before?

[Amor de Cosmos]

"People on the left are motivated by envy and hope, those on the right by nostalgia and fear."

William Cooper (1951)

The phrase under discussion nails the second one of those to the wall with a six inch nail.

[ursus arctos]

Strong memory, VA

[Patrick Thistle]

I had a manager at a former workplace say it. Less than 10 years ago. Biggish meeting. We all sat there staring at each other dumbfounded.

[Nocturnal Submission]

It's such an incredibly old-fashioned saying, though. I remember reading it in a book when I was a kid and that book itself was referencing a British private school in the '50s.

[Amor de Cosmos]

It was commonplace then, and through the early sixties.

[longeared]

I've got a Wednesday programme from the mid 1960s that uses the phrase to describe Tommy Docherty.

Didn't somebody use it on the BBC's coverage of Italia 90?

[ad hoc]

Yes https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xMBDL2qjQ1Y

(courtesy of nishlord on fb)

[Toby Gymshorts]

The comments. I don't know why I look.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Heidi Allen on Twitter got some charming comments too when she said that just the apology wasn't good enough. What do you want, blood? Well resigning the whip and not saying it was "inadvertent" would have been a start.

And Heidi Allen doesn't get mind Muslim Rape Gangs, apparently.

[Snake Plissken]

What Heidi Allen says and what Heidi Allen subsequently does are often two separate things.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Indeed.

[Various Artist]

Strong memory, VA

Thanks ursus, I knew it rang a bell from somewhere. In fact, reading that "The frankness of '70s pundits" thread back, it was manifestly the first place I'd ever encountered the phrase – even misquoting it when I initially expressed my disbelief that people used to casually use it:

Flaming heck, was this a completely different occasion on which Keegan made the comment from the Hurst one? Was it common parlance back in the day or something? "I say dear, the Cheddar, Double Gloucester and Wensleydale are all jolly palatable, but this Stilton's a bit of a nigger in the woodshed, you do know I can't stand it when you get blue cheese." Where the hell does that come from that you'd just drop it into conversation, let alone when sitting next to Garth Crooks on national TV?

I appear to have explored the same semantic cul-de-sac re: woodpile vs coalshed on the next page at the time. Jah and Sits explained that the phrase was meant to signify 'cuckoo in the nest', rather than some hamfisted variant on 'needle in a haystack' that it looked at first glance to derive from.