UKIP election candidate yadda yadda

[d000hg]

I really don't understand why you find this birthplace issue so important.

I think it's a reasonable question - if you are having sporting contests between nations as a source of national pride, allowing nations to woo talented individuals from other nations to compete for them doesn't quite seem in the spirit of things.

Unless you view it as a team thing rather than a nationality thing - the best team Britain can put together, not the best team of British people?

Ultimately you can say it doesn't really matter but then ultimately you can say sport doesn't matter in the first place so one can only discuss its importance within the mindset that nations competing is in some way meaningful

[petergriffin]

You know the score.

Ukip in racism row after candidate describes Mo Farah as 'African' | Politics | theguardian.com

As you probably know I'm not a UKIP fan, but technically speaking he's African because he was born in Africa. The fact that he is now a British citizen doesn't rule out that he can be a British African.

Why can you say British Asian, British Caribbean and not British African?

[Mich the Tester]

I think it's a reasonable question - if you are having sporting contests between nations as a source of national pride, allowing nations to woo talented individuals from other nations to compete for them doesn't quite seem in the spirit of things.

Unless you view it as a team thing rather than a nationality thing - the best team Britain can put together, not the best team of British people?

Ultimately you can say it doesn't really matter but then ultimately you can say sport doesn't matter in the first place so one can only discuss its importance within the mindset that nations competing is in some way meaningful

Sport doesn't matter to some people. It´s quite big business though. Nationality doesn't matter to some people, or at least it matters less to some people than others.

As for sport being about 'the best team Britain can put together... or the best team of British people' I think a lot of serious sportspeople would choose the first, simply because the reality of competition at the highest level in most sports now is that it involves a combination of money, advanced training facilities, equipment, sporting talent, scientific talent, coaching talent, sponsorship, technology and so on and it's rare for a single country to have all of this in place with all the people and companies involved being of that nationality. Put simply, if you limit the effort in all those fields of work to only British born citizens, you ain´t going to win much. A couple of huge countries like the USSR and the USA and possibly China would have all the resources and the rest would be stuffed.

As for the 'spirit of things'; come on, this is an amateur attitude from a bygone era and I'm trying hard not to laugh. Top level sport is (mostly) not amateur nowadays or about the 'spirit of things'; it's about winning and for the sponsors it's about selling stuff. I know my attitude might seem unromantic, but I've seen that world from the inside myself having experienced the transition of rugby from shamateur to professional and I have friends competing in cycling and speed skating at the top level; I and they will tell you it's nice when things are done in a good spirit, but really we'd all rather just win, not at any cost, but certainly at the cost of 'the spirit of things' if that's necessary.

[MicrosoftBob]

As you probably know I'm not a UKIP fan, but technically speaking he's African because he was born in Africa. The fact that he is now a British citizen doesn't rule out that he can be a British African.

Why can you say British Asian, British Caribbean and not British African?

Because in PC terms some things are more racist than others

Now if they were a one legged lesbian transgendered with learning difficulties you really wouldn't be able to call them a British African

[vetran]

As you probably know I'm not a UKIP fan, but technically speaking he's African because he was born in Africa. The fact that he is now a British citizen doesn't rule out that he can be a British African.

Why can you say British Asian, British Caribbean and not British African?

Because they don't like the person saying it. If it had been Germaine Greer or Diane Abbot saying it no one would have misunderstood it on purpose and manufactured outrage.

UKIP have to be stopped so the papers are on a witch hunt. I would imagine Tory Party central have had a chat with the editors.

It's such a pity UKIP aren't mature enough to only have people who know the score.

[vetran]

Sport doesn't matter to some people. It´s quite big business though. Nationality doesn't matter to some people, or at least it matters less to some people than others.

As for sport being about 'the best team Britain can put together... or the best team of British people' I think a lot of serious sportspeople would choose the first, simply because the reality of competition at the highest level in most sports now is that it involves a combination of money, advanced training facilities, equipment, sporting talent, scientific talent, coaching talent, sponsorship, technology and so on and it's rare for a single country to have all of this in place with all the people and companies involved being of that nationality. Put simply, if you limit the effort in all those fields of work to only British born citizens, you ain´t going to win much. A couple of huge countries like the USSR and the USA and possibly China would have all the resources and the rest would be stuffed.

As for the 'spirit of things'; come on, this is an amateur attitude from a bygone era and I'm trying hard not to laugh. Top level sport is (mostly) not amateur nowadays or about the 'spirit of things'; it's about winning and for the sponsors it's about selling stuff. I know my attitude might seem unromantic, but I've seen that world from the inside myself having experienced the transition of rugby from shamateur to professional and I have friends competing in cycling and speed skating at the top level; I and they will tell you it's nice when things are done in a good spirit, but really we'd all rather just win, not at any cost, but certainly at the cost of 'the spirit of things' if that's necessary.

so its perfectly OK because it makes money? That's what I thought was going on!

[petergriffin]

Because in PC terms some things are more racist than others

What? African is more racist than Asian or Caribbean?

[Mich the Tester]

so its perfectly OK because it makes money? That's what I thought was going on!

It's a bit like contracting. Have fun or have a bad day, but make sure you invoice. Today!

[Uncle Albert]

As you probably know I'm not a UKIP fan, but technically speaking he's African because he was born in Africa. The fact that he is now a British citizen doesn't rule out that he can be a British African.

Why can you say British Asian, British Caribbean and not British African?

Your nationality comes from your parents rather than from where you were born. As an example, I have 2 sisters and a brother. We were all born in different countries yet are all British.

Some countries will allow you take on theier nationality as a result of having been born there but it's by no means automatic.

[petergriffin]

Your nationality comes from your parents rather than from where you were born. As an example, I have 2 sisters and a brother. We were all born in diferent countries yet are all British.

Some countries will allow you take on theier nationality as a result of having been born there but it's by no means automatic.

"African" is not a nationality, it means you were born in Africa. I don't think Mo Farah would complain about that.

Like I said, you can say "Asian" or "Caribbean", why not African?