Both the BNP and UKIP want us out of the EU and to stop immigration. I support them both - so what?
- Jonboy, UK, 4/5/2012 15:26

Both the BNP and UKIP want us out of the EU and to stop immigration. I support them both - so what?
- Jonboy, UK, 4/5/2012 15:26

Pikey comes from the word pike, meaning toll road. Nothing else. Nothing derogatory. It is simply a short hand to describe a person who lives on the road.

A lot of other so-called racial insults are the same, including one, which I won’t mention because I can’t, which simply derives from the name of a country.

If you ask me, these short forms aren’t real racial insults at all, just words invented by kids to describe each other and make sense of why they look a bit different. Like ‘shorty’ and ‘fatty’ they may be childish and cheeky, but they have no place on a police charging sheet for a hate crime.

Quite clearly, however, the ‘n’ word is different. The ‘n’ word is a real insult, because it is a term once used by those who actually, physically and in many terrible ways abused black people.

But, ‘n’ word aside, we cannot go on like this, slimming down the once lively and vibrant English language until we’re left with nothing but meaningless platitudes sanctioned by the equalities lobby.

If it's so inoffensive, Melissa, then why are you not allowed to write it? It's "paki", isn't it? And if this wanker honestly believes that that word is just an innocent shorthand for 'Pakistani' then she is fucking deluded.

Google "Annabelle Fuller UKIP" to know why she mentions them in this article.
- Barry Baz Barrington, Barry, 16/6/2012 18:13
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The Olympic Games of London 2012 have generated more global respect than a moon-landing and inspired more national feel-good than the 1966 World Cup victory. Not that I can remember that, of course. But I've seen time and again those grainy black and white pictures which haunt the national psyche as a reminder that we were great – once. Two whole generations have since been inculcated with the belief that 1966 was our finest hour since the Spitfires and Hurricanes routed the Luftwaffe in the skies above London. Thereafter, we declined incrementally through the economic morass of being the 'sick man of Europe' to the point of tin-pot nationhood and political irrelevance.

After the largest medal haul in more than a century – with almost as many gold medals as the rest of the EU combined – the Prime Minister boasted that we have 'shown the world what we are made of'. If we do not need a uniform and inflexible EU 'Common Sporting Policy' to achieve this, what need a common fisheries policy, agriculture policy, foreign and security policy, energy policy, justice policy, social chapter, humanitarian aid, airspace, army, citizenship, passport...?

We have reminded ourselves of the deep bonds of unity we share: through the love of sport we have rekindled the love of country, a patriotism that will blaze longer and brighter than the Olympic flame. The Prime Minister proclaimed: "This is not a country whose time has been but a country whose time has come... We in this country are going to make sure that these are not just Games that made history but the Games that helped to shape our future."

If he means it, he will move swiftly to restore our sovereignty. We all know that an In/Out referendum on the UK's membership of the EU is inevitable, because the natives are restless and patriotism is vacuous without a country to be proud of. And all the gold medals in the greatest and most thrilling fortnight in British sporting history are as nothing if we are teleologically predestined some day to swim, cycle, run and jump under the 12-starred banner of a country called Europe.