[Malcolm Armsteen]

Albert Roux (a man I much admire) has decided that he doesn't like the French and wants to die British, so he is applying for naturalisation. FBM.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tizen.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

First comment:

Krissy, Zurich, Switzerland, moments ago
He just wants to save taxes. Sad.

Others:

john doe, nowhere particularly good, United Kingdom, 5 minutes ago
Anything to do tax Albert? Cant say i blame you

The Blue Iguana, S.M.B, Cayman Islands, 34 minutes ago
So why apply after this many years? The new French taxation laws has nothing to do with it?

And the frankly bizarre

laccy, france, 45 minutes ago
Those comments are so two faced since his nephew is permanently on the TV!

We'll leave aside that he will only pay French taxes on any French income, that he is a British resident and so not required to pay French income tax and anyway probably not one of Hollande's high earners.

Krissy (in Switzerland where they, umm... pay less tax) instantly assumes that the man's motivation can only be venal, as do many others.
Because the drip says that people only act for selfish, venal motives...

[Big Rob]

Because the drip says that people only act for selfish, venal motives...

That's why I am here on this site.

Mailites are selfish and venal. However, as you pointed out, they have issues with other non-British, non-white and non-conservative people potentially, in the minds of mailites at least, acting the same way they do.

The "millions of hardworking people" are nothing but a bunch of shitty special pleaders.

[glasgowgril]

Selfish, venal, suspicious, stupid, totally lacking in empathy and filled with irrational hatred. Apart from that.....

[Malcolm Armsteen]

My point was that the Drip instills or reinforces those beliefs in people, the traits may or may not be there independently. Actually I believe that very few people are that nasty until the dripfeed of corrosive dystopian lies gets to them.

[Big Rob]

My point was that the Drip instills or reinforces those beliefs in people, the traits may or may not be there independently. Actually I believe that very few people are that nasty until the dripfeed of corrosive dystopian lies gets to them.

It certainly reinforces those beliefs. However mailites have to believe shitty things in the first place for those beliefs to be reinforced. Dacre's drip aims to remove doubt in those beliefs.

The problem for me is that empathy is the fundamental basis on which we form societies. The drip is corrosive to empathy.

[Abernathy]

Firstly, is there any evidence that Albert Roux was a decent sort before The Drip got to him?

Secondly, Albert must be getting more than a bit senile if he thinks he needs a UK passport to die and be buried here. I'm fairly sure that UK citizenship is totally un-necessary for this. Have a word, Michel.

What a very strange (non) story.

[Big Rob]

Firstly, is there any evidence that Albert Roux was a decent sort before The Drip got to him?

Why do mailites need evidence for the things that they believe in?

After all they have the mail.....

[glasgowgril]

I agree about empathy. The snag is, you need a certain amount of intelligence to have any. I'm not saying that all intelligent people are empathetic, far from it, but I do suggest that unintelligent people are far more susceptible to the idea that if someone is not like them they are ipso facto bad. And the other element of the Drip, IMO, is the awful and corrosive polarisation that is the bedrock of so much journalism. Situations, people, everything, are reduced to two extremes only, nothing in between, and the fact that people can't see that this is what they are being fed is heartbreaking. If journalists were forced to be more honest about the fact that few things can in fact be reduced to two alternatives, newspapers would struggle to fill their pages.

[Abernathy]

I didn't mean from a Mail-ite POV, Rob. Malc said he admired Albert Roux.

[Big Rob]

I didn't mean from a Mail-ite POV, Rob. Malc said he admired Albert Roux.

I didn't say you did Abers. However the internet can be shit at times for getting meaning across.

If this is about how Dacre's drip influences people then fair enough.

However my fundamental issue is why are those people influenced in the first place?

Otherwise I am confused as I thought Malcolm made a really good point.

[Big Rob]

I agree about empathy. The snag is, you need a certain amount of intelligence to have any.

Well..... you need reciprocity first.

If you don't realize that then you probably are "unintelligent".

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Firstly, is there any evidence that Albert Roux was a decent sort before The Drip got to him?

Secondly, Albert must be getting more than a bit senile if he thinks he needs a UK passport to die and be buried here. I'm fairly sure that UK citizenship is totally un-necessary for this. Have a word, Michel.

What a very strange (non) story.

I don't think Albert is suffering from the Drip (I think he's a great old man), but I think the people who instantly assume that his reasons for seeking naturalisation are venal are.

[Abernathy]

Ah, yes, I see. But Albert's logic in applying for naturalisation is a bit bonkers, is it not? Emotional, doubtless, but a bit mad.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Not really. He's worked and lived here for about a hundred years, he's an Anglophile and has been taken to the nation's heart. Or at least colon. His grandchildren are more English than French. And France can be hard work for chefs who make it big abroad, I hear.

[Abernathy]

Yeah, I get all that. But he could have got a British passport yonks ago. Why has he embarked on this apparent (totally un-necessary) frog dissing justificatory exercise only now?

I suspect the answer is actually that the Mail has invented or at any rate wildly exaggerated it.