John Cleese (5 Viewers)

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Evo1883

Evo1883

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chiefdave

chiefdave

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Evo1883 said:
Just saying what the vast majority think really, sent twitter into meltdown too lol

Might get a few backs up on here too I'd imagine

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/john-cleese-twitter-london-english-city-racism-caribbean-brexit-eu-a8934911.html?amp&ved=2ahUKEwj60rm_08HiAhVQcBQKHdZKCkkQ0PADMAZ6BAgEEAY&usg=AOvVaw3P0NyMXaAXVaCIReIhE1tA&ampcf=1&cshid=1559164655728
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Problem is, as with everything these days, nobody is interested in having an honest debate about anything. Within seconds of hearing the vague details people have already decided he's either completely right or completely wrong.

I lived in London for a couple of years. Its full of super rich foreigners (many of whom have got their money in dubious ways) and very poor immigrants who are there to serve them.

You'll be hard pushed to find many people in the east end these days who are born and bred from generations of Londoners. They just can't afford to live there.
 
Evo1883

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
chiefdave said:
Problem is, as with everything these days, nobody is interested in having an honest debate about anything. Within seconds of hearing the vague details people have already decided he's either completely right or completely wrong.

I lived in London for a couple of years. Its full of super rich foreigners (many of whom have got their money in dubious ways) and very poor immigrants who are there to serve them.

You'll be hard pushed to find many people in the east end these days who are born and bred from generations of Londoners. They just can't afford to live there.
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Reading Into why so many londoners flee London, there are 2 main reasons.

1.Housing costs
2.Immigration

Most people moving to London are in their 20s and foreign born, most people leaving London are between 30 and 40

That's according to a BBC article
 
chiefdave

chiefdave

Well-Known Member
Evo1883 said:
Reading Into why so many londoners flee London, there are 2 main reasons.

1.Housing costs
2.Immigration

Most people moving to London are in their 20s and foreign born, most people leaving London are between 30 and 40

That's according to a BBC article
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Cost was a big part of why I left. Its great living in a city where so much is happening but when you can't afford to do most of it then what's the point. Then you're just in the regular grind but in a dirty, overcrowded, violent city.
 
Evo1883

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
He has a point, 37.6% of Londons almost 10 million population are foreign born.

I'd imagine by the year 2030 that will be well over half

Whilst his statement is technically incorrect, eventually it won't be
 
fernandopartridge

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
Evo1883 said:
He has a point, 37.6% of Londons almost 10 million population are foreign born.

I'd imagine by the year 2030 that will be well over half

Whilst his statement is technically incorrect, eventually it won't be
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It went from 27% in 2001 to 37% in 2011, although part of that is due to the decline in the UK born population in London i.e. people moving out as has been happening for years.
The number of foreigners is about the same as New York funnily enough
 
Gazolba

Gazolba

Well-Known Member
London has never been a typical English city.
And won't those foreigners eventually become Anglicised and have English children?
If you go back far enough most English people came from elsewhere.
Sure English culture will change a bit, we'll start liking curry as much as fish and chips.
 
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Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Well-Known Member
Does what he said have a deliberate racist? I've no idea, but you can see why certain people will say it does.

I'm taking it as a "London isn't the same city I knew", which is a common thought throughout Britain of the elderly, just as their parents before them didn't either
In the future I've no doubt those growing up there now will say it's not an English city anymore because it's different from what they remember.

It is an English city, it's just what an English city is has changed and has done ever since the Romans.
 
M

martcov

Well-Known Member
Earlsdon_Skyblue1 said:
John Cleese is absolutely right.
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About migrating to somewhere and complaining about his home country changing whilst he has been away? Bit ironic. There are more elderly people in the UK than ever before and not as many UK ancestory kids. It is not surprising that migrants take up the slack and meet the demand for labour. I love visiting London. Especially when CCFC is there.
 
Alan Dugdales Moustache

Alan Dugdales Moustache

Well-Known Member
ccfctommy said:
Rubbish. There's loads to see and do in London.
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Yes, there is in the centre. Many of the suburbs are dreadful. Worse than anything around our patch. I lived for many years in South London in the 1980s and for short periods in seven sisters, Hammersmith and bethnel green.
What John cleese has said was as true then as it is now. It's also extremely deprived in huge areas, but you never hear about it. Hammersmith and Fulham sounds quite affluent but much of it is extremely poor, and there's far, far worse.
 
S

SkyblueBazza

Well-Known Member
ccfctommy said:
Rubbish. There's loads to see and do in London.
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A theme park...that sums up the centre of London. Full of tourists. My guess is that was the thrust of Cleese's comments.
London also has a ghost town feel about it for me in the east side when they are all in the offices & at weekends.

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S

SkyblueBazza

Well-Known Member
Gazolba said:
London has never been a typical English city.
And won't those foreigners eventually become Anglicised and have English children?
If you go back far enough most English people came from elsewhere.
Sure English culture will change a bit, we'll start liking curry as much as fish and chips.
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That is a fair point - where lots of people (regardless of origin) descend into a place over a relatively short time - the culture & 'feel' changes noticably to those visiting from nearby. Tony Blair era especially encouraged it...so it is even more noticable perhaps

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S

SkyblueBazza

Well-Known Member
Otis said:
Yep, that's all it is.

I wonder when it last DID seem English? It is such a cosmopolitan city.

I don't have a problem with what he has said there.

And remember, I am on the left.
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That is the thing, cosmopolitan is not what I suspect he is referring to though tbh. More how the quaintness has been engulfed by modernism & the quirky crafty cockney has pretty much disappered.

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Earlsdon_Skyblue1

Earlsdon_Skyblue1

Well-Known Member


Pretty solid summary of it all really.

Again, a lot of people are attacking his thoughts on this as they're scared to be called racists and want to show the world that they aren't by shouting about it.

By all means one can say they're happy with how London has gone, but to deny it altogether is just odd. I for one don't feel like London is in my country. It feels like a different country when I go there.
 
rob9872

rob9872

Well-Known Member
I've never really liked London, but for reasons other than change or certain groups of people. Actually that's not quite true as I find most cockneys obnoxious! Everyone is always in such a rush bounding down escalators pushing and shoving being generally rude. I've been for work, shows, obv football and to show my daughter the sights, but the thought of living there fills me with dread. The extremes of wealth and poverty, higher costs and people who think they're better than you.
 
duffer

duffer

Well-Known Member
It's a very large, metropolitan city. Lots of people with funny accents, some of them aren't even white. This was London in the 80s too when I lived there. Brum too, and even parts of Coventry.

It didn't scare me then, and it doesn't scare me now. What does worry me is where this goes next for some people, which is generally along of the lines of the 'English' are an endangered species in their own country. That's been spouted by racists for decades to justify the most appalling (and un-English) hatred and violence. That sort of shit does require challenge, imho.
 
Liquid Gold

Liquid Gold

Well-Known Member
Show me a major international city that doesn’t go through rapid change? If he’s worried about demographics altering the feel of the place I’m sure he’d be happy to sell his Caribbean home off to a local at a price they can afford as he wouldn’t want to be a hypocrite. London has always been different to England, same as Paris to France, Berlin to Germany and NY to the rest of the US.
 
skybluetony176

skybluetony176

Well-Known Member
It’s still a far lower percentage than it was at it’s point of creation as it was created as our capital by the Romans so it was full of bloody Italians. But aside from that what have the Italians done for us?
 
dutchman

dutchman

Well-Known Member
fernandopartridge said:
It went from 27% in 2001 to 37% in 2011, although part of that is due to the decline in the UK born population in London i.e. people moving out as has been happening for years.
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They're moving out because they can no longer afford to live in the area in which they were born. That includes second and third generation immigrants.

The chances of someone actually born in London and who has lived there all their life qualifying for a subsidised home within the M25 are now tiny.

[Source: Most of the housing documentaries on Channel 4 and Channel 5]
 
Otis

Otis

Well-Known Member
Earlsdon_Skyblue1 said:


Pretty solid summary of it all really.

Again, a lot of people are attacking his thoughts on this as they're scared to be called racists and want to show the world that they aren't by shouting about it.

By all means one can say they're happy with how London has gone, but to deny it altogether is just odd. I for one don't feel like London is in my country. It feels like a different country when I go there.
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That puzzles me greatly. You don't feel like London is in your country?

So much of the centre of London is so quintessentially English. The Tower of London, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, all the museums and galleries, Hamley's, Fortnum and Mason and Selfridge's, all the theatres, Buckingham Palace etc. etc.

We go to London a lot and travel all over London for my daughter's auditions and castings and it still all feels like London to me. Just with more foreign voices.

But in Coventry you also hear so many different languages nowadays.
 
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