Robert Henderson
The Saturday play on Radio 4 The liberty of Norton Folgate (9 February) was an unashamed piece of racism, the racism being directed at the native English. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qgr4f).
The play was set in the East End of London. Norton Folgate is a street connecting Bishopsgate with Shoreditch High Street. The playwright Mark Davies Markham hung the play on the skeleton of the British pop group Madness’ album of the same name.
Madness wrote their album after a building which the locals prized was in danger of being demolished. This was eventually prevented after it was discovered that Norton Folgate was a liberty, an archaic free status which put it outside the jurisdiction of the local authority. Hence the title The liberty of Norton Folgate.
The Madness album concentrated on the racial and ethnic diversity of the area both past and present. Davies Markham took this general theme and made it his with knobs on. In the play the building threatened with demolition becomes the Union café, its proprietors Asian and the wicked developer who wants to demolish the building is (natch) white and English. Davies Markham’s intention are clear from a blog he wrote for the BBC:
“The Union café is threatened to be demolished. The livelihood of Bangladeshi owners, Gazi and Sitara, is under threat. They fear for the identity of the community. This family make a stand for preserving British culture. The right for all their customers to a full English breakfast. “ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcmusic/posts/The-Liberty-of-Norton-Folgate-A-drama)
You get the idea: the Asians are the true Britons: the English are not.
The Asian characters are constantly promoted positively (with the subtext that they are the real British patriots now) while the white English characters (interestingly there was no non-white character represented as English) with the exception of Jess, the white daughter of Ralph Burke, the evil property developer and leader of the New England Party, were caricatures of what the liberal left fondly but mistakenly imagine are the only English people who resist immigration and its effects, namely, Neo-Nazis. Jess is in a relationship with an Asian (natch) and just to put a cherry on the cake of Asian good, English bad scenario, the wife of Ralph ran away with an Asian.
This was a deliberate denigration of theEnglish. It was also unabashed politically correct, pro-immigrant propaganda. How does all this fit with the BBC legal requirement to attempt balance and remain within the law of incitement to racial hatred? You tell me.
When shall we see BBC productions which honestly address the plight of the native English population, especially that of the working class, a plight which engineered by the white liberal elites through their encouragement and permitting of mass immigration? How about a topical drama which takes as its subject the Muslim gangs roaming places such as the area in which Norton Folgate was set with the intent to intimidate and assault non-Muslims? Now that would be realistic.
