Minor thesp and aspirant
chanteur Laurence Fox has clearly had time on his hands, and so he has been showing anyone who will listen that he has been cancelled, honestly. In pursuit of this incursion upon his freedom of speech, he has been using, er, his freedom of speech to go after six-times Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton, who is one of the few F1 pilots who is not white. But this is entirely coincidental.
Hence Fox telling “
[Lewis Hamilton] is the new Harry and Meghan”, followed by a photo of Hamilton giving the raised fist salute with the sneering caption “
Make tax havens great again”. Then another one with “
Hands up if the sort code at your special Monaco bank is 00-00-00”. Jealous, much? And he wasn’t finished with the captioning.
Laurence who?
“
Hands up who just lost touch with all the sports fans who used to watch sport in order to take a break from politics?” Sport and politics are intertwined and have been for decades, from the Nazis using the 1936 Berlin Olympics to promote themselves, to the USA refusing to field a team for the 1980 Moscow Olympics over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, to the 1984 Russian counter-boycott of the Los Angeles games.
Then there was South Africa being excluded from cricket and rugby, and ultimately, yes, Formula 1. And don’t forget the
Daily Mail bullying the British Government into giving Zola Budd a British passport, along with the fallout from her on-track coming together with Mary Decker that came rather close to causing an international incident.
Still, on sneers Fox, using a photo of a Mercedes F1 can being wheeled along by a team of mechanics to ask “
Hey [Mercedes F1] Can you confirm that you are committed to diversity in [F1] and reassure myself and others that this picture is not representative of the current [Mercedes F1] pit crew/technical staff? Thank you. #BlackLivesMatterUK.
And then came “
I wonder what [Lewis Hamilton]’s white half thinks about all of this”. If it looks like racism, acts like racism and smells like racism, it’s highly likely that it is racism. So is it racism, or just having a go at someone who lives in Monaco?
Well, let’s see just how much stick Laurence Fox has been giving all those other F1 drivers who have chosen to live in Monaco, and other places that have been described as tax havens. Jackie Stewart, for instance, lives in the UK now, but for 18 years lived in Switzerland. More recently, Jenson Button lived in Monaco. And David Coulthard still does live in Monaco. So what has Fox said about any or all of them?
He hasn’t. Nothing. Nil. Nix. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Not a sausage. Bugger all. No criticism of three white blokes who live, or have lived, in tax havens. But plenty of criticism for the one bloke who isn’t white. Add to that his whining about politics, when sport is a political thing and always has been, and his talk of “
Lewis Hamilton’s white half”.
Peter Hain
has weighed in on Hamilton’s behalf, calling Fox “
ignorant and prejudiced”. He should have spent less time on the alleged actor and just called him a racist.
Laurence Fox claims this country is tolerant.
Maybe he already emigrated, then.
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10 comments:
I do hope Fox see this article, perhaps you would care to send it to him and see what he thinks?
While no fan of f1 or Hamilton, I commend him for his stance this fox bloke really is the dodshit on the sole of life’s shoe. He really does consider himself a clever dickie. Hope his next gig is panto with Marc chaloner
I call out all who moved overseas to pay less UK tax.
From Michael Caine moving to the states, and the latest bunch, a la Philip Green
But you are right, I wonder why Mr Fox has only picked this one single person.
And lets be honest, we all know that the responses that will appear underneath those tweets as well will be just as bad or if not worse by his "support base".
That is utter racist filth he is spouting and I do hope more people than Peter Hain make that point publicly and forcefully.
Not holding me breath like.
Seem to remember a balding, rotund,tanned gentleman of Jewish heritage who lives in Monaco and left employees o& pensioners BHS high and dry!
While I am not aquainted with Lewis Hamilton nor approve of his residency in a tax haven, he is only one of many in F1 and other sports who live out there,even Bjorn Borg lives out there, still living as a playboy much to the chagrin of many Swedes.
You know what? Billie Piper was good to get out when she did. ...
A plague on box fox and hamilton's houses.
I have no time for either. But fox has a point here. Hamilton's no paragon of virtue. As soon as hamilton 'made it' he buggered off and took his tax dues with him. Claims to be british but doesn't pay anything towards his home nation's upkeep, while millions struggle - blacks included. How about he pay a few shilling to alleviate the inequality here?
Hamilton also goes on about human rights. Well I don't hear him pipe up about the human rights of the disabled in this country where he neither lives nor pays tax to. Also, he says piss all about the human rights issues of half of the countries that host F1 venues. Would that be because they pay him the dough that he doesn't pay tax on?
As for racism, well I've never seen or heard hamilton complain that he's been the 'victim' of 'unfair treatment' because he broke the rules that apply to everyone participating - regardless of skin colour.
Oh and I've never once seen or heard of him blame himself for losing a race - it's always someone else's fault. Quite possibly THE most ungracious person in sport I've ever witnessed.
As for fox...I won't bother going into detail. I've neither the time or the disposition; besides which, just one word sums him up to a tee...
Gobshite.
@11:48
How about blaming the real cause of inequality and poverty in Britain today instead of griping just like Lawrence Fox?
If Lewis Hamilton donated all of his wealth to help the poor, it would make very little difference.
Lewis Hamilton is estimated to be worth £187million.
Number of people estimated to be in poverty in the UK 14.3million.
Divide up Hamilton's wealth amongst the poor and you get a one off gift £13 per person.
Toffee ... bang on spot on. I don’t really care about graciousness and sport (it’s a job like any other) but on all other counts bravo. I’m still glad he stood up to be counted tho. Would have been far too easy for him to hide.
The Toffee
Exclude your references to Fox and your post is no different from Fox's twitter rant.
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