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I take this morning's text from the Independent:The mayor said he accepted the panel’s findings, which agreed that while hearing evidence about the challenges faced by disabled adults in modern society, Mr Martin commented: “Are we still letting those mongols have sex with each other?”

Mr Martin said he had apologised to the council “for using a word I shouldn't have,” and added that he would say sorry publicly “as I have been asked to”. He later told BBC Wiltshire that he had used a word he “was brought up with” and that it was “not a modern word”, adding: “The committee want a new apology and I will keep apologising until they fall over.

“I'm sorry, I'm human, and I don't know what is wrong with my apologies.”

Swindon mayor says sorry for calling disabled people ‘mongols’ – but charities dismiss forced apology



Well well well.

You don't know what's wrong with your apologies, Nick Martin? And you're the current mayor of Swindon?

I have very little problem at all with the word you're apologizing for: mongol. Nor spastic, nor cripple, nor cretin, they're all historical words with a respectable place in the dictionary, though I'd not personally use them outside of an historical context.

My problem is with the word "let" and the fact that you thought it funny to attempt a joke on the subject of eugenics. How, as a simple matter of practicality, do you suggest mongols (or anyone else born with a chromosome disorder) should be prevented from having sex with each other? Castration? Chemical neutering? Euthanasia?

You have no respectable place whatever in public life, Mr Martin. If you thought what you said was amusing then you should retire immediately. You are, if you'll excuse the wording, permanently tarred with a particularly vile brush of your own making. What is missing from both your joke and your apology is the decency and respect that the people involved are due. Apologize properly, apologize fully, and then for goodness' sake stand down from local politics. Nothing and nobody is capable of absolving you from this self-inflicted disgrace.

I agree entirely, with all that you have posted

He's a member of a political party that has labelled disabled benefit claimants as scroungers and set in train policies that have seen people stripped of benefits on the flimsiest of pretexts. He's just letting slip what they really think about people they perceive as inferior. Right wing tories in all their splendor.

Týr;1451806 wrote: Apologize properly, apologize fully, and then for goodness' sake stand down from local politics. Nothing and nobody is capable of absolving you from this self-inflicted disgrace.


Might I note, in passing, that the ex-Mayor of Swindon appears still to be a local Councillor in good standing under Swindon's Conservative whip.

What on earth is wrong with these people.