Scotland’s landed elite and its sense of entitlement
http://vimeo.com/60658495
We are Scotland’s 2500 landowners. We own the land (well 75% of Scotland).
Our response to the Land Reform Review Group is that we don’t want land reform and we don’t need it. This is our land and we want to keep it that way. Many countries such as France, Finland, Ireland and Sweden have implemented programmes of land reform and the sky didn’t fall in.
A quite amazing PR video.
Scottish Land and Estates full submission to Land Reform Review Group.
I’m not sure whether to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that they really haven’t got a clue or whether I think that they know exactly what they’re about and choose to dump on the rest of us! I’m afraid to say that I err towards the latter!
You’d be surprised how many crofter don’t want a land reform either. The law as it stand gives them a very strong position in any disputes with private landlords. If however the landlord is a community group, things will change. Community groups have a nasty little tendency to morph into a preserve of middle busybodies who might have quite a different agenda. There is also the fear that after a community buy-out the first ones to go are the game keepers’ jobs, as happened after the Assynt buy-out, and many crofters have a deep affinity with game keepers. A few years down the road, the communities realize that they can’t plow hundreds of thousands of pounds into the estate, as many private owners do. Next thing, the John Muir Trust is coming in as a deus ex machina. The first thing they do is (so to speak) machine gun deer out of existence…
Crofting tenants on a Highland estate stand in no more or less need of “land reform” than householders on a suburban Persimmon Homes estate.
In fact, such demand for “reform” as there might be from crofters as regards their own personal rights would, I suspect, be in favour of strengthening property rights. That is, from those disappointed by the trend in the 2010 Crofting Act (and recent Local Plans) against decrofting for development – those with land within the settlement boundaries as opposed to those with no chance of planning for a house plot and thus in favour of strengthening crofting as a pool of affordable land.
The more I hear about crofters’ attitudes (for e.g. Coigach and Applecross) to land release for affordable housing etc, the more it convinces me they’re no different (better or worse) than the membership of Scottish Land & Estates. If that’s an unfair generalisation then do please bring to my attention any situation where crofters can be said to have acted more public spiritedly than any other landowner, whether estate, farmer, whatever.
The prime example of a community landowner acting against the interests of its tenants (note, not its wider community) is Storas Uibhist which attempted to impose a “tariff” for the sale of croft land to its tenants way in excess of what was permissible under the crofting legislation. Like so many crofting landlords, they just couldn’t bear the idea of its tenants pocketing the development value while they, as the supposed landowners, were getting coppers. Once the relevant law had been drawn to their attention, they backed down (but imposed a highly questionable “admin fee” of £600 in addition to legal fees which would probably not stand up in the Land Court if it were challenged).
There’s also been this Snishval Mill litigation pursued by SU against one of its crofting tenants. I haven’t followed this in detail (and don’t believe all that I read about it on the Hebrides News website – what have SU done to HN to make them hate SU so much?) but I gather it relates to whether a patch of land is under crofting tenure or not (it being in SU’s interests to prove that it’s not as it makes it much more valuable to them).
Not to mention the fact that SU are proposing to sell house plots at three times what may be regarded the fair value of an affordable house plot.
These three issues highlight a serious point which is that, as a charity, SU have to be seen to take a hawkishly commercial approach to land management which private owners, paying their taxes, in practice very often forego.
Charities can’t get away with being charitable!
Perhaps something else for the LRRG to look into.
The post from Reiner Luyken is scare mongering. It is in the interest of communities to make communities work, and it’s in the interest of the landed elite to shout them down by saying that they are the only ones capable of making them work. In a thriving community ,ofcourse there is a need for gamekeepers, but paid for by the community, and profits going straight back to the community.
So ,sorry Reiner Luyken, your tactics of suggesting community groups become busybodies is at best scaremongering.
As for crofters, they are in the perfectly secure position of having the absolute right to buy, and that keeps the lairds in their place. So some choose not to buy. Only when tenant farmers get the same right will this be sorted. And before you come back on about lairds not letting land for the fear of the ARTB, then have a look at the tenancy figures since the 70s .There has been a steady decline long before the ARTB was heard about. Furthermore Richard Locchead gave an assurance that he was going to draw a line under the ARTB round about 2005, again an even bigger drop in tenancies followed. So it’s now time to try a different approach.
I have great sympathies with new entrants, but for every new entrant there a probably 10 times that number of farms being taken back in hand, not to farm, but for the golden goose of SFP.
So, we were cleared off centuries ago for the sheep, now we’re being cleared off for the subs.
The landed elite have had a lifetime of privileges, and it’s just going to take them quite a while to get this land reform into their heads. Unfortunately their video shows they have not come to terms with it yet.
you can’t polish a turd. Oh no, wait – it seems you can.
As you say – quite amazing. Hopefully the LRG will see through the monied gloss to the real communities that keep these imagined ones afloat in the style to which… etc.
Very slick, but I’m not buying it.
the ‘best’ bit was the landowner traing to tell us all to forget about the clearances and the massive injustice done to people there, and ‘move on’, leaving them in charge of the land they took, and enjoying the benefits. Sorry, but the only way to move on is to restore some justice, and that means land reform.
The main argument that major landowners somehow drive the economy (and therefore the economy would collapse if there was land reform) rings hollow. In Germany we had land reform: the sky didn’t fall. In fact our rural economies and communities -here in the south at least- are usually fairly strong and people can live and work locally.
Not all of this is due to land reform: having a strong state accredited system of training young people to do meaningful work is a major part of it, and so is a more localised government that has real financial clout. It isn’t perfect either and we have problems, but not having one major landowner in an area does make a difference, for the better.
The 2500 Tory voters in Scotland have spoken!
Hey, dont forget the lowland clearances of 100 yrs earlier, straight after the act of union.
Thats how all the lowlands were “obtained” freehold by the lairds.
There are no living witnesses and few documents, but it happened , it all in the book
“the lowland clearances” by aitchison and cassell.
And dont think the clearances are history, the next wave is hapening now.
Was pondering on the ‘logic’ of this week’s Lord Nimmo Smith’s decision re Rangers and it struck me that it chimes with a major reason we have this elite Scottish landowning cartel.
I.e. that even if if the original paperwork regarding and/or the process of acquisition (of a football player/land) was dodgy, if it was not discovered nor proclaimed to be dodgy at the beginning, then thereafter it is accepted as having been done in an above-board/due process fashion and therefore unchallengeable – or deemed to be ‘not cheating’, as most of the press have reported it.
An interesting parallel. This formulation has its roots in the 1617 Acts of Registration and Prescription whereby a title, even though without any validity, is “cured” by the passage of time (40 years then & 10 now) so as to become “beyond challenge” – no more valid mind – just beyond challenge. I wanted to reform this idea during the passage of the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012 but the Scottish Government disagreed and thus the concept now has a statutory basis in Section 43 of the Act whereby a deed shall be treated as valid “despite not being so” if a series of 3 conditions are met (which conditions it is admitted do tighten up the situation).
Any legal system needs a set of rules to cut off stale claims.
I know Andy W doesn’t own a house. I don’t know about Andy Inglis but supposing you do – how would you feel if you received a letter from a toffee nosed firm of Edinburgh lawyers acting on behalf of the Council enclosing a report of historical researches in the archives suggesting your house was built on common good land which the magistrates of your town had no right to sell in Eighteen Umpteen and, as a consequence, the Council would shortly be raising proceedings against you in the Court of Session to repossess your house?
The law that prevents that happening is the one Andy Wightman called for in his book to be “repealed with immediate effect”!
(If you think my example is fanciful, then just look at how the Court of Session recently blocked Edinburgh Council building a school on a park in Portobello because it’s common good land. What if it had been affordable houses and some had already been sold before the court challenge??)
Watching this just reinforced for me how deeply colonised we are. It is sad. Sad for the tenants having to be grateful for being part of a feudal dependency culture. Sad for the landowners and their spokesmen, with their dead, dead, dead faces and deadpan accents. See http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/articles/2008-boarding-women-landowners-oral-history.pdf but this is not just about woman landowners; it is the psychopathology of wealth and power across the board, and it cripples our country and the spirit of our people.
You can look at another one of Alistair MacIntosh’s highly polished articles where he slags me off (some people think: in a rather racist way) as living out “an old Junkers feudal mentality of the north German (now Polish) plains… along with Hitlerian fascism “ in the Highlands. I’m amazed at myself how I can manage that with a scrappy little croft and a souming of 3 cows and 17 sheep in the common grazing. However that may be, Neil King made a very valid point in his post. At least in Coigach, the land reform has degenerated into a system whereby a small group of middle class busybodies attracts huge amounts of public money, so far well over half a million pounds, for various schemes that aren’t even underpinned by a sound business plan.
There is a moral issue at stake. The Scottish government’s neighbourhood deprivation index places Coigach in terms of access near the bottom on number 9 with number 1 as the most, and 6505 as the least, deprived area of the country. In terms of income however, Coigach ranks on 4236, in crime on 4334, in employment 5074, in health 5648 and in education 6099
– just 500 below the top. Only in housing it falls somewhat short, but not disastrously short, at rank 2146. There are fewer children – but only slightly fewer than the Scottish average: 15.5 vs 17.5 percent of the population. The share of the working population is just about the same as anywhere else with 60.9 vs 62.6 percent.
In terms of accessibility, Ferguslie Park in Paisley may rank way above Coigach on 3487 out of the 6505 Scottish neighbourhoods. But in nearly every other parameter it comes rock bottom, 4 on income, 5 on health, 7 in education, 8 in employment, 31 in crime and 559 in housing. Behind these arid figures lurk untold stories of misery and wasted lives.
That’s where a cohesive society should concentrate its depleted resources – not in a prosperous part of the Highlands that plays on romantic assumptions that are rooted in the past.
I notice that there appear quite a few participants in Andy’s Blog who are completely removed from the modern realities of the Highland. I for one feel distinctly queasy that taxpayers in deprived areas should subsidize our rather comfortable lifestyle here in Coigach, only because their plight is a hidden cause.
I have deleted the final 2 paragraphs of Reiner’s comment because they are potentially defamatory. Please check the comments policy under the About menu. As publisher of this blog, I am liable for the content of everything including comments.
Dear Mr Luyken
You refer to the article that I wrote in The Hebridean newspaper, responding to your attack on the people of Eigg and their land reform in Die Zeit on 13 June 2003. Your article was called “War in Paradise”.
The quotation that you attribute to me (above) was not spoken by me. It was an opinion that I quoted of a Scottish-based professor with considerable German expertise about your article and its significance of having been published in Die Zeit.
This can be confirmed by reading the on-line version of the article at http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/articles/2003-hebridean1-eigg.htm.
Yours sincerely,
Alastair McInotsh
Andy deleted two paragraphs from my last post because they are in his view potentially defamatory. That is his right as a publisher. Alastair MacIntosh insists on publishing clearly defamatory and racist content despite having been asked in the past to remove it. He can hide as long as he likes behind an unnamed professor and “international expert” – he is still responsible for publication, as Andy rightly points out. For Alastair’s information, in the legally accepted definition content is racist when it is being perceived as being racist by the person at which it is directed.
Don’t know about racist Alastair but that article is spectacularly sexist – “Schellenberg’s beautiful then-wife”.
Must go and read your piece about women landowners at boarding schools (!) with renewed interest …
It’s classic racism, Neil. I am a British citizen but Alastair identifies me with a sterotype based on my ethnic background. It’s an intellectual version of throwing bananas at black football players.
Somebody made me aware that “intellectual” is the wrong word in this context. I agree. I should have said, “It’s the verbal equivalent of throwing bananas at black football players.” I notice that the perpetrator has gone all quite, like the hooligans who weasel away in the crowd after their heroic deeds.
Is Luke Borwick still a Sottish landowner? I thought he’d sold his Ayrshire estate.
He sold Blair Castle to the former Minister for Energy in the UK Coalition government, Charles Hendry but retained land and property on the estate where he now lives.
Neil King appears to have been misinformed about the crofters’ attitude towards land release for housing in Applecross at least. We personally have within the last ten years made it possible for three families to own affordable houses in Applecross, once by selling our former croft house for well below market value, once selling a site on common grazing and once on a poor area of in-bye land, again both very cheaply indeed. One grazings committee has also made two large areas of land available for council housing, a total of 14 houses, built in 1970s and 1990s and another grazings committee provided a large area for a community hall, fire station, playground and car park.
A recent housing survey carried out by Highland Small Communities Housing Trust proves the desperate need for more affordable housing here, and we intend to approach both crofters and landowner in an attempt to identify sites which can be developed affordably. We have already approached NHS Highland to discuss a potential site in the grounds of the surgery.
There has never been an assumption that the Applecross Trust is the only source of sites for affordable housing, but it has to be said that they are some way behind the crofters in providing sites (one site for 8 affordable houses built 2003) and that they do have a great deal more land from which to identify potential sites.
First let me say there are good land owners and bad. This video is really telling it from the perspective of the good responsible land owner, sadly it’s not all like that.
There are actively bad owners who use their estates as milch cows (they would yield more properly managed) and those who are indifferent to what is happening, and there are even some who have got into the position that improvement isn’t possible because money and credit has run out.
A good introduction to what can be achieved and proof that the sky doesn’t fall in when communities take charge of their own destiny can be found in: “From the Low Tide of the Sea to the Highest Mountain Top,” available from “The Islands Book Trust”.
This is concerned with the Islands and Highlands, we in the Lowlands are a wee bit behind but with the latest land reform legislation are in a position to start catching up.
The land in Scotland was once owned by the people, clans or families, the corruption of the clan system led to it falling into the hands of the few to the detriment of the folks living on it and trying to make a living from it.
The time is now here when that balance can be redressed and there are plenty of organisations both national and community based who are working to bring it about.
Perhaps there are good community bodies, too, but there are very bad ones as well. If you have a bad one it has a far more divisive effect on the community than a bad landowner. At least a bad landowner unites the community. If you have a bad community body, the community goes to pot. By the way, I’m a bit puzzled about “Andy in Germany’s” comment. The present land ownership pattern in the south of the country wasn’t established in a land reform but in the peasents’ revolt of the early 16th century. The only land reforms of a more recent pedigree were enforced in 1933 by the Nazis (Reichserbhofgesetz) and in 1945/46 in the area occupied by the Soviet Union. In the first case, the sky fell in after twelve years, in the second after 43 years.
The comment re good and bad community bodies is taken as given, the one I am involved with and the ones I come across at meeting and conferences don’t fall into the bad category. Their usual fate is to be ignored and wither away, The Community Council where I live seems to be falling into that hole.
I live in Scotland and am only concerned with Scottish organisations and what they are doing. This blog is based in Scotland and concerned with Scottish affairs dragging in the land reforms or lack of them in other countries is I suggest just ‘muddying the waters’.
Let’s stick to the issues that concern us here in Scotland.
I live in Scotland, too, Stuart, and my comments are concerned entirely with the Scottish situation. But a historic perspective can never go amiss. If you don’t know the history, you can’t understand the present.
Stuart, can I comment on your statement “The land in Scotland was once owned by the people, clans or families, the corruption of the clan system led to it falling into the hands of the few …”
Take, for example, Skye, in, for example, the year 1700 before the clans were corrupted. There were only four landowners in Skye that year – Macleod of Dunvegan, Macdonald of Sleat, Mackinnon of Strath and the Church of Scotland (as regards parish churches, glebes, manses).
The clan system was undoubtely corrupted (no disagreement there) but the result was that the number of landowners on Skye can now be counted in the hundreds (conservatively) or thousands (probably).
I can only support what Neil says. Today I had a look at the maps of Badentarbet Estate, thanks to the openess and transparency displayed by the landowner. The ownership pattern, and the pattern of grazing and other rights is far more diverse than even I had an inkling of after living 35 years on the estate. My wife Sheileagh was no less surprised, though her family has lived here for generations. The slogan of the landlord owning, and controlling, everything is just that – a slogan. There are tiny bits of land resumed by house owners, there are apportionments rented and owned, there larger parts owned and re-let, there are garden grounds whose title deeds infringe the common grazing rights, there are tenanted bits, there are bits owned by the estate but taken over by townships, and so on. Lots of these things go back to the 19th century. Rents for mosts crofts are also still at levels set in the 19th century – less than 5 pounds for 5 acres including the share in the common grazing. I can’t understand how anyone can complain about that. Absolute security of tenure, a right to buy your croft at 15 times the annual rent, with no option for the landlord to refuse to sell. That’s the reality, not sob-stories of hard done by peasants.
Your point is taken Neil; I plead guilty to over simplification. I was trying to make the point without being pedantic and starting to write an historical treatise.
Could I just make one point though. I live in Lowland Perthshire and there are some significant differences in land use, ownership and legislation. between Lowlands and the Islands and Highlands.
We Lowlanders are really only now starting out on a path that the Islands and Highlands started many years ago. I would again draw your attention to: “From the Low Tide of the Sea to the Highest Mountain Top,” available from “The Islands Book Trust”.
What path are you talking about? (I have read Hunter’s book and find it deficient in many ways, in particular in lacking any factual analysis. Quite disappointing from an emeritus professor).
I’ve spoken to folks from the Islands so don’t just rely on one source. The ‘Path’ is the one towards community acquisition and ownership of the land on which we live and work and using local assets for the benefit of the community.
So it is the path the Soviet Union chose for the part of Germany occupied by her after the war?
This is really not worth a reply. But. To compare events in East Germany after WWII with Scotland today is ridiculous, the argument verges on the fatuous.
It was all about community acquisition and ownership of the land on which the people lived and worked and about using local assets for the benefit of the community. Nearly in the same terminology. So please, do reply. What is so different?
Stuart, when you do reply, please bear in mind that not everything is gold on the path into the future where a community body instead of a landlord calls the shots.
Reiner, I have just deleted the last sentence of your comment which is a repeat of a similar comment from yourself on another post. The allegation you are making here implies clearly that these 2 evictions are a consequence of the community ownership of the Isle of Eigg. They are not. They have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Both properties are owned by private individuals both of whom had their own reasons for evicting the tenants. Neither case is of any concern of mine, of this website or this particular post.
Reiner, I’ve made the point before that comparing unlike events is muddying the waters.
In 1945 the Soviet Red Army fought its way into Germany With no concern or consideration for the German populace, indeed it was payback time for the German Army’s activities in Russia and at Stalingrad.
The occupying Soviet force imposed the current Stalinist brand of communism which included state confiscation of whatever it wanted. It wasn’t democratic, It wasn’t really communism or socialism and it certainly wasn’t done for the benefit of the community whatever form of words it was dressed up in!
I am a member of and actively involved in the community development trust in the village where I live. We work with local business people, farmers and landowners not to do so would be self defeating. No-one dictates what others will do it is done through discussion and negotiation.
Your attitude puzzles me, you seem totally opposed to any change whatsoever. I have made my position clear would you care to do the same. Do you profit from an ‘estate’ position, employment or such like, or are you a landowner yourself?
****, my comment was curteous, factual and relevant. The evictions of both individuals took place after ***********************. The second one is a *************. **********************************. The **************** obviously not able to do so. That is highly relevant. It is also relevant to bear in mind that *************************. The latest example was the ************************.
Reiner, this is the 2nd time you have made defamatory remarks. The first made a clear implication in my view and my decision is final. I do not have time to constantly moderate comments. If they persist I will have no choice but to prevent you from making any further comments. Meanwhile, I am going away for the rest of the day and have no choice but to hold all comments for pre-moderation until my return including your latest.
I don’t know what it was he said, but you (Andy W) don’t feel there’s any contradiction in censoring Reiner Luyken for defamation when, in your last blog post, you:-
*accused a journalist of ignorance (“depths of”), being ill-informed and writing “rubbish”;
*questioned his veracity; and
*implied (don’t split hairs that you just “wondered”) that he takes money to act in a partial manner?
That’s not offering you advice. It’s asking you a question. But don’t bother to answer it because I already know the answer: “It’s my blog and I can write what I like.” With which I entirely agree except that it WRECKS your credibility. (That last sentence probably did shade over into offering advice. Sorry.)
No contradiction. I am offering an (albeit) robust criticism of his journalism which he has had published in a national newspaper for all to see. That is not defamatory. Reiner, on the other hand has made comments about individuals and third parties (in some cases unrelated to the subject matter of this blog which I consider to be potentially defamatory. I offer no answer to your unshakeable conviction that my credibility has at a stroke and with one blog post been WRECKED.
Sorry, I should have addressed the above comment to Andy. I’m not so familiar with you guys but I’m beginning to find my way.
Stuart, perhaps I should tell you about our community body where we are well on the path into Hunter’s future. To answer your last question first, no, I’m neither landowner nor do I have any interest in an estate. My wife and I are crofters, I also have all of 12 acres of tenanted land. I’ve had my dispute with the local estate in the past but won it through land court arbitration. I don’t hold it against the land owners. Everybody has to look after his interest.
Now to out community body. The Coigach Community Development Company (CCDC) sees Coigach as a community under threat. I however see a remarkable increase in prosperity in the 35 years that I have lived here. The often romanticized days at the fank with copious amounts of whisky consumed and very few sheep being shorn are long gone. Today, most people work hard and diligently.
The Scottish government’s statistics bear this out. Their neighbourhood
deprivation index 2012 places Coigach in terms of remoteness near the bottom of the list at number 9 with number 1 as the most, and 6505 as the least, deprived area of Scotland. The only connection to the outside world is a 15 mile single track road, the nearest larger place (Ullapool) is 25 miles away. Coigach has all but 280 inhabitants. In terms of income however, it ranks on 4236, in crime on 4334, in employment 5074, in health 5648 and in education 6099 – just 500 below the top. Only in housing it falls somewhat short, but not disastrously short, at rank 2146. There are fewer children – but only slightly fewer than the Scottish average: 15.5 vs 17.5 percent of the population. The share of the working population is just about the same as anywhere else with 60.9 vs 62.6 percent.
Let’s compare this with Ferguslie Park, a housing estate in Paisley which is easily accessible, reflected in rank 3487 on the index. In nearly every other aspect Ferguslie Park comes rock bottom, 4 on income, 5 on health, 7 in education, 8 in employment, 31 in crime and 559 in housing. Behind these arid figures lurk untold stories of misery and wasted lives.
In the last twelve months or so, the CCDC has received about half a million pounds in public money. I’ve heard the argument, if the money is there for the taking, why not take it? I do believe, however, taking money should be as closely related to moral choices as paying taxes. Britain’s financial troubles are deep and lasting. A cohesive society has to concentrate its depleted resources on truly deprived areas – not spend it in a prosperous part of the Highlands that plays on assumptions that are rooted in the past.
Secondly, the CCDC is *****************************************. AGMs are not open to the public but only to members. The directors are not elected by the community, as they claim on their website, but by members only. ******************************************************
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*************************************.
There is a further point. The threat of a community right to buy application (CRtB) under the Land Reform Act that is now hanging over every private enterprise in the area. It is preventing local and inward investment. Whenever there is some change of ownership the CCDC ***************************************************. One investment to the tune of 1.5 million pounds is definitely not going ahead for this reason. ******************************
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So these are the major issues I have with the CCDC. I object to the seemingly never-ending flow of public money into the community on moral grounds. And I believe that if there is anything that threatens the community it is ***************************, not demographic developments or an alleged lack of job opportunities. Lastly, I believe the a proposed wind turbine project by the CCDC on the slopes of the Ben Mhor Coigach range is deeply misguided. My objections, and the objections of other villagers, will come to the fore if, and when, the project reaches planning.
Meanwhile, I find it quite galling that the CCDC can ******************************* particular project through planning without any financial risks to those who push the project forward. But I do have to pay them a compliment. The CCDC were very ************* ******************************************************************************************
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Reiner, I am not prepared to keep on doing this. I do not know the truth behind any of the allegations and they are potentially defamatory. Please feel free to start your own blog if you wish where you can publish such views but meanwhile, if I have to continue to spend time editing your comments I will stop you making any further ones. Thank you.
I love it. My last post looks like a FOI request where the government has blanked out the most interesting bits for reasons of “commercial confidentiality” or whatever!
Dear Reiner (if I may)
If you so wish and have time when passing through Glasgow, feel free to drop by for a cup of coffee if I am available. You will find my contact details on my website.
Yours, Alastair McIntosh
Do you remember Lorenzo Amoruso? Does the name ring a bell? Rangers captain 1999? He at least had the decency to apologize to Borussia Dortmund’s Nigerian striker Victor Ikpeba after making racist comments, though he insisted (as most racists do nowadays), “I would like to make it clear I am not a racist.”
Your racist comments are on the net now since ten years or so. Do you really think I have anything to say to you as long as they haven’t been removed?
This post is now closed to comments.