Talk:James Anderton

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[edit] liberal-left?

"he was often in conflict with the liberal-left in the city's political leadership during the 1980s"

In the 1980s, Liverpool was largely being run by Derek Hatton and the Militant Tendency. Militant were hardly "liberal-left": they were Trotskyists. It's not clear to me whether the author meant liberal to be interpreted in classical British political terms (free trade and what-not) or in current American terms, but either way, I'm not sure it's accurate. Hence removed original to talk page and reworded.

--Telsa 14:13, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

While I agree with you about Hatton's politics, I should point out that we're talking about Greater Manchester here, not Merseyside! -- Necrothesp 00:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Urrr. Good point. :) What was I thinking? Telsa 18:03, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Homophobia cat

I've removed Category:Homophobia again for three reasons:

  1. He isn't homophobia
  2. Homophobia isn't central to who he is or what he did. See Category talk:Homophobia for consensus on how/wen the cat should be used.
  3. It isn't sourced at all. If he really is a homophobe, that's controversial and should be well sourced.

Please comment here before reverting. Thanks! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 03:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

1) He is not "homophobia", but homophobic, and the category "homophobia" relates to articles that concern express examples of the topic (be that historical events, biographical articles, political issues, etc). Stop being pedantic.
2) His homophobic views and comments are relevant as they were expressed in public and created IMMENSE controversy at the time. His remarks about homosexuality and AIDS in particular were arguably the most infamous words he spoke as it almost ended his career and was a prominent issue in local political history.
3) It was sourced, and I have now added further sources.79.65.89.199 16:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  1. You're absolutely right about the use of the category - sorry if my pedantic comment offended.
  2. His comments may have created controversy, but they're hardly central to who he was or what he did. Fred Phelps basis his whole life and church on homophobia - this man happened to make one comment. I'm not excusing him or saying he wasn't homophobic - I'm just saying he doesn't belong in a category that contains people, places, and events that epitomize homophobia.
  3. Your sources all say the same thing, and in about the same way. In articles that are written on various topics, they all mention - once - that he said what he said. One of those sources would be sufficient, and none of them support adding him to the category.
Does anyone else have any thoughts? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 18:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
He does seem to be known for his homophobia, if the category includes people known for such then... Another idea is to amend the description of the category to be clear who could be added and even possibly a subsection of public figures known for their homophobic activities. Benjiboi 15:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The homophobia category should effectively be a grouping of articles that relate to the topic of homophobia, and this should include articles about people who have demonstrated homophobic tendencies to the extent that it has become widely known about them (i.e. press coverage, etc). I agree with Benjiboi that the category description should make this clear (if that's what you were saying, Benji). In Anderton's case, he made these remarks publicly whilst he was the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police and the remarks were massively controversial, and I mean massively. It doesn't have to be the most central part of who he is (neither is the year of his birth or classifying him as coming from Wigan, which are also both categories used here). It just has to be something that he became widely known for. To me, Anderton will always mainly be known as the bible-bashing copper who made the dreadful remarks about homosexuality and AIDS, and I fully agree with one of the editors above that these comments were probably the most infamous comments he ever made. Along with his force's constant raids on gay establishments whilst he was in charge (which I believe is mentioned in one of the sources), I believe it carries enough weight to list him in the category. Something I would like to make clear though is that the homophobia category itself should not be used as a weapon to label people or be taken as an insult. It should just refer to articles that strongly relate to the topic so that people who browse the category can find a variety of articles and process that information as they see fit. MassassiUK 02:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)