@56 fucking hell, you’re flogging some glue now. I don’t ascribe idiocy or bigotry to people who disagree with me, only those who say things which are idiotic or bigoted. Arguing that a word doesn’t mean something that it clearly is used to mean, based solely on its Latin derivation, is unequivocally the action of an idiot.

On the Paedo Party front: this is where the ‘legitimate’ point comes in again. Equality of age of consent, even in the 1980s, was clearly a legitimate campaign. But I don’t think cutting the age of consent to 10 would be.

some authorities cite this as the word’s primary definition; others cite ‘lawful’ as the primary definition and ‘acceptable to common custom’ as the secondary definition

Yassus. Aside from the online wordnet site, name one. Wordnet also has the primary definition of “lawfully” as being “in accordance with common custom” which is absurd and makes your point above rather circular.

The OED has legitimate as deriving from lex/legus and meaning lawful or in accordance with rules, with various off-shoots of that – legitimate children (in accordance with the rules of marriage), legitimate inferences (in accordance with the rules of logic) etc. Dead horse flogged, but your habit of ascribing bigotry or idiocy to people who do not agree with everything you say is tiresome at best.

Pretty much everyone who opposes this idea has been clear that what is unacceptable is the restriction of peoples’ employment rights on the basis of their political beliefs. This would apply to your imaginary Paedophile party as much as anyone else. Would you have supported the banning of gay teachers in the 1980s/90s who wanted to bring the age of consent down to 16?

Are the Greens illigitimate because they subscribe to homeopathy and the like?

Do the taboos of minority religions render them illigitimate as they are not ‘common custom’?

“The NASUWT was the first trade union to press ministers to amend the teacher’s contract to bring it into line with the police, prison service and armed forces, to prevent all those who declare their affiliation to the BNP and other far-right and fascist organisations from working in the teaching profession. In fact, we would go even further and prevent them from working in any public services.”

I think this is the first time I have heard of a union calling on bosses to police its members activities more heavily.

In any case, sexual relationships between teachers and students ABOVE the age of consent would cost the teacher their job.

Concentrate on ensuring proper procedures for dismissal for those not appropriate for the organisation and you tackle the bad elements in BOTH camps, and more.

No they shouldn’t be banned from teaching unless they’ve been convicted, however you can chose not to hire them because you think they would be unsuitable for the position. Likewise if they join at a later date you could remove them by describing their actions as incompatible with their position.

Of course they’d be free to take you to a tribunal.

No.

I notice nobody’s engaged with the Paedophile Party argument. They’re a legal party, there’s no suggestion their members have done anything to abuse children – should PP members be banned from teaching?

If a teacher who is a BNP member isn’t doing his job properly, he should be sacked. If he is doing his job properly, there’s no problem.

Would that work for anything else? Can I fire a Catholic next time the media print up a priest sex-abuse story or a Muslim after the next Islamic terrorist attack. In the current climate would being ‘outed’ as a Labour member bring disrepute. After all they’re all tainted with the same slurs. How about Scientologists can I fire them?

Next point is who gets to decide the pariah organisations? Oh wait that’d be the current government – so next on the agenda no Conservatives in public office or Lib Dems or Greens or… pfft hey why not just go the whole hog and ban every political party except that currently in power.

However, where the hell do civil rights come in?

Um, because you’re talking about denying people employment due to their political beliefs?

no, the example is talking about community norms, not ASA rulings

No it isn’t. That’s why it talks about ‘established rules and standards’ and not ‘norms of opinion on acceptable behaviour’. Show me an established rule or standard that the BNP do not adhere to, which isn’t public opinion as to how nice they are, and I will concede that they are not a legitimate political party.

You’re making distinctions between legal and legitimate that simply do not exist in this context. And, as I said earlier, that doesn’t make me a bigot, only a pedant…

There is very clearly, in everyday usage, a meaning of legitimate that’s something like “in accordance with civilised society”. If someone says “the BNP is a legal party but not a legitimate party”, that’s the meaning they’re using.

Well, that is clearly the definition you were using. It just doesn’t match up to the actual definition of the word, so I think I can be excused for failing to read your mind as to what you think words should actually mean.

Point 1 – Only if ‘the clown’ could assume that the person who said that in the first place actually understood what the word legitimate meant. When you have a generation who have difficulty with the phrase “despotic tyranny” who wants to assume that.

Point 2 – When a disagreement occurs it’s normally polite to produce evidence to back it up rather than leave it as a pure statement followed by a veiled insult.

Anyway this is getting way of track. So can we at least just agree to state that the BNP is a legal organisation in exactly the same way as the Labour Party, the Conservatives, UKIP etc. regardless of the difference in their policies and therefore get the debate back on track as to whether they should be singled out in this way?

I went a Catholic school and to their credit the teachers kept their beliefs out of the science room. There are also a lot of religious conservatives in the NHS: so long as they perform their duties it’s nobody else’s concern if they privately disapprove of homosexuals or ‘immoral’ women.

However, where the hell do civil rights come in? Nobody’s talking about locking the BNP up, so unless you think it’s a violation of civil rights to sack people for bringing their employers into disrepute or for not being able to do their jobs, then you’re fairly leg-to-stand-on-free…