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Community leaders at Saturday’s ‘Rumour Desk’
Racist lies
Mark Hesford10/10/2008
RACIST lies are poisoning a north Manchester community, claim local politicians.
A series of vicious rumours circulating around the Moston Lane area came under fire last Saturday as local figures united to publicly tackle the hearsay they claim is having a "poisonous" local effect.
The city's first ever "rumour desk" was set up on Moston Lane in a bid to reassure residents that much of the gossip they hear about the area just isn't true.
The event saw MP Graham Stringer joining councillors, residents, clergy and police in manning the desk to discuss some of the current hearsay.
Mr Stringer said: "There's been a lot of racist rumours that have started up and we wanted to be able to have a point where people could come and check out whether they were true or not, and as it turned out they had no basis in reality."
The MP said he believed the rumours had been started by an extreme right wing political party to "try and do enormous damage in the community.
"It's an absolute hallmark of the way they operate, and they've got cleverer at disguising the nastiness of what they do."
Harpurhey councillor Pat Karney said: "We recognise that Moston has had a small influx of new citizens from the British Commonwealth and Poland and local people are entitled to ask and raise any concerns they have."
Cllr Karney added that, among the rumours investigated and found to be false by the council and police, were claims that:
- Live goats were kept in the new cafes on Moston Lane - FALSE
- The Farmyard pub on Rochdale Road is going to be a mosque - FALSE
- Signs in some of the new cafes say white people were not served - FALSE
Cllr Karney said: "They're all made up, all checked out and completely untrue.
"These types of rumours bring down the area. They've been poisonous and corrosive.
"Four years ago there were 40 empty commercial properties on the Lane as it struggled to compete with supermarkets in north Manchester.
"At the moment, there are only 12 empty properties as new people to the area have set up businesses. This is good news for the Lane."
Fellow Harpurhey councillor Paul Fairweather announced that a community event for businesses and residents would be held at Simpson Memorial Centre on 25 October, from 2pm to 4pm.
"This is going to be a great, working together day for everyone in the area. We want ideas about how we can improve the Lane. Food and refreshments will be provided."
Most recent 2 of 2 user comments
The Labour Party has been in power nationally for 11 years and has controlled Manchester for decades. Labour’s deliberate policies of Multiculturalism and mass immigration are the real root cause of the tensions in Moston, as in some other north Manchester suburbs. In fact, Graham Stringer has himself conceded as much in the past. In June 2006, Mr Stringer made a speech to Parliament in which he said his own government’s policy which saw asylum seekers settled in north Manchester in unprecedented numbers, gave rise to damaging myths and was “completely disastrous”. http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1009/1009011_mp_to_slam_asylum_policy.html
It is about time some politicians in this city started to take responsibility for their own actions. If Mr Stringer wants to find someone to blame for Moston’s problems, he need do no more than glance around the room at his next Labour party meeting.
10/10/2008 at 18:38
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