Emma Raducanu

[mkenuk]

First of all, let me congratulate Emma Raducanu on a magnificent victory in the US Ladies' Open tennis Championship. A great achievement.
We can be sure that the British tabloids will devote their front pages to this young lady for the next few weeks. The Queen will send her telegrams and give her medals and no doubt the Abominable Johnson will claim that it couldn't possibly have happened under a Labour Government.

There is one slight niggle in my mind however - Ms Raducanu was born in Canada to a Chinese mother and a Romanian father. She came with her family to England when  she was two years old.
How come she's British?

[Maudland]

She’s lived here since she could speak - how much more naturalized could someone be? What makes anyone British, if it comes to that? I can’t think you believe you can only be British if you’re born in Britain or have British parents ..  She’s more ‘British’ than Ben Stokes - but don’t tell Hobbit I said that!

[mkenuk]

Indeed; you know me and my political opinions well enough to realize that I'm playing 'Devil's Advocate' a little here.
Of course she is British and English is her native language. But what if she were not a tennis superstar? What if she were just an ordinary schoolgirl with 'foreign' parents?
Would we now have Ms Patel and her Home Office minions investigating her background searching for reasons to 'send her back where she came from'?

[Alan W]

See this front page from a couple of days ago:

[mkenuk]

The word 'irony' doesn't do it justice.
Hypocrisy comes closer.

[Maudland]

You couldn’t make it up.  :'(

It’s a pretty extreme points system, isn’t it?

I’d better not start commenting on the abhorrent divisiveness of this abhorrent government and the abhorrent media - not enough hours in the day.