There’s a strange little spat blown up over here.

Some guy took a verbal swipe at an MP, a few years ago. The story is news now because the comments, uttered in private, have just become public. So at this point in time, everything is “alleged”, although the chap himself seems to have indicated some kind of wrongdoing, since he’s tried to apologise to the MP. You don’t apologise unless you’ve done something wrong, I think.

The MP affected by the alleged “swipe” happens to be a black woman. The swipe itself was along the lines “XXX is so [bad], it makes you want to hate all black women”.

The reason this became front-page news? The guy in question donates big to a political party. Big. To give you an idea, the parties are capped in terms of how much they can spend on a General Election, and this one chap provided about a quarter of that amount. So, you can imagine, with that kind of money, he’s an important donor.

Many people have condemned the comments; even the Prime Minister’s office chimed in, agreeing that the comments were racist. The Prime Minister happens to lead the party in question, so something of a rebuke.

There’s related fallout about whether or not the party should return the money. Disassociate themselves from him. Which leads me to a strange story I just read – a spokesman for the party said that there’s no question of returning the donation – and no problem receiving more donations from him – because the party does not believe that the man is a racist.

So let me get this straight. The comment was racist, but the chap who made it is not a racist?

Huh?

I mean, surely if at walks like a duck, if it talks like a duck…