Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman has been forced to apologise for branding a senior coalition minister a “ginger rodent”.

Here, the Shropshire Star’s James Shaw speaks up for the county’s coloured population.


When I was a child at school, the words ‘ginger’ featured heavily amongst the various taunts I received.

In fact, the words ‘spotty’, ‘crater’ and ‘pizza’ were also regularly used – I was that sort of child.

So I was a tad surprised, to say the least, to hear Harriet Harman call Danny Alexander a ‘ginger rodent’.

Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, but Harriet, who I suspect may be a closet ginger herself (or at least ‘crushed strawberry’), really missed the mark on this one.

The ginger taunt is one that should be kept firmly within the school gates, and not used amongst those people who are supposed to be running the country.

Or at least they did before May 9th.

I bet Danny heard much worse during his school years and probably chuckled at the absurdity of the current media storm.

I certainly did.

But expand the issue a little and we open a huge can of worms.

Where does simple teasing end and racism begin?

Some would say that, in isolation, a taunt about the colour of someone’s hair can, in some circumstances, be little different than a taunt about the colour of someone’s skin.

The feelings of isolation, hurt and downright misery are felt whatever the abuse.

Others, of course, would say that comparison is absurd – the history of racism against black people carries a legacy that will never, and should never, be forgotten.

As does other forms of discrimination.

Indeed, on a wider basis, racism on the basis of skin colour, sex, religion and gender is awful and cannot be justified in any form whatsoever.

But take a look at any job advert these days and the problem is clear.

Most will say employers do not discriminate on the basis of race, age, gender, sexual orientation, ability, disability, nationality, religion… but where do we draw the line?

Who has the right to say someone doesn’t deserve such protection if they are ginger, spotty, blonde, twitchy, have big teeth, or even possess just bad dress sense?

Discrimination is terrible in whatever form it takes and to narrow it down to just a few specific issues is a difficult task indeed.