Now that ISN'T funny.

I'm no fan of NF but it wasn't him who used the phrase, it was 'one chap' speaking about him.

And again soon .

<oh crumbs> emotion.
I dont understand this thread either.

I am staying off gransnet for several hours more.

Yes. He did rather ruin the effect by saying it was meant to be a joke...

I think he couldn't resist the opportunity to sound as though he was being clever with double meanings.

Considering the speaker was referring to NF , it's really stretching to interpret this as non racist.

I'm left wondering (if he was really meaning "down to earth") why he then felt the need to add "that's a joke by the way"

Precisely Galen. Just seen the Express & Star headline. Nigel says he will win seats in the Black Country. But, from which Party? Dudley North is Labour, I think. I suspect Labour rank and file relate more to NF than to intellectual socialists like Milliband. Whereas Tory disaffected would turn further to the right.

In Wednesbury (not a million miles fom Dudley) a spade is a bloody shovel.

Not in Dudley. They would mean that they believe NF says it like it is!

On the fens a spade is called a digging shovel!

It wasn't racist surely?

Or have I missed the point and it actually was racist?
(Does anyone actually use that word any more to describe a black person?)

I don't get it

Does he mean NF doesn't call a spade a spade?
Like the Australians who call a spade a shovel?

Well, what's wrong with that, if he was using the phrase as meaning 'down to earth'? Good heavens, did he think someone might think he was being racist...?