Talk:Oona King

message: After somehow managing to snatch a Labour heartland, George Galloway was asked by Jermey Paxman if he was happy to have ousted one of the few female black MPs. I ask why does (or should) this matter? Is it wrong for constituencies where black, female candidates stand to be contested? - Surely not for democracy's sake.
I found this out as heresay sometime after the election. When I first saw Oona King, I was puzzled. The woman did not appear to be black at all (she looks slightly tanned, almost mediterranean ). Upon reading the article, I found out here mother was jewish - perhaps she should be referred to as mixed race. 
With this in mind, I conclude that the title of second female MP to be elected is invalid. It is quite clear that Dianne Abbot is the first black woman MP, comparing the two, I don't think Oona King is the second.
:OK, I admit that my own recent edit on this point was not the best, but I don't think Oona King can be properly described as black. --Ross UK 05:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why do you think that being Black is about how a person looks? Terms like Black and White, when applied to humans are not about skin colour, they are social and cultural terms, in the UK people of Indian-subcontinental origin often refer to themselves as Black. A Black person is Black if they identify as Black. If King identifies as Black and the Black British community identifies her as Black then she's Black. Of course she might actually be Black and White, she may identify as both, and if White people perceive her as White then she can be White as well. There's no either/or here, indeed given that the average African Carribean and African American person has a significant European ancestry, it can be claimed that the vast majority of Black people living in the USA and the UK are of mixed-race, this does not preclude them from being Black. Take a look at Glossary of terms relating to ethnicity and race: for reflection and debate by R Bhopal. This is a British perspective, but that's OK because this is an article about a British person. Alun 06:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is some merit in your argument, but race is a matter of genetics, as I see you say yourself.  I think we would be a lot better off without racial labels, let alone applying them where we don't even need to (ie. socially/culturally). --Ross UK 20:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Race is not a matter of genetics, and I have never claimed such. Race is a social concept, there's no such thing as a biologically defined race, if anything genetics emphasises that humanity is not divided into discrete "races" or populations, rather the global human population varies gradually over distance. It is a well established fact in anthropology and in biology that human biological and genetic diversity does not fit any of the current criteria for defining subspecies. See the American Association of Physical Anthropologists's Statement on Biological Aspects of Race, the American Anthropological Association's Statement on "Race" and the nice paper Race and Genetics by Pilar Ossorio and Troy Duster. Long and Kittles excellent paper Human genetic diversity and the nonexistence of biological races goes into a great deal of technical detail if you are interested.   We are all Homo sapiens sapiens. Oona King can be described as of mixed descent, and as Black and I see no contradiction here. I don't know if she considers herself Black, but if she does then she has every right to do so, and no one has the right to say that she doesn't. We don't have enforced racial classifications here on Wikipedia, and the UK state does not record or asign racial classifications to it's citizens. People are free to identify how they like, let's just be grateful we are free to do so, unlike in certain other times and places. Alun 05:20, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Is Oona King even Black?

message: Does anyone have a source for the Galloway quote "the deaths of many people in Iraq with blacker faces than hers" in its context?  I can't find an in-context source, and the news reports I've found quoting that phrase do not say it was a reference to Oona's jewishness. So I'd like to see the quote in context to judge if that claim in this article is justified. (NB the original source given  didn't even contain the quote, so I've changed it to one  that at least has the quote out of context.) -
Rwendland 23:27, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Galloway quote

message: I can understand that Oona used to be an MP, but she is no longer in my mind a person of any importance apart from trying to get self-publicity all the time.
What are your thoughts before I mark the page for deletion?
User:Hayday
:Of course she should stay, we have many former MPs on here, not least User:Hayday's great-great-uncle; I imagine the aspiration of many editors is to get all former UK MPs with a full biography. If starting a new career in the media and hence becoming a 'self-publicist' is reason to consider someone as non-notable, there are thousands of articles with less of a claim than King to notability. Leave it be. Mtiedemann 13:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should Oona have a presence on Wikipedia? 

message: Hi all - I've begun work on creating an Infobox for Members of Parliament - you'll see it commented out when you edit the page. I can't get it working, so feel free to wade in / advise - I'll go and seek help elsewhere too.... Petesmiles 04:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  InfoBox 

message: The article, prior to the edit I'm about to make, stated "This led to the Respect's George Galloway, a leader of the Stop the War Coalition, standing against her at the 2005 general election." This is contrary to what I understand to be the reality; Galloway decided to run in Bethnal Green and Bo because Respect had done well at the local elections. So while Oona King's vote for the war (along with many other Labour and Conservative MPs) was used prominently against her in the campaign it wasn't the cause of the challenge as the article seems to imply. Or so I understand; I feel that if there's a revert from the cause-neutral change I'm going to make it should be accompanied by a citation. DACrowe10 (talk) 11:01, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It is usual for new sections on the discussion page to be in a chronological sequence, so I moved your passage for this reason. Defeated is the more common usage than "successfully stood against", though I added "later" so as to acknowledge the reference to the 2005 election is really parenthetical. Philip Cross (talk) 11:21, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: (Mis)attribution of Cause for Galloway's Challenge

message: Having read her excellent maiden speech, I just didn't recognise what appeared here as a summary.  King described herself as "multi-ethnic", representing "a truly multicultural constituency" .."where hardship and deprivation gave birth to Britain's greatest social reforms" She described Beveridge and Attlee,  being surrounded by "East End infant mortality rate of 55 per cent"  leading to social reforms and the NHS. She says there is a need for coherence in the strategy for eradicating poverty and emphasises the role of education in the elimination of poverty.
All that appears are the racial obscenities which she clearly hated and which get repeated in Loss of 2005 election section.  Does anyone have a serious objection to replacing "unparliamentary language" and providing a proper summary of her maiden speech? JRPG (talk) 15:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  1997 Election + inappropriate over emphasis on Race in article. 

message: An anonymous user created a section entitled "Scandal", where Ken Livingstone claimed that Oona King used inappropriate means of obtaining Labour Party members email addresses.  However, the Labour Party stated that they gave details of members to both Ken Livingstone and Oona King.  This clearly appears to be an anonymous Ken Livingstone supporter trying manipulate Wikipedia for its own goals.  
This allegation was not picked up by any main-stream British paper.  It was picked up by the London tabloid the Evening Standard.  And in either case, it is hardly a "scandal."  The title also lends credence to the notion that this is cyber-vandalism designed to score political points rather than create a serious story that properly reflects the life of Oona King.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wy harvard (talk • contribs) 13:11, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supposed Scandal 

message: King should only be described as a politician if she wins the nomination. (92.4.45.37 (talk) 20:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean? Trying for the nomination isn't politics??--Kotniski (talk) 20:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

text: Where do you get this strange definition of politician from? For me it isn't necessarily someone who holds office at any given time (and nor does someone who holds elected office necessarily become a politician - people just happen to have this irrational tendency to elect politicians to such offices), but refers to someone who seeks office or power (and on a career basis, not just one-off). Anyway, whatever the precise definition, Oona King is not a "former" politician - better not to describe her as a politician at all than to give a misleading description like this one.--Kotniski (talk) 13:45, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Former politician 

message: not moved. Seems to be a clear consensus that she is generally known without the title. --rgpk (comment) 22:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Oppose. Sorry, she's well known to people who follow politics. No disambiguation is required here, and so far she's virtually unknown with the title, so yes, I think she is "normally or exclusively known without it". Come back again in a year's time and we can see if she's started being commonly referred to as Baroness.--Kotniski (talk) 11:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Oppose - Significantly notable before the peerage. - hahnchen 00:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Oppose She is normally known without the title. PatGallacher (talk) 18:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Oppose Far better known without the title particually after she was beaten by George Galloway. She was known as Oona King when Galloway beat her and that is her most notable and publicly remembered moments.--Lucy-marie (talk) 13:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

text: Oppose for now.  Moderately high-profile politician without the title; that may change when she is in the Lords, but let's wait-and-see. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
*Oppose She's a life-peer, not a heritable title. As she is a life-peer, means that her peerage came about from her own works prior to acceding to the title, so by definition, she was well known prior to her title; this would mean that all life-peers are also similarly not covered by PEER. 64.229.101.119 (talk) 16:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 

message: Quotations sections do not belong on Wikipedia WP:NOT WP:QUOTE they go on Wikiquote instead. 64.4.93.100 (talk) 21:04, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not Wikiquote