Talk:Chris Laidlaw

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He's hardly a DJ. Very little music on that show. Robin Patterson 03:00, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Neil PC protection of PC Icon Laidlaw by aggressive editing / removal - re 20/9 filling out Laidlaw have it both ways rugby/ anti apartheid/ pro Mugabe career
The previous version is an accurate interpretation of sources Terry McLean,Battling the Bok(1970). A Veysey. Colin Meads. All Black (1974)and Laidlaws 1973 opus, 'Mud in the Your Eye. A Worms Eye View of the Changing Rugby World'. Reed(1973)Wgtn. Laidlaw, a controversial regional and parliamentary politician and international level sportsman and diplomat is a valid candidate for hard scrutiny and it is inappropriate to give him BLP protection, to the degree of a private individual,particularly as there is no issue re his 21c private or commercial life. He remains an opinionated left wing national level radio commentator and broadcaster with the 9-12 RNZ Sunday show.

Laidlaw in that book describes, All Black Lock, Colin Meads as the most significant rugby player of the late 50s to early 70s All Blacks and the real leader of the All Black. In the Veysey biography, Colin Meads. All Black (1974). Veysey gives great space to Meads campaign to maintain Rugby ties with South Africa, his support for the SA right to their own approach, but is outrageous and unacceptable and deeply offensive in the views, Meads is described as expressing in his standard after dinner address's to the Rugby supporters, that Central NI Maori are backward, drunkards, easily misled and require a tight paternalistic regime of restricted access to pubs and the city. These views are deeply racist and the core of what is wrong with NZ society. I am personally deeply hostile to the Meads/Laidlaw paternalistic social interventionist approach and the general western double standard that, it is okay if James Hunt is getting it on with 20 women a night but if Tiger Woods gets it on with multiple white women partners, its an outrage. The paternalism of white liberals is the worst form of racism and reflects in the general coolness to Rhianna in the US. Beyoncé and Halle Berry are safe as they could never manage a controversial political/alcohol or sex statement.

Generally Laidlaw was seen by NZers across the board from the players to the liberal to the right as a mindblowing hyprocrite determined to have it every witch way in the 70's. Mud in the Eye is a basic diatribe about how the 70 Tour was lost because half the all blacks devoted themselves to after game sex, rather than training and the match and often decide to prioritise, the treacle, booze and hot women laid on the SARFU and local SA unions, at the after match functions. Even many of his fellow players thought this a bit much, given Chris was known for his taste for easy on the eye, and this was probably much of the reason he was playing for Oxford against the Springboks and for the All Blacks in the 1970. At the time of maximum anti apartheid activity against the Boks in 69 Britain and in SA in 70, Laidlaw chose to play them and then ran down the All Blacks who made the same choice probably purely out of love of the game in 73,76, 81 and 85.

Terry McLean takes the line, I follow in criticising, Laidlaw on the 70 tour, specifically mentioning the superiority of Going as a halfback, Laidlaw's disastrous performances in the first and third tests and his view that Laidlaw should probably have confined himself to being a manager, selector and not a player. In McLean's NZ Herald writing, on the 66 Lions tests it is clear in the 4 tests it is, fly half Mac Herewini who makes the killer move, kick, grubber kick that turns the game the all blacks way and that the fundamental flaw in the All Blacks that the style of Laidlaw and Herewini is incompatible and the reintroduction of Kirton is to put in a far inferior player who naturally fitted Laidlaw. .

Both my parents held views on Laidlaw. To my my mother a PC like Laidlaw was a natural enemy. My father was a half back and Wellington,rep Tennis and Swimmer, nominated for the Rhodes Scholarship in 1946 for which he was edged out for the last place by Engineer and mediocre Labour MP Jacky Ridley, father later studied at Balliol in 49-50, deciding to return to NZ rather than accept the college invitation to return, for a few weeks to finish a B.Litt by submitting a bibliography for his work on English Civil War Poet, Milton. Fathers view was that Laidlaw was an intellectual mediocrity, selected as a Rhodes on a massive weighting to a somewhat doubtful Rugby ability. He relished predicting the course of Rugby games and was usually accurate about the 1970 tour matches.
 * See WP:NOTFORUM. And your edits blatantly violated some of our policies - WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, WP:NOR. See BLPN for other views. -- Neil N    talk to me  02:19, 22 September 2013 (UTC)