Morrissey accepts a public apology from Word
I'm interested to hear that the case with the NME is still ongoing since there has been utter silence on the subject since the original flurry of knicker-in-twist emails between Morrissey's management and smug twat Conor McNicholas.
In all honestly, I am surprised that SP's management are pursuing the NME case. Unlike Word they never accused him directly of racism and largely quoted directly from an interview he gave to Tim Jonze. I think it's clear that this case is not intended to be won, but that if it were not pursued the implication would be that the inferences that readers were invited to draw by the NME are true.
The conclusion I opt to make (which isn't, I hope, too influenced by the fact that I am a fan) is that Morrissey is not a racist.
He is, like many people, utterly confused about the history of immigration in Britain. We, as a nation, appear to have developed a shorthand "Britishness" that totally disregards the many waves of immigration our island has experienced and our own imperial history. The country we live in was built using money from the tropics and labour from Ireland, the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies. To suggest that the sensation of walking down British streets and finding oneself "hard-pressed to hear anyone speaking English" is in any way new is utterly absurd (indeed, Morrissey himself would surely have experienced it, growing up in 1960s' Manchester).
Essentially, though, I don't think his comments are racist or discriminatory, just ignorant and ill-informed, something that is easier to forgive but no less dangerous.
The original NME article appears to have been removed but the BBC write up can be found here)
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