Derleth
Could this seriously be used as a racial comment? Toward people with dark skins, is that what you mean? I can’t imagine it being used with that implication in Britain, it would just sound stupid.
And to think, the Tories used to embrace the creature of the night image. 
Off topic, but did you know there’s a member of the Lords named Baroness Blood? That definately calls out “creature of the night” (although, she’s Labour).
The Marquess of Queensberry, the famed pugilist and homophobe – his name was John Sholto Douglas.
(ed: slightly modified)
Yes, it could be used in a racial context, and in this country it’s what more than a few people would immediately think. No reasonable person would necessarily believe it was racist, but in the US it’s very hard to escape the context of race, especially in politics.
In the US, there are people like Jesse Jackson and David Duke (although he doesn’t have a real platform these days) whose sole job, it seems, is to keep race in the public discussion, whether or not it’s actually relevant. A vanishingly small amount of real people think those two are sane, but we’re all subjected to the tabloid-style shock journalism of talking heads reporting what those yahoos say. It’s the equivalent of trolling on the SDMB: Even though everyone should ignore them, almost nobody is really able to.
Look at the massive uproar the word ‘niggardly’ caused over here in the states. It has nothing at all to do with the word ‘nigger’, but the image is there. The context is always present in American politics. There were people who called for the man to resign even though they knew he’d said nothing wrong, simply because the term clanged on something a vocal segment of our population won’t let anyone forget.
It’s stupid. It’s moronically, idiotically stupid. It’s a bunch of crackpots playing American politics like a harp. But it’s part of the underlying context of the American debate.
There have been some instances of people trying to see a racial element in some of Labour’s campaign material. But even I think they’re just cack-handed not racist.
For example there was a poster regarding Tory tax cuts - and it had two flying pigs (ie “when pigs might fly”) with Howrd and Oliver Letwin’s faces superimposed. Letwin and Howard are jewish. But as I said even dyed in the wool Blair haters like me didn’t see them as racist - just silly.
Can i just say ( coz there are probably more Brits reading this) that Bremner, Bird and Fortune is just hystericaly funny at the min. I was on the floor last week when Blair was suggesting he " just stay the night - for old times sake ".
Thank Og that we have at least a little bit of political satire left in us.
Sin