I just saw the British Prime Minister do something, so appallingly tasteless I could not believe it was happening. BBC News just showed a dawn raid by immigration officers on a well-kept home. So far, so tasteless.
Astonishingly, once the evil foreigners had been herded up and taken off to detention camps, where they risk being beaten up or raped, Teresa May and David Cameron arrived, and posed in the victims’ kitchen for trophy pictures.
I thought that what Blair has done since leaving Downing Street had debased the office of Prime Minister to an astonishing degree. But, posing for a stunt in the neat and clean kitchen of some poor immigrant, David Cameron had plumbed levels of tastelessness that again make me realise that the UK has become a country whose values I no longer recognise. The disgusting complicity of the BBC in filming this stunt is equally astonishing.
Are there really so few people left who have the slightest idea of what constitutes decent human behaviour?
I agree, on the whole, but I am also glad to see Cameron put his face in front of the actions he enables, endorses and encourages. It makes it much harder for him to claim he is being misinterpreted, over-reached, and so on.
And I would take issue with the idea that this behaviour is “tasteless”. Taste is personal, variable and legitimately transgressed in the interest of some greater goal. What we are seeing here is not “tasteless”. It is the thuggish bullying of scapegoats by the powerful, the endorsement of intimidation and physical attacks on the vulnerable and the reduction of political “debate” to braying soundbite-war.
But apart from that, I agree with you, and sign me up as a fellow objector.
It seems that a downward spiral is easy to lock into, Craig, and the longer it continues the more difficult it is to reverse. I suspect that if you do the appropriate reading you’ll find this is the typical behaviour of a country that is beginning to descend into fascism, especially with all that warlike rhetoric. Couldn’t happen here? I’m sure they thought it couldn’t happen in a country like Germany… or Italy.
Democracy is precious, dependent on public engagement, and constantly under threat. It’s all we’ve got though. The next election is less than a year away…
That is appalling, disgusting, and above all projections of the fantasy.
The news of the people trafficking gangs getting busted time and again whose speciality is to smuggle people out of UK, and this news is going suppressed.
although now and again there are glimpses of reality in the provincial rags, this being an exception;
Just to be clear:
What you object to is the PM and the Home Secretary getting some (cheap) publicity from the raid, and the BBC giving them airtime, and not the fact of the raid itself (which was presumably entirely legal and within the powers of the relevant authorities in furtherance of UK legislation on immigration)?
The fact that the home which was raided was well-kept, neat and clean, although welcome, is entirely irrelevant – but of course I understand why you mention it.
The election’s gonna be in November and, like Tesco, every vote counts. I’m not condoning it and agree that it’s vulgar, base, tasteless – whatever, but the currency of modern politics is to appeal to those tabloid characteristics and assuming that Crosby signed this off then fair play. Even Labour are now saying a vote for UKIP is a vote for Labour. Politics is a dirty game and election’s are even dirtier – if it gets one vote, it’s worked and, to be fair, those who are upset by it were probably never gonna vote Tory anyway. Anyone hear a dog whistle?
Craig
Having just seen Peacewisher’s commenbt:
“..you’ll find this is the typical behaviour of a country that is beginning to descend into fascism”,
I’d again like to ask you whether you agree with the several commenters on here that the UK is either already a “fascist state” or rapidly becoming one.
It is obviously my hope that you will give those commenters a swift kick up the arse or at least substantially nuance what they write…..in the same way as you have when you write about Putin’s Russia.
Eton used to teach the young gentlemen how to comport themselves, I am told. Cameron’s behaviour is a mark of declining educational standards, the parvenu he is, and the terror that UKIP induces in all Right-thinking featherbedded corporate trust-fundees.
We’re all Americans now, Craig.
I guess it gets votes – doesn’t it?
yes exactly, he did that because there is a consistent part of the British electorate who is pleased by this kind of assaults on poor immigrants.
Habbabkuk, we’re seeing moves to the Right all over Europe. I don’t describe the UK as a fascist state, but it has certainly been moving in a right-wing, authoritarian direction. We’ve seen this before, between WWI and WWII; severe recession, mass unemployment, austerity, poverty, the corporate media whipping up blame against “foreigners” and immigrants, detention without trial, secret courts, racist mobs like the EDL etc. We know what can happen. Exactly what would you accept as warning signs?
Thanks for highlighting another obvious case of desperation,Craig, just about any issue is now good enough to gather nuts for later.
This kind of backward display by the two contenders for the top job seem to have much admiration amongst the certainly calcified, their never ending love for this reaking old fashioned exploitation of public services, the ol’ fear and loathing aimed at anybody purporting that the thoughts of UKIP were a good idea and worth voting for, all this malodorous electioneering by party politicians, is nauseating.
It’s been going on for decades …. in the Eighties a West Londoner Brian Turner became the ultra big headlined “GODFATHER” …. accused of a Wembley Bank Robbery …. in ultra tiny print it fleetingly mentioned that he was a “godfather” to a small child in his family circle.
@Hab
When the three main parties for people to vote for are right (labour), far right (tory), and very far right (UKIP), that doesn’t look very democratic to me…
And when the law is being manipulated in favour of the rich and powerful… that doesn’t look very democratic either.
As Clark has said, we pulled back from the brink before, but that was in a time of strong trades unions, and the examples of brave people like Eric Blair and Mahatma Gandhi.
Out of curiosity, do Cameron, May, journalists etc have the legal right to enter someone else’s home? I can see that the immigration people were there legally (sadly), but the others…?
“in the neat and clean kitchen of some poor immigrant”
If not breaking and entering – then at least entering without consent. And trespass. And violation of privacy. Morally if not legally.
The democracy (lower-case) we enjoy in the US and UK is a supercilious version of the ideal. You could call it pseudo-democracy, with a dollop of fascism.
Cameron can do nothing about immigration because we have an open border with the EU, and big business won’t let him deny immigrants benefits. So he’s reduced to stunts like this, which UKIP would have been vilified for. Immigration is out of control (quite literally)but the answer is to stop them coming in the first place not glorying in turfing them out of their homes.
Hopefully Theresa played mother and put the kettle on while she was in the kitchen, booting out foreigners is thirsty work.
Tasteless Fascisto Pigs Break Into Nice Clean Home
Today commentators expressed outraged that Toffy Cam and Sexy Beast May were seen not dead with some flock wallpaper.
“It’s nice, it’s clean, yet tasteless” intoned the writer. “Are there really so few people left who have the slightest idea of what constitutes decent human niceness?”
“That kitchen needs some nice columns and red flags like they used to have down the road” declared another deeply concerned other.
“I suspect that if you do the appropriate reading you’ll find this is the typical style of a blog that is beginning to descend into parody” smarty dull pants failed to make clear.
Inspector Mud of the Yard dismissed questions “It’s not breaking and entering nor then least entering without consent either trespass and violation of privacy, both morally ney legally. So shut it.”
Excellent post Craig.
As others have quite rightly asked: what legal right did Cameron,May and the media have to enter this home?
Seems slightly bizarre for the PM and Home Secretary to meet for a press conference in someone else’s kitchen. But let’s trust the judgement of the PM, a seasoned PR operative, to know what he’s doing.
As to the apprehended occupants being carted off to be beaten and raped, is that truly relevant? I mean isn’t that the point of gaols? People have been beaten up and raped in prison ever since prisons were invented. What that has to do with immigration law enforcement I don’t see.
Obviously, in a democratic society, the law must in some degree reflect the will of the majority, and in no country do the majority or even a large minority want to open the door to millions of foreign competitors for jobs, housing and the use of public infrastructure. Therefore, immigration law enforcement is a necessary condition of democracy in a world where global mass migration is practical possibility. If that means carting off lesbian Cameroonians to be raped and beaten, that’s no reason for condemning enforcment of the immigration law, it’s a reason for reforming gaols.
CanSpeccy
That was an excellent 3rd paragraph, above, and not only because you used the expression “immigration law”, which makes clear what some other posters either can’t or don’t want to see, namely that we are – or should be – talking about illegal immigrants.
Tom is correct when he said that there are two aspects to this: prevent illegal immigrants from entering, and attempt to deal with those who do succeed in entering illegally.
I did also notice, incidentally, that Craig’s emotive post nowhere referred to the possibility that the people caught in this raid might be illegal immigrants.
“Are there really so few people left who have the slightest idea of what constitutes decent human behaviour?”
Yes, I’m afraid there are. Look at the litter strewn pavements and verges on country lanes. Look at Cameron and a couple of other chumps taking a ‘selfie’ at a funeral (Michelle Obama looking a bit thunder-faced, so perhaps she’s got better manners).
Yea there are some with at least an approximation of decent behaviour, but Cameron is not one of them.
I was truly sickened reading his statement on Gaza. As I see it anyone not condemning the source of violence between Palestine and Israel (the occupation and siege of Gaza) Is in fact helping Israel prolong it’s massacre of innocent people. Now hundreds of children included.
Yet he says Gaza needs to stop the violence? I really don’t know how anyone can be so low. And I don’t know how grown ups anywhere can accept this because of a so called threat by Palestinians. Frankly i’d endure the ‘risk’ of far more rockets and not have children killed. Coward’s, utter cowards. What kind of a place does a Person have be in to accept this, let alone be involved in it.
Ps, Good job keeping this blog going Craig, I peek in regularly. Keep up the good work.
“they were invited by the immigration authorities to observe at first hand the work of the said agents” Bob’s you uncle.
The lawlessness is such that these days we are resorting to the by-laws; spiting in the street, etc.
It is quacking, it is waddling, and it is not a duck! Yeah because, is there a moustache to be seen anywhere? Is there any one goose stepping? Is anyone wearing jackboots? Is anyone clicking their heels at the sight of women? How can it be fascist then silly?
Israel’s rank and rotten fruit is being called fascism
DUNO – Jewish Chronicle Special report “Team Cameron’s big Jewish backers”
http://website.thejc.com/home.aspx?AId=46698&ATypeId=1&search=true2&srchstr=++%22big+jewish+backers+%22&srchtxt=0&srchhead=1&srchauthor=0&srchsandp=0&scsrch=0
As a Friend of Israel Cameron voted for the Iraq war. That makes him a criminal in my book. He’s not a humanitarian.
Miliband is no better. As someone who’s Jewish he’s in a good position to make a stand and condemn the slaughter. But all he’s thinking about is his own image.
Thanks for the link Je, always good to see democracy at work.
Yea, Image money success, Far more important aren’t they. I keep forgetting.
Radio 4 PM interviewed an academic legal expert today justifying Israels bombing of civilian targets. He said that the public assume that all such bombing is illegal…
i didn’t wait to hear the sick justification.
If you can buy a UK politician for less than a tank, you can buy a UK academic for less than a rusty Micra.
The No. 10 Dollywood message is that Israel’s actions are the same as evicting foreign illegal tenants.
Je
I don’t think you can make that connection between Zionism and Jewishness.
It’s possible that Miliband is a Zionist but he has cunningly not said anything in public.
If Israel can persuade some of the most pious Muslims alive in the world today to sacrifice their own and their Muslim victims’ blood in order to carve out a Greater Israel Empire in Syria, it can definitely persuade some Jews to be Zionists.
But not all of them all of the time. This is a sign of the coming of the AntiChrist.
Since the subject has been changed, here’s a simple solution to the problem created in Palestine by genocidal Jewish settlers.
The West, or at least the Anglosphere, having created the racist state of Israel, should offer immediate haven to all 1.7 million Palestinian Arabs, while requiring all its own Jewish citizens to either swear allegiance to their country of residence or relocate to Israel.
If Palestinians were received relative to national population, Britain’s share would be 244,000 or less than half of current gross annual immigration. Thus, with a moratorium on all other immigration, Britain could participate in a humane resolution to the evil of racial conflict in Palestine, while sharply reducing the domestic risk of racial conflict bred of mass immigration.
This proposal will naturally be denounced as inhumane and racist and Jews will continue killing Arabs in Palestine while the leadership of World Jewry will continue its effort to precipitate a world war from which it hopes to gain a position of irreversible global dominance.