The wealthy right-winger Yvette Cooper has just been on television intoning Labour’s new mantra “It isn’t racist to be worried about immigration.” This should be challenged robustly at all times. Above all, it is very, very racist for politicians to go around saying “It isn’t racist to be worried about immigration” when they are using it nakedly and cynically to bid for the votes of racists.
I can never recall any by-election that got as much BBC publicity as that in Rochester, not even Hillhead or Warrington. The BBC and media establishment are continuing their massive promotion of UKIP at all times. The Labour Party is responding by pandering to racism. Yvette spoke of the “race to the bottom in the labour market”. The country’s real problem is the race to the bottom in the fascist market.
Promising 1.000 new uniformed border guards as their headline policy initiative is a pretty impressive spurt by Labour in this fascist race.
It shows how sour politics have gone when it takes the Confederation of British Industry to inject some sense from a liberal perspective into the immigration debate. Over 60% of CBI embers say that immigration has benefited their company. Only 3% believe it has hurt their company. Immigration is a tremendous boon to the British economy. Without it we would be deep in recession. Nor is it in the least responsible for the growing wealth gap. The period of highest immigration into the UK coincided with the period when social mobility and social equality were making the most progress.
That people still fall for the old con-trick astonishes me. Don’t blame Britain’s 100 billionaires, multi millionaire bankers or grasping landlords for your poverty – look! blame that foreign-looking poor man over there. He is eating a bit of cheese. He has taken that cheese from the mouths of your children!
It is primal and it is ludicrous, but the appeal to atavism can work and Labour are seeking to profit from it.
The Labour Party’s deliberate conflation of the unrelated questions of corporate, banker and executive rapacity, the exploitation of the workforce, and immigration is deeply, deeply, shameful. There was very little Yvette Cooper said that Nigel Farage would not second. But that, after all, was the purpose of the exercise.
Glenn
Thanks for your latest.
I’ll think I’ll give up on this topic now because it looks – judging by the increase in off-topics – as if this thread’s reached the end of its natural life.
One full page (about 200 comments) seems to be about the maximum for which people have ideas and the strength to resist going off-topic. And then there are also those who – one can somehow sense it – are simply itching to get back onto their favorite hobby horses.
Is this really the UK’s third most read “political” blog?
As a very last word – and more or less on-topic and for the record – I noticed that there were several usually loquacious posters who decided not to share their thoughts and opinions on immigration into the UK:
Mary
Mr Goss
Mr Scorgie
Tony M
DonnyDarko
Republicofscotland
“Robert Crawford”
MJ
Rehmat
Guano
Macky
……
FINIS
The troll, aided by ‘Reluctant Observer’, attempted to goad me into entering into a conversation with them. It started yesterday and continued today but now he is narked that he was unsuccessful. My posts on NHS staffing, Cooper and Balls’ funding and Reckless’s outrageous remarks, amongst others, were obviously insufficient for his purpose.
He never even asked why I was in A&E. I was there because I had breathing difficulties on Sunday necessitating two emergency calls for paramedics. You can see that I have observed the workings of the NHS up close and personal this year so to speak. Hope he never experiences stridor btw.
Enough.
Habba
1. You never answer questions,why should anyone answer those from you ?
2. I’ve given my opinions on immigration before on this blog,so if you’d paid attention you wouldn’t need to ask.
3. Emigration/immigration is the weakening of any electorate.Power loves people that don’t vote or can’t vote.If they shuffle the pack fast and long enough then no-one will notice that they’ve lost their liberty while shifting their home.
Tonight I heard that 40,000 Maasai will have to move off of their grazing lands to make way for a 1500 sq km hunting reserve for a Dubai Sheik.Somebody that wasn’t them is selling their land!
C’mon habba, look what happend to the owners of the land in Palestine! Dispo f**n sessed.
You seem to have allowed yourselves to be distracted by Habby from this weeks important news, revealed by Lysias.
As Habbabkuk has noted, there have been interesting contributions on this topical domestic issue. Those who insist – pace Craig – that “It is [indeed] NOT racist to talk about immigration” are interpreting him with pedantic literality. As his blog makes clear, he was objecting to the phenomenon – as much bourgeois as Marxist – described by Maoists during the Cultural Revolution as “Waving the red flag to oppose the red flag”(ie racists waving the anti-racist banner). Maybe a classicist amongst the readership can identify the correct term for this widespread rhetorical device.
I have much sympathy for those who see growth supported by immigration as a Ponzi scheme; and the reminder that the NHS relies on attracting doctors and nurses from developing countries – compare how Ghana’s educational budget subsidizes the NHS and the UK Treasury (through the taxes paid by Ghanaian medical professionals in the UK) more than DfID’s budgetary support for education and health in Ghana.
No-one has mentioned the elephant. Over-population – of humans at the expense of elephants and many other forms of life with which we “share” this planet, just as oligarchs share it with plebs. That has nothing to do with immigration as such. The movement of people and of financial resources is a political more than an ecological issue.
I actually watched the Youtube stuff Peacewisher.. once you start there’s quite a bit of material.I’m catching up.
Odd that Clegg is the one who has been quoted in the press.I watched how him and Alexander walked away from a foto shoot rather than answer questions about Cyril Smith.It’s so awful its hard to imagine and yet its at the core of the UK’s power centre.
They still dont care about justice…its damage limitation.I did do my Roman history and this is beginning to resemble the downfall part.
@DonnyDarko: As with the phone hacking scandal, we have Tom Watson MP to thank for giving child abuse and politicians an airing on a public stage. If you read his musings, you’ll see that he felt he was “conned” into voting for the Iraq war, and he is probably trying to make amends.
“Child Abuse Campaigners are not Conspiracy Theorists, Mr Cameron”
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/will-black/child-abuse-wanless-review_b_6143070.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
But still no mention of Holly Grieg.
Oh, the excuse of overpopulation to carry on; somehow I’ve noticed it never actually refers to the people using it, or their families – unless any of you have stopped having grandchildren/nieces/nephews/children deliberately. It’s always ‘the other’. PJ O’Rourke pointed out way back that it never refers to,say, San Francisco either, just to African countries.
So just another way to carry on a non-discussion. There is no ‘mass immigration’ into the UK. There is no ‘uncontrolled immigration’.
@Ian Orr: “No-one has mentioned the elephant. Over-population – of humans at the expense of elephants and many other forms of life with which we “share” this planet, just as oligarchs share it with plebs.”
Nobody, Ian? Hmm, ok. I didn’t want to side-track too much, and the side-mention of the costs to the environment were a bit tangental. It certainly did occur that the bio-mass of humans passed that of any other species a few years back, and that we are wiping out those creatures with which we share the Earth at the rate of a Great Extinction level event.
About half of all vertebrates have been wiped out since the 1970s. Half. The bird population is collapsing here in the UK, and bio-diversity is in peril not seen since the last Great Extinction. The oceans are dying, becoming more acidic. The more exotic animals (tigers, rhino, polar bears, elephants – elephants for god’s sake!) are threatened with complete extinction within decades.
The reason for it is obvious – too many humans, with too little regard for fellow species. Not to mention the casual preference for eating meat, which is a catastrophic demand on finite resources.
I’ve banged on about this at great length, although not in this thread. Please don’t think that nobody cares about this stuff, though – personally, I find it desperately sad and painful to contemplate.
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@Technicolour: Nice to see you back. But as for those who choose not to have children for the precise reasons you mention – can you imagine them getting anything but withering scorn or pity, or contempt, for being childless? Telling a nuclear family that you’re child-free, will get you just about as far as telling people at an all-meat BBQ that you’re choosing to be a veggie for ethical/ ecological reasons.
Glenn, thanks. I’m not sure I would care that much about what other people think: if I’d thought it through to that extent it wouldn’t be for applause. But in the case of the people who already have children it would seem rather churlish and mean. I don’t see what it has to do with immigration – in fact, it doesn’t have anything to do with immigration. But people will try and back up their instilled prejudices, I guess, including the ‘UK is overpopulated/crowded’ stuff.
Btw Glenn, the other concerns you raise – the bird population dying, species being wiped out – are a) the fault of intensive corporate poisoning and b) desperation caused by the annexation of habitat for devastating development. Again, not immigration – but urgent and awful, I agree.
@Mary: Sorry to hear that you had breathing difficulties, I hope that will not re-occur.
But I have to say, you’re incredibly thin skinned, while happy to denounce and name-call anyone with a view you don’t like, or question anything. You talk at people, but not with them should you have a disagreement.
It’s not terribly polite to refer to others in the third person, demand answers from them, but totally ignore their replies. Build up an “enemy list”, trash-talk them, and this is just on a blog! How do you suppose entrenched enemies in different states resolve their differences, if this mentality is exercised more widely?
I suppose you’ll now have me down as “the enemy”, denounce my genuine note here as “acid” (again), and cross me off your Xmas card list.
But you should note that Habbabkuk’s tone towards you has recently changed and been nothing but polite – markedly so – while you have been nothing but rude. The same goes for your attitude and action towards other posters, such as “Reluctant Observer”. Who, I note, said s/he “totally” agreed with you in a direct reply.
Could you point to anything unpleasant anyone here has said to you, in this thread? Anything at all? Dozens of insults have been coming from your direction. Just in this thread.
Btw it was clear that Mary was instinctively and honestly humanising this whole abstract ‘it doesn’t concern us – we can talk about ‘them’ as though they were figures, or concepts’ guff, and thanks to her.
@Tech: Re. loss of habitat. Sure, not directly caused by immigration in this country, but most definitely caused by overpopulation, and the increasing demands of the affluent. The seething masses cause a tiny amount of the damage of the hugely rich, but we are seeing the numbers of both increasing. (Recall the record number of billionaires, besides the general population rises everywhere.)
The semi-affluent are causing more damage than they were a few decades ago, even as their numbers swell. “Decking”, removing even that tiny space granted to wild creatures in one’s own garden, is now very popular. It seems to me that cutting down mature trees anywhere near one’s living space has become a national obsession. Ever bigger cars, even bigger houses, and increased travel (particularly by ‘plane) is through the roof.
In my darker moments, as mentioned before, I don’t think we have more than a decent decades or so left before nature strikes back in the most severe and lifestyle shattering way. That’s bad enough, but it will take the rest of the planet’s wildlife with it – and that’s the real crime here, IMHO.
“About half of all vertebrates have been wiped out since the 1970s. Half. The bird population is collapsing here in the UK, and bio-diversity is in peril not seen since the last Great Extinction. The oceans are dying, becoming more acidic. The more exotic animals (tigers, rhino, polar bears, elephants – elephants for god’s sake!) are threatened with complete extinction within decades.
The reason for it is obvious – too many humans, with too little regard for fellow species. Not to mention the casual preference for eating meat, which is a catastrophic demand on finite resources.”
Nobody eats any of the animals you mentioned, non of the animals people eat are going extinct, they go from strength to strength.
Take a look around and see what grows, grass grows, grass grows on the deepest valley and highest hill, grass grows where nothing else will grow and grass just keeps on growing because it’s leaves go right to the ground and animals can eat it and eat it and it does not die.
But humans can’t eat it, it’s raw cellulose, we can’t digest it, the greatest resource in the world, solar cells better than anything we can make, wasted if it wasn’t for animals turning it into protein for us.
@Fred: I agree with that, but would you not also agree that the grasslands are only there because trees were cut down to make space for them?
It was said that a squirrel (one of the red variety) could make its way from east coast to west, without ever touching the ground, had it wanted to back in the day. That was before forests were demolished to fuel the industrial revolution, and make way for farmlands.
Nobody eats the animals I mentioned, but the highly affluent still use the body-parts for trophies, magic potions, and the animal dies just the same. Elephants and rhinos are killed for their tusks, not their muscle and flesh. Surely you are arguing here for a distinction without a difference.
Further to this, forest in the most sensitive regions are being destroyed to provide habitat for beef-cattle, soya beans and other cattle-feed requirements most often demanded in the meat industry.
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Incidentally, I would appreciate it very much if “fighting words” were not invoked between us.
Nov 20 UK parliament to debate how money is created
For the first time in 170 years the UK Parliament is to have a debate on how money is created. The burning question to be resolved is should commercial banks be allowed to continue to create most of the money (by far) circulating in the economy by creating it out of thin air each time they issue a new loan or mortgage.
Paying back the interest on money created in this manner, it is alleged, is one of the major influences on the economic system that requires an unsustainable perpetual growth in the economy. Those working for monetary reform have several short and to the point videos posted at PositiveMoney.org explaining in lay person terms why they believe this is so, if this question or the money creation process itself is knew to you.
The debate is to be carried live on the UK parliamentary channel.
Glenn, it’s confusing. ‘Decking’ doesn’t have anything to do with immigration. The depredations of the very rich don’t have anything to do with immigration. Cutting down mature trees doesn’t have anything to do with immigration.
I share, share, share, your sense of frustration and horror at what humans, globally, are doing to the planet (and would be doing even if we all obediently stayed within 5k of where we were born: again, nothing to do with immigration). Nor has it – I think – anything to do with numbers. At least, it is possible that fewer people, consuming on this awful scale, would make fewer inroads – but perhaps they would just increase the use of these poisons.
Partly what we need to do, to protect this planet for our grandchildren’s future, is to start implementing our knowledge and experience. We can produce locally grown food. We can produce white goods which are designed for end of life recycling. We can see plastic as a valuable resource for recycle and reuse, rather than toxic burning or burying. We can use sustainable solar and wind and water power, and less power. We can do all these things. We are part of this planet and we are learning.
A few thoughts; nothing to do with immigration.
@Tech: Btw, it is you who will be put on the defensive should you not have children. You will be required to explain your selfishness. If you start to say anything about the above-mentioned, suddenly you are a complete and utter bastard who obviously hates children should be regarded with suspicion (at best).
That’s while you nod and smile while people endlessly bang on about how wonderful their children are, and patronise you with their explanations about life in general – because without having children, you don’t know nothing.
@Tech: Oh, I fully understand we’re not talking about immigration now! Just wandering off topic, which – according to no less authority than Habbabkuk – we’re now entitled to do!
Thanks for that, Silvio.
A resolution of that and other skimming practices and protection rackets would in themselves go a long way to sorting most of the economic and ecological issues we face.
It ain’t the population. It’s how they’re organised.
It’s all a bit too top down.
This too is an interesting project on how to better use technology:
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
Glenn, oh well, more pity to them (the parents). Perhaps they are jealous, since our ‘government’ seems determined to make children some kind of exam, with real punishment if you ‘fail’. Perhaps in the middle of that pressure and awfulness they have been made to forget that children are fun and that the kids are alright – they generally are, even if they’re not ‘yours’. Shrug and fly a kite?
@Tech: “Partly what we need to do, to protect this planet for our grandchildren’s future, is to start implementing our knowledge and experience. We can produce locally grown food. We can produce white goods which are designed for end of life recycling. We can see plastic as a valuable resource for recycle and reuse, rather than toxic burning or burying. We can use sustainable solar and wind and water power, and less power. We can do all these things. We are part of this planet and we are learning.”
Sure, we can do this. But not while worrying about the basics – did you notice how “green” considerations were thrown out of the window, as soon as the economy started to tank? As if – tragically – the two were not absolutely intertwined in the long term.
But have you not noticed that as the rest of the world gets more “western”, not only do they want to eat meat in vast quantities – with the eventual aim of getting as obese as us – they want more “consumer products”. They want throwaway televisions, cars, and eventually telephones, computers and entertainment devices.
We – providing the shining example as ever – are not getting more green, but wanting cheaper goods and more of them. We don’t care where they are made, the miserable lives of the workers, the environmental devastation in the extraction of resources for them, or the pollution caused in their manufacture. Or their all-too-soon disposal.
Sorry, but I see no hope. If we had another 1000 years to gain enlightenment, maybe. But we ain’t got anything like that long.
It’s a very privileged position, being an adult without children, I think.
Oh, I reckon 350 years (give or take) – but we’ll get there.
Warming discussion, thanks, Glenn.
“Sorry, but I see no hope. If we had another 1000 years to gain enlightenment, maybe. But we ain’t got anything like that long.”
Don’t be discouraged. Remember that truly good people; people with empathy, not obsessed with self have always been in the minority.
Just look at how few generational icons have survived with continued human applause. We get these guys or gods like Jesus or Gautama at critical times of stress, but there will always be stress. You can’t sharpen a blade without stress, heat and metal loss.
On the other hand… 🙂