Migration is not a crime, but the discussion is criminal
contribution by Left Outside
Carl Packman recently wrote of the left’s problem on immigration. However, it is not the just the left which has difficulty discussing immigration. The right does too, because they just can’t help themselves distorting the truth or outright lying.
As I began to discuss here, talk about immigration in this country is tainted by decades, indeed centuries, of prejudiced stereotypes that are difficult to escape. Unfortunately some papers extend so little effort to escape this regrettable history that numerous blogs have been created to monitor them.
A lack of originality, a surplus of bile
What I want to create is a crib sheet for any article you see on immigration, migrants, refugees or asylum by looking at the history of that discussion. Our modern debate on migration has not developed out of a vacuum.
In fact, we are forced to watch tedious reruns of discussions concerning Huguenots in the 1680s, Irish migrants in the early 19th Century and Eastern Europeans in the late, Jews in the 1930s and West Indians and South Asians in the 1960 and 70s.
As Paul Gilroy describes in There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack “the wearisome task of dissecting the rhetoric is not helped by its lack of originality: ‘they’ are taking our jobs and houses, using up local resources and undermining ‘our’ culture and, in return, offering ‘us’ disease and terrorism.” However, dissect it we will, again and again, until they fucking learn.
Any immigration story you read in the above papers will be shaped by the groundless assumptions under which the anti-immigrant polemicist operates. These do not pop out of thin air, they are drawn from the past. Pick an article; I will guarantee that it will contain a combination of the below:
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A 10 pt plan to save Labour?
1 – establishment of a High Pay Commission;
2 – greater tax justice, including closing tax havens and more equal distribution of income and wealth;
3 – index link benefit levels, pensions and the minimum wage to average incomes;
4 – replacing tuition fees with a graduate solidarity tax;
5 – a Fair Employment Clause in all public contracts;
6 – windfall and transaction taxes and resetting capital gains tax;
7 – a new covenant with the military, including more investment in mental healthcare, equipment, housing and support for veterans funded by scrapping plans to renew Trident and re-deploying the money saved within the Minister Of Defence budget;
8 – a Green Neal Deal*, to include scrapping the third runway at Heathrow;
9 – remutualisation of the finance sector;
10 – a credit card bill of rights for consumers.
… according to Jim Pickard, taken from a speech that Jon Cruddas gave yesterday.
The advice is simple: move leftwards or lose the election. I can see two advantages with this. First, this manifesto would be electorally popular, and it would fight on a different ground than the one Tories want now (size of public debt). Secondly it would invigorate a very demoralised Labour base which would otherwise not bother to go out and vote or deliver leaflets.
The problem is that it doesn’t go far enough.
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BBC responds to shameful G20 coverage complaint
The BBC have finally responded to a complaint by Guy Aitchison and Stuart White over it’s coverage of the G20 protests.
Guy writes on the OurKingdom blog:
Well, better late than never. Over three months after mine and Stuart White’s complaint to the BBC over their coverage of the G20 protests we’ve finally got an email which isn’t just a generic reply and actually deals with some of the substantive points we raised.
Unfortunately, they’re still not admitting their coverage of the G20 protests was anything other than exemplary. At points the letter is defensive and evasive and when it comes to Julian Joyce’s article on kettling, it’s just plain wrong.
…
Although its initial reporting was nowhere near as misleading as the vitriol coming from the likes of the Standard and the Telegraph, the BBC is rightly held to a higher standard than these. But it demonstrated a warped sense of priorities when reporting on the policing of the G20 and at times was inaccurate and misleading.
Read the BBC’s reply and their response on ourKingdom
Would the left benefit from a Tory landslide?
I’m going to get flamed for saying this, but what the hell. Labour’s a lost cause. The left is going to lose, the right is going to win, and it’s time we started thinking about what kind of Tory government we want.
Specifically, about the type of Cameron majority that would do least damage. There’s a chance, I think, that a narrow Tory victory would be the worst result possible for the progressive cause. A Cameron landslide (this is where I get flamed) might actually be better than a close-run thing.
Think this through for a minute. Imagine that, when the election rolls round, David Cameron becomes prime minister with a majority of 100. That should be enough to let him do pretty much he wants.
What he wants, he says, is a more liberal stance on civil liberties, prioritising spending on schools and healthcare, a more serious approach to climate change… It’s not perfect (hello EU), but lord knows there are worse manifestos out there.
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Spectator u-turn on climate change facts
From the new blog Left Foot Forward
Back in July, The Spectator caused controversy by splashing with the headline, “Relax: Global Warming is all a myth.” The piece was based on a new book from Ian Plimer which had already been systematically pulled apart by real climate scientists. Plimer is also now in an ongoing and entertaining spat with George Monbiot over his spurious claims.
Anyway, Left Foot Forward can now report an interesting development. One of Plimer’s central claims – reported by Melanie Phillips for The Spectator – is that Arctic sea ice is in fact growing. This assertion is, of course, simply wrong. But now this week’s magazine, in arguing for new fossil fuel extraction in Arctic wilderness areas, carries this reverse claim
Blair: I didn’t know much about Middle East
You may remember we pointed out a few weeks ago that Tony Blair was going on a six-talk tour around London to offer his views on faith and politics and why he loved invading foreign countries. Or something like that.
It turns out one of those talks offered an interesting insight into the former Prime Minister’s knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs. That, it didn’t amount to much.
One of the most interesting replies Britain’s former Prime Minister gave was to a question that was asked on how insights from his work for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation inform his work in Israel, Palestine and the Middle East and vice versa.
He said he had been working with the rabbinate and the Christian and Muslim communities. ‘I think it’s very important for the Christian community on the Palestinian side not to feel disadvantaged.’
Then he went on to confess he could perhaps have been a little bit more knowledgeable about Israel-Palestine when he was running the country.
Leave aside his unwillingness to say anything on the disadvantages faced by the Muslim community on the Israeli side.
But acknowledging he could have “been a little bit more knowledgeable” about I/P is akin to saying he knew as much about the area as George Bush did.
And these people run our foreign policy.
The Nadine Dorries legal action – something odd
It comes as no surprise that Westminster journalists have faithfully repeated whatever gets published on Guido Fawkes, but there’s a few odd things about Nadine Dorries’ legal action against Derek Draper and Damian McBride.
For a start, here’s a statement by Draper to the Telegraph.
[edited]
So I’d like this cleared up.
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The sorry state of welfare
You know that something’s rotten in the state of Labour when you read about a Tory welfare proposal – that’s a Tory welfare proposal, written by the Tories – and find yourself thinking, ‘that’s actually the first vaguely sensible idea I’ve heard for a long time. It might improve things.’ continue reading… »
The BNP and our sick democracy
The question of whether the BNP should appear on Question Time raises a worrying question for the health of our democracy.
Matthew Syed thinks the BNP should appear, on the Millian grounds that:
The more oxygen they are given to publicise their views, the more the British people will choke on their bigotry and hatred.
But this runs into Paul Sagar’s objection – that QT is not a platform for debate but merely a zoo in which soundbites are vomited into an audience who clap like hyperactive seals.
There’s a danger that Nick Griffin could actually emerge well from such a show.
continue reading… »
Public wants more taxes for high earners
This should come as some disappointment to all those who argue higher taxes are very unpopular.
The YouGov survey is part of a week-long series on the Conservatives starting today in The Daily Telegraph.
There was vindication in the poll for Mr Cameron over the tough stance he has taken on public spending and taxing the rich. Sixty-nine per cent of all voters and 63 per cent of Tory voters said the party should raise the top rate of income tax for those earning more than £150,000 in an attempt to tackle high government borrowing.
George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, has refused to oppose Labour’s plan to raise income tax, despite some criticism from his own side.
Wonder what Labour MP Tom Harris, always happy to stick up for the rights of the extremely high earners, would say.
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