*sigh*
and here I was saying we shouldn’t be sucked into Cameron’s trap…

but there are even black and Asian Tory MPs. Younger readers will not believe how improbable that once would have seemed.

Even older ones would have to be pretty damn old, given that the first Asian Tory MP was elected in 1895.

Yes, Labour seem to be content to keep their heads down and hope that the Tories and Lib Dems suffer from having this debate; this is completely wrong because what will actually happen is that they will both gain – Tories gain from the right and Lib Dems gain from the left.

Labour ought to be staking out a position to the left of the Lib Dems on this. Or just agree with Vince and point out that if Vince really believed what he said he wouldn’t be in the government, he’d join them.

Pedant alert! It wasn’t a by-election.

What *is* the case for MASS immigration?

Controlled immigration I can understand, but unfettered?

As far as I can see, MASS immigration has put pressure on services, particularly education and the NHS and put pressure on the housing stock. It’s also put pressure on jobs and forced wages down.

The ONS reported that roughly 70% of the 2.5 million new jobs created under Labour went to foreigners. When we have youth unemployement near 1 million and total around 5m, surely at least some of those jobless would have had better opportunities?

I can understand the argument that immigration could have increased GDP, but at what cost?

“Controlled immigration I can understand, but unfettered?”

You massive hypocrite. Are you joking?

You are constantly banging on about all the advantages of markets and the one market you don’t support is the one with the biggest potential benefits of all?

Argh! Is a little intellectual consistency too much to ask for from the right?

Pedant alert! It wasn’t a by-election.

Correct, it was the during the general electioncampaign in 1964 that the Tory candidate, Peter Griffiths, campagned under the slogan ‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour”. prompting so much controversy that a BBC journalist arranged for Malcolm X to visit the town in the hope of drawing Griffiths into an on-camera debate.

Griffiths ducked out at the last minute, leaving the journalist to interview Malcolm X on the steps of Smethwick Town Hall, this being the final TV interview he gave before his assassination.

The interview has never been broadcast and may sadly have been lost forever, like so much other BBC material from the 1950s and early 60s.

@ 5 Tyler

“Controlled immigration I can understand, but unfettered?”

Who’s arguing for unfettered immigration? As far as I can see, the debate is between different types of controlled immigration.

“As far as I can see, MASS immigration has put pressure on services, particularly education and the NHS and put pressure on the housing stock. It’s also put pressure on jobs and forced wages down. ”

You’ll need numbers to back that up – not anecdotes from people who think these things have happened in their local area, or dodgy tabloid claims, but proper studies.

“The ONS reported that roughly 70% of the 2.5 million new jobs created under Labour went to foreigners. When we have youth unemployement near 1 million and total around 5m, surely at least some of those jobless would have had better opportunities?”

And surely some of the Brits who DID get jobs would have had worse opportunities, because the jobs they got wouldn’t have existed in a smaller population. You have to look at the big picture – it’s no good just to pick the people whose experiences support your argument.

“I can understand the argument that immigration could have increased GDP, but at what cost?”

Well, what cost?

@ 6 Left Outside

Sorry, but a true market in immigration would have us taking the people we want and can offer something to us, and rejecting the one we don’t, based on some percieved value to society or the economy.

That’s kind of what I want, not the unfettered access scenario we have at the moment whre anyone can get in. I mean, it’s harder to get into South Africa and work legally….

So, by your very own definition, I *am* being consistent.

Nice try though.

LO – yes!

The question posed by Dave is one that will outlive Mr Cameron and us all – namely, is Cameron who the right say he is (Stephen Glove for example, for whom Cameron is some sort of socialist shitting on the history of empire and criticising universities for not letting in enough blacks; or Peter Hitchens whose c is so small, that the Conservative party today are like Castro in the 60s) or who the left say he is (upper class twat, on the rollercoaster of high politics and/or classic Thatcherite strangling the masses and [promising the] shrinking [of] the state).

Clearly it’s hard to tell – after all this is electioneering time. But what is more interesting is the reaction of Nick Clegg:

“Cameron’s language isn’t what we would have used…but he’s a Conservative leader talking to Conservative voters in the run-up to an election.”

What is it about Conservative voters that makes stirring shit on the immigration question so appealing?

And why is this appeal Europe-wide? What politics do we have to look forward to in Europe when the left have failed to capitalise on the banking crisis, and third way politics are on the way out?

Maybe Cameron, rather than simply talking to Conservative voters, is representing the depth of European right wing politics today, and the terms of that future debate, which is anti-immigrant and worried about the dissolution of national identity.

What is it about Conservative voters that makes stirring shit on the immigration question so appealing?

Steady on there chief. There’s only one party that has had an MP thrown out of the House of Commons for lying about immigration.

We won’t miss him, Tim

@ 9 Tyler

“Sorry, but a true market in immigration would have us taking the people we want and can offer something to us, and rejecting the one we don’t, based on some percieved value to society or the economy.”

Yes, but that decision would be made by the hiring companies, not the government. You’re arguing for state control.

What’s interesting here is that no one seems to have hit on the obvious explanation for Cameron’s speech which is simply that CCHQ’s internal polling has been throwing up some pretty ropey numbers in areas where UKIP are putting up a challenge to incumbent Tories.

Both coalition parties expect to get a kicking in the local elections – the Tories have simply been banking on the LDs coming off worse than they do in order to save a bit of face, but since the Barnsley result there’s been a growing concern that UKIP could do a bit of damage in some of their heartland areas, if not by winning seats then at least by splitting the Tory vote.

“Sorry, but a true market in immigration would have us taking the people we want and can offer something to us, and rejecting the one we don’t, based on some percieved value to society or the economy.

So, by your very own definition, I *am* being consistent. ”

No you’re not being consistent.

A country isn’t a consumer or producer, people are. You are saying that the state should intervene massively in the economy because you want it too.

You are being inconsistent. You like some statist interventions, just admit it, you love the state when it suits you.

Why do you hate foreigners by the way? Hate is probably too strong a word, why do you think they’re morally inferior to Brits? Why do Brit’s deserve more rights than somebody from Mozambique by dint of their place of birth?

“That’s kind of what I want, not the unfettered access scenario we have at the moment whre anyone can get in. I mean, it’s harder to get into South Africa and work legally….”

We don’t have that system. That is completely untrue, you know literally nothing about immigration (the comparison with South Africa I can’t vouch for, aren’t rather a lot of refugees living in northern South Africa?)

Two people who were accepted to do my Masters programme at LSE this year and who had secured funding were refused entry to the country, a third made it in on appeal. These are highly educated people and the bureaucracy in immigration decided they were not welcome.

We have deported 100,000s of asylum seekers and stopped many times that from entering, many of them with legitimate claims.

5 Acts were passed by Labour each more restrictive of immigration than the last, there are no legal means for unskilled workers to enter the UK today. The Bangladesh Caterers Association are up in arms because South Asian restaurants can no longer hire chefs.

Unfettered immigration Britain had prior to 1905, no immigration controls, no controls on the movements of goods, services or money either. Since then we’ve not. I assumed that’d be a system we could compromise on, apparently not.

I own a house in (a very safe part of) central London and I employ staff.

More immigration please!

Unity – that may be the case, but that does rely on UKIP-leaning Tories being dumb enough to heed Cameron’s ‘dog whistle’ while ignoring the fact that he can do nothing about migration from the rest of the EU without leaving the EU altogether.

PS: There is something rather illogical in claiming that ‘welfare’ made Brits too lazy to get the jobs that were then taken up by migrants, only for those same Brits to complain about immigration.

“I own a house in (a very safe part of) central London and I employ staff.

More immigration please!”

No cjcjc, you can only employ who you like if somebody in Dagenham agrees. Thats the free market Tyler says.

I don’t know what it is about migration that turns me into a massive libertarian ideologue, but it does.

I wonder how many more times this cheap, sleazy, tacky, Eton PR man can get away with making a speech on imimigration to divert attention away from negative headlines before it becomes too ridiculous for him to use this tactic anymore.

I don’t know what it is about migration that turns me into a massive libertarian ideologue, but it does.

So long as you don’t also rail about ‘our unregulated banking sector’.

“So long as you don’t also rail about ‘our unregulated banking sector’.”

Badly regulated! Nuance dear boy nuance!

21 – I know that! Although a true libertarian would presumably argue against any regulation of any kind.

But what would I know? I’m a Tory, not a libertarian.

But what would I know? I’m a Tory, not a libertarian.

If Bevan called you guys vermin I wonder what he’d make of the Tea Party.

24 – Amoebas on fleas on rats? I can see Nye joining the Pink Ladies.

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/6/6b/24types.png hey libertarian, my personal fave is ‘more libertarian than thou’

though Atlas seems pretty apt.

the internet, home of the Libertarian since 1994.

“If Bevan called you guys vermin I wonder what he’d make of the Tea Party.”

Given what some of the local politicians are now like in Tredegar, he’d probably join them.

now. Not only would any Conservative candidate who campaigned on an overtly racist slogan rightly face instant expulsion

it’s not only now a tory m.p would face expulsion ted Heath Deselected him,

Why compare Camerons speech to Griffiths one, Trevor philips and David Blunkett prasied Camerons last speech on multicultrualism failing, I seem to recall my own anger in 87 and 92 when alobur had got rid of militant and the Tory press were comparing Kinnocks new look laobu rparty to the semi stalinist one of the early 80′s ,this isort of you can’t say soemthing that doens’t fit i witht ehBBC world of politics or you’ll be called an extremist helps no one

‘Given what some of the local politicians are now like in Tredegar’

They were worse when Bevan started out in local politics (see Foot’s biography of him).

Did the ONS not calculate in their figures the offspring of immigrants? Can’t see how children born and raised in the UK should be counted as immigrants getting jobs.

The market solution would be a borderless world with no immigration controls. It is certainly inconsistent to argue from one perspective that the market always knows best. Yet, when private sector companies wish to import staff apparently the government bureaucrats know best and say no. However, unfettered or even large scale immigration is inconsistent with a social safety net let alone a welfare state. How UKIP manage to reconcile free market and anti-immigration rhetoric is beyond me.

Since this is clearly a matter of supply and demand, a market solution has already been suggested as a means of controlling immigration. Simply put, a price is set each year depending upon the number of migrants required or allowed ( a variation is to set a differential price for company sponsored migrants, economic migrants not sponsored, family migrants, and political migrants). Any migrant who can raise the required price (through their company, their own savings, family or charity) is allowed in – otherwise hard luck. This provides a useful stream of income which offsets any additional costs the migrant might generate by being here. If the price is too high or too low it is adjusted the following year.

Migration across national boundaries is affected by complex political, economic and social (call it tribal, if you like) factors. There are very few occassions when a state has been able to prevent or control such movements. So Cameron can make whatever statement he wants during an election campaign but he cannot deliver.

Because EU requires free movement; because employers require skilled or cheap labour; because impending civil strife (as in Libya, Bahrein etc) require people to seek refuge; because children/ families/ older people require to be united and so on.

A globalised economy requires a globalised work force; maybe Labour should grasp this and campaign honestly and truthfully.

Economic immigration isnt the issue, and most people can differentiate between assylum seekers and those coming here to work legally who will pay their way and pay taxes.

I know Disraeli in the mid 1840s wrote that London is the modern Babylon – he was the grandson of immigrants btw – but isn’t a tiny bit curious that:

One in three people living in London was born abroad and at least another 10,000 foreign-born citizens are settling in the capital each month.

Figures released today show that out of a total Greater London population of 7.4 million, about five million were born in Britain. [October 2007]
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23417272-one-third-of-londoners-born-abroad.do

Try that BBC2 Newsnight report on: London is different [April 2008]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7368326.stm

This is one of the factors driving immigration:

“Though white children in general do better than most minorities at school, poor ones come bottom of the league (see chart). Even black Caribbean boys, the subject of any number of initiatives, do better at GCSEs”
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14700670

“Government figures show only 15% of white working class boys in England got five good GCSEs including maths and English last year. . . Poorer pupils from Indian and Chinese backgrounds fared much better – with 36% and 52% making that grade respectively.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7220683.stm

Overall, only half of 16 year-olds at school in Britain can attain the benchmark of 5 good GCSEs, including maths and English.

The Crewe By-election in which New Labour unforgivably ran an anti Pole campaign is rather more recent . David Cameron`s speech was a well balanced breeze through Coalition Policy developing themes he has touched on often . Personally I think the economic argument is a small part of the issue and to see what it really is we might remind ourselves what Anthony Neather revealed about Labour’s true feelings about immigration

NEATHER: One of the reasons they don’t really seem to have cared that much was because you know they broadly viewed immigration as a good thing, both culturally and in terms of the labour market. They were committed to multiculturalism sort of as a facet of social justice, if you like.
GOODHART: Which in itself is connected to the collapse of so many other left-of- centre ideas – I mean giving up on any sort of distinctive left-of-centre political economy, giving up on the working class.
NEATHER: Absolutely, absolutely, and I think diversity as a leftist language of social justice and, if you like, I mean crudely seeing ethnic minorities as essentially the standard bearers of the sort of social justice rather than the working class and traditionally the white working class.And that’s definitely something which emerged in this country in the sort of 80s, 90s.

That rings true to me and it is hardly surprising that most Conservatives wish to conserve the essentially English nature of England . Those are the true opposing principles , visions you might say and it would be better to discuss them openly than play the mendacious game of Economic benefit or dis-benefit .Immigration is easy to solve . Just slow it down and let people get on with it

As I said earlier – before any of you start again – we DON’T have a market in immigration. Within reason anyone can settle here. If we actually did have a market we would only allow people with certain skills to settle.

What you (Left outside) mean by “a market” is allowing anyone who wants to to access our jobs market because in theory its adds to GDP. IN nominal terms that is true. In per head terms it isn’t.

A true market would only allow certain people because they add value to our economy or society.

@ 15 LO

A student declares! Wait till you start paying tax sunshine. Though I somehow doubt you will ever do a job which is a net contributor to GDP, and instead will forever be living off the state in some form or other. Probably turning up to marches organised by self interest groups campainging against cuts to their taxpayer funded salaries.

You say a country doesn’t consume or produce, but then expect it to be able to issue debt with near zero default risk? You my friend are inconsistent.

Don’t exactly hate foreigners. Not sure where you got that from other than your left wing hatespeech political toolbox.

Both my parents are “foreign”, by the way.

As I tried to alude to, was that we *don’t* have a market in immigration in the UK – because anyone can come in.

I’m sure your heart is pissing blood right now, but it turns out we live on a small island with limited resources. We simply can’t have everyone live with us. Though I’m sure you’d happily whine like a little bitch and blame the tories when your local school is full and the hospital is too busy.

FYI South Africa has incredibly strict requirements to earn a work permit (took me 8 months). As does the US, and Canada makes both look like a walk in the park.

We have deported 47,000 people from the UK since 1997. That somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 of a *single* months net immigration.

Suppose I shouldn’t complain too much though as the sheer level of immigation has led to my dear Mother’s translation business going from her to about 160 people in a few years, just from demand from the Police.

That all said though, I suppose someone needs to work to support the 5-8 million Labour voting proles who do nothing for our economy. Maybe we should import Poles till we can’t suport any more. You bleeding heart lefties will not like that a huge amount though as your average Pole hates socialists and tends to vote Tory – a happy little throwback to communism.

@ Various people

Various people above have attacked the straw man libertarian argument – that your true libertarian would argue for no regulation on immigration etc.

If we didn’t have to pay taxes, and had limitless space in the country, youd be quite right.

Except we do have to pay taxes, and we do have limited space.

A true libertarian would ask what the newcomer can do for our society or economy, and if that is no greater than what someone already present can offer then they don’t get their visa or work permit, based on the collective idea of mutual advancement.

Actually, a really really true libertarian would say that everyone should just eat what they kill as it were, but beleive it or not even those on the right ahve a social conscience.

@ Richard W

You almost hit the nail on the head when you say large scale immigration is inconsistent with a welfare state. We’re simply not rich enough to provide for everyone.

David Coleman, an Oxford University academic, estimated in 2007 that immigrants cost the taxpayer £8.8?billion a year, when social costs such as pressure on public services, running the asylum system and teaching English were accounted for.

The Labour government claimed that immigrants brought economic benefits and had the net effect of boosting gross domestic product by £6 billion a year.

QED

“A student declares! Wait till you start paying tax sunshine. Though I somehow doubt you will ever do a job which is a net contributor to GDP, and instead will forever be living off the state in some form or other. Probably turning up to marches organised by self interest groups campainging against cuts to their taxpayer funded salaries. “

Haha, I work 40 hours a week to pay for my course. *Blows Raspberry*

The “true” pro-market solution is open borders.

Here is Bryan Caplan explaining why migration is good.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/09/immigration_res.html

“What you (Left outside) mean by “a market” is allowing anyone who wants to to access our jobs market because in theory its adds to GDP. IN nominal terms that is true. In per head terms it isn’t. “

You’re like humpty dumpty, when you use a word you seem to think it can mean whatever you think it does. A market involves voluntary exchange at the individual level, immigration controls get in the way of that voluntary exchange.

Why does migration turn you into a statist? No intervention I have ever proposed has been so detrimental to human welfare as the migration controls you support.

However, it is only on net bad if you think that people in Britain are worth more than people not in Britain, because the migrants wages would increase more than. That’s why I used the word hate, you seem to be claiming some people are worth more than others.

Okay Tyler, try this.

The car made people worse off, carriage makers went bust, horse trainers had to retrain, pollution damaged people’s health. would you argue the car should have been banned because “in theory its adds to GDP. IN nominal terms that is true. In per head terms it isn’t.” ?

(By the way, I do support sme controls, but in an deal world, they’d be much looser than they are in the UK. If you still think they’re loose then ask why there aren’t more migrants here already, we’re easy to get to by plane and there are ~5 billion people who would be made better off if they moved here, but they don’t.)

“David Coleman, an Oxford University academic” and Migration-Watch numpty! Migration Watch UK are a bigoted organisation whose whole purpose is to attack migrants! Nice source.

“A student declares! Wait till you start paying tax sunshine. Though I somehow doubt you will ever do a job which is a net contributor to GDP, and instead will forever be living off the state in some form or other. Probably turning up to marches organised by self interest groups campainging against cuts to their taxpayer funded salaries.”

LOL!

Troll losing argument. That make troll MAD! Troll retaliate with inaccurate personal attacks! Now Troll go hide under bridge and pretend he win.

Oxford employs all sorts of fruitcakes as academics and boasts many more as alumni, it’s really not worth appending it if you want to construct an appeal to authority

Not appending, the other one

@ 39 LO

Bully for you. Though I’m guessing if you can do a 40 hour work week plus your academic course you are unusually driven or gifted. One could also suggeest your course isn’t the most rigorous, but let’s jsut stick with the driven or gifted shall we?

But now to your slightly woolly arguments. Migration hasn’t turned me into a statist. It’s jsut an observation of reality. We have nation states and it’s some socialist wet dream not to have such.

((the one after the dream where Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton ride off together into the susnet. On a fucking unicorn.))

Your argument about the car is the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in years. Honestly. The car made A FEW people worse off. It made the majority of people much better off. It’s like saying penicillin made people worse off because a few quacks or faith healers were put out of business.

Not everyone can or even wants to live in Britain, but the 5 billion people you mention at a best guess live, on average, on a lot less per day than your average Brit would get on the dole. Once again though, you have clearly missed the point by a whole country mile.

Our social security system can’t support 5 billion people. It can barely support the 60 million currently in it.

Do you honestly think that if huge amounts of people suddenly moved to the UK, the average wage would stay the same? GDP might go up, but GDP PER CAPITA will get crushed, which is much more important to the man in the street.

It’s lovely and egalitarian of you to think that everyone is worth the same, but in real life, observably, we know that that isn’t the case. I’m not as good a footballer as Wayen Rooney. He isn’t as good an interest rate trader as me. People are more or less talented, have different skills etc. I think what you really mean is that everyone has or deserves that same *rights* and should be treated equally before the law, which I do wholeheartedly agree with.

@ 40 LO

If migrationwatch are so bigoted, why is immigration such a big concern with the general public, including Labour voters? It’s pretty much only the champgne swilling Hampstead socialist elite who don’t seem to think its a problem. I guess mostly because it’s cheaper to employ fijian illegal immigrant housemaids.

@41 Chaise

Buddy, you clearly don’t understand the finer points of trolling. Trolls don’t get angry. Trolls *make* people angry. That all said, I’m not even trollnig that well, given I’m right except for the special case of Left Outside’s socialist student revolutionary utopia.

If nothing else, you people seem to warm your cockles on my little posts in some way or other as I do tend to get a response.

Bully for you. Though I’m guessing if you can do a 40 hour work week plus your academic course you are unusually driven or gifted. One could also suggeest your course isn’t the most rigorous, but let’s jsut stick with the driven or gifted shall we?

Well I’m doing a masters at the LSE and I frankly have no choice if I’m going to afford it. Thanks for your concern

Do you honestly think that if huge amounts of people suddenly moved to the UK, the average wage would stay the same? GDP might go up, but GDP PER CAPITA will get crushed, which is much more important to the man in the street.

*head desk*

Income per capita for residents in rich countries would suffer some changes in income, and it would disproportionately effect the poor in those countries. But the people who moved to the UK would get wealthier than the people in the UK got poorer.

Therefore, in per capita terms (unless by capita you mean only people who hold UK passports, my Latin is a little rusty, you tell me), GDP will increase.

What is it about foreigners that brings out your inner egalitarian?

People are more or less talented, have different skills etc. I think what you really mean is that everyone has or deserves that same *rights* and should be treated equally before the law, which I do wholeheartedly agree with.

I agree completely, but why do you rank the most important talent, the single biggest determinant of somebody’s wage, as their couontry of birth?

What incredible talent you have to have been born somewhere wealthy!

@ 44 Tyler

“Buddy, you clearly don’t understand the finer points of trolling. Trolls don’t get angry. Trolls *make* people angry. That all said, I’m not even trollnig that well, given I’m right except for the special case of Left Outside’s socialist student revolutionary utopia.”

…And one way to make people angry, of course, is to ad hom them! I suspect trolls do both, as I suspect you did there (and no, I don’t actually think you’re a troll, but you were in troll-form when you started trying the “people who are different than me don’t know anything” trick).

In short, grow up a bit.

“If nothing else, you people seem to warm your cockles on my little posts in some way or other as I do tend to get a response.”

Ah, the “people aren’t ignoring me!” defense.

Look, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but people are probably more likely to respond to posts they disagree with, simply because arguing is more fun that saying “I agree”. The fact that people are responding to you negatively does not mean you’re wrong, but it also doesn’t mean you’re teh awesomez.

Anyway, that’s my daily attempt to help someone out from under the bridge. Take it or leave it.

@45 LO

Glad its working out for you – whne I did my masters I certainly couldn’t have managed another 40 hours paid work on top.

As for your points though, you are still wrong. An example;

Simplify the problem down to 2 countries, and you still get the same general answer, based around purchasing prices. Roughly speaking things cost the same everywhere (taxes aside), but they don’t necessarily cost the same to produce. If you move all the production from country A, where production costs X and wages are lower, to country B, where wages are higher, either;

a) demand will fall
b) prices will rise
c) wages will fall to reduce production costs.

Assuming all other input costs remain static, normally it’s c) which takes the brunt.

By your logic, to increase GDP we should take all production from the places where it is cheapest and move it to places where wages/costs are higher…..

In practice, if you have a lot of immigration, GDP might well increase as there are more people active in the economy. However, more people means more competition for jobs means lower wages, and GDP per capita (GDP per head of population) tends to fall.

@46 Chaise

Well thank you, but I don’t think my arguments have really been knocked over. But my morning tequila probably didn’t make me any more considerate.

Quite funny to watch the inner statist surface when it comes to immigration. The world was not created with borders. Therefore, we drew arbitrary lines across maps roughly equating to the abode of arbitrary tribes. Perfectly fair to argue that one tribe is more important than another tribe if that tribe is yours. However, one should at least have the honesty to argue that case and not try to rationalise a whole load of nonsense on stilts.

How immigrants raise the wages of others.
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5729

Immigrants to the UK earn higher average wages than those who were not immigrants. Therefore, their tax contribution to the Treasury is also higher than the average. Moreover, their per capita contribution to GDP will also be higher. Every person in the population does not equally contribute to GDP. Some people will contribute a lot and some a lot less. GDP per capita is just a way to average GDP. It is just downright dumb to say because migrants raise the population that they do not contribute to making the country wealthier.

48 Yes, good points.

Another point is that The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail who stir up a great fear and loathing of immigration for their tory foot fodder, also will publish their property sections, with the foreign property section heavily promoted. Here the same tory hypocrites who froth at the mouth over immigration will look at country’s where they can buy a second home and go and live there.

No Irony at all.

@49

I recall a daily mail front page circa 2002 which claimed whites.would be a.minority by 2012, and trying to stir things along the lines of there would be more Muslims than whites.

Quite appalling a major paper can even have such a front page and think its in the public interest.

Sorry, but a true market in immigration would have us taking the people we want and can offer something to us, and rejecting the one we don’t, based on some percieved value to society or the economy.

Presumably you’d also support the same notion in the other direction?

After all if the state can decide it doesn’t need certain people, it can also decide it needs certain other people (dentists and nurses, say) and stop them from leaving.

Hat tip to DoTW

Tyler @ 9

Sorry, but a true market in immigration would have us taking the people we want and can offer something to us, and rejecting the one we don’t, based on some percieved value to society or the economy.

I don’t mean to be funny, but do you even understand the ideology that you espouse? because you are chapping with the above statement. The above is just shite.

The free market does not demand anything of the sort. Within the context of the labour market there is no such thing as ‘the Country’, there only various organisations.

(where have I heard that sentiment Before? I have had a shiver down my spine writing that).

These entities are of different sizes, from sole traders to multinationals, from minicab firms to Primary healthcare trusts, to corner shops and every other organisation you can think off, including the nice middle class family who want a nanny. None of these organisations are expected to work in the interests of the Nation, they are charged with working in their own naked self-interest, without a single regard to the outside World. The theory goes, a la Adam Smith, that somehow all those self interest actions will somehow coalesce into the greater good, or so the theory goes.

When Sainbury’s, Tescos, Asda or anyone commits any action, they do not do it with the approval the Government of the Day. Nor is it measured against any ‘greater good’ criteria or a cost benefit analysis. Like any organisation, they do what they do for good of themselves and to fuck what everyone else thinks or needs.

That is why we see factories close and offshore. I don’t recall ‘Dyson’ having to submit a cost benefit analysis to Tony Blair on the merits of putting British workers onto the dole vs the slightly cheaper vacuum cleaners, do you? No, he did this in his own self-interest and the rest of us, in one form or another, were forced to pick up the slack. Now, you could argue that the switch gave us a net return (different thread) but it was never his intention to do that, it was his intention to make more money than he was making.

Same rules apply with the immigration question. In a free market regarding the labour force, every company is actively seeking to employ the best workforce it can for the cheapest price possible, they do this for the best interest of themselves, irrespective of the potential damage that might do to the local economy. So, if ASDA can employ ten hundred Poles to work in warehouses up and down the Country the ‘free market’ demands that they be allowed to, irrespective of the external costs the local community incurs. That may be a good thing or it may be a bad thing, but like it or not , it is the free market solution.

Surely that is what capitalism is all about? Do what is best for yourself and let the other guy worry about his costs? That is what Marks and Spenser do, it is what BT do and it what BAE systems do as well.

So

If ASDA employ people who take up housing? That is in their own interest.
If the minicab hires a driver who cloggs up the NHS? The minicab is acting in his interest.
If the plumber hire a Polish guy and undercuts his rivals? Selfish best interests
If the PCT hires a nurse and the nurse’s children take up places in the school? Yep.
If Tesco employ Latvians and exclude British kids? Capitalism.
If Three hundred Somilias work i a field and live in crowded caravans for less than the minium wage? Same.
A hotel employs people whose child gets sick and use up a vital hospital bed?
A company employs five migrants and sacks two on the same day and bot claim dole money? Yep, not his problem?

None of these companies need, according to ‘free market theory’, to do anything other than what is in their own greedy self interest. Now you or I might not like it, but at least admit that this type of immigration is entirely consistent with the free market.

I guess none of you ‘liberals’ (as if) saw the Newsnight report a few months back where people were interviewed about their thoughts on the MASS, UNCONTROLLED, immigration into Britain.

Views like “Too much”, “Gone to far now”, “Wrong kind of immigrants coming in” and even….”Enoch Powel was right in his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech”.

And WHO said these things?
WHO were the people asked?
That stinking, worthless, BNP supporting white scum you lot love to spit at?
NO……NOOOOOOOOO…..It was BLACK & ASIAN IMMIGRANTS!

When even immigrants despair at the amount and kind of immigration affecting the UK, only an apologist moron would say “there really is no problem”.

HELLO! Apologist morons!

I guess none of you ‘liberals’ (as if) saw the Newsnight report a few months back where people were interviewed about their thoughts on the MASS, UNCONTROLLED, immigration into Britain.

HELLO! Apologist morons!

Oh my god! Black people have opinions now? And they are different to my opinions! That changes everything!

You mean that once inside a country and protected from competition people less migration!

In fact it makes sense for current migrants to be against further migrants because most research shows that new migrants actually compete against old migrants, not current workers.

I didn’t say there were no problems but I said the benefits to migrants outweigh the balance of benefits and disbenefits to us.

Now, Tyler.

Glad its working out for you – whne I did my masters I certainly couldn’t have managed another 40 hours paid work on top.

I’m studying part-time, so I imagine doing 20 hours work, its doable.

But in essence you are arguing that protectionism is welfare enhancing, which is pretty much bollocks.

It is especially bollocks coming from a rightwinger like you. You have still yet to convince me you are not being a miserable little statist.

“”I didn’t say there were no problems but I said the benefits to migrants outweigh the balance of benefits and disbenefits to us”"”

Yeah. Sure. The biggest immigration is from Pakistan/Bangladesh.
Most are poor/non-English speaking, hardline Islamic, unskilled and have on average 4 children.
And perhaps….4 fucking wives too!

And we pay for ALL of them.
ALL of that. In ever increasing numbers!
Benefits ahoy!!!
NHS costs ahoy!!! (the HUGE increase in genetic disabilities because of first cousin marriage alone is UNHEARD OF in the medical history of this country)

But yeah…IF, IF the Husband manages to get a job stacking shelves in Sainsbury’s that will indeed bring in more money than the cost of having him and his brood in the country.
Of course it will! Of course…….IDIOT!

This guy would have to be a top of the line computer engineer to even have a chance of covering the cost of him and his family being here!

More leftist lies.

“”Oh my god! Black people have opinions now”"”

Yeah.
And there EXACT same opinions most of the country has about the amount and kind of immigration coming into this country.
But when those evil white brits say it you USE that to show how wrong they are because really they’re just being racist and xenophobic!

OOPS!

And I like how you slander (did you look, they’re not white folks, are you sure you meant to say this?) these people by saying their views are based on personal greed at not wanting their slice of the pie diminished!
WOW! Sounds like the kind of charge you throw at whites.

Perhaps it’s really because their generation, and even newer generations of immigrants SICK TO DEATH THEMSELVES of the increasingly fanatic/bigoted/isolationist/violent Muslim immigration into the country, think this way because they have joined our society, they do work hard, they do like the culture and society they chose to join which is why they ARE here in the first place.

But when they see crack pimping Jamaican Yardies being allowed in.
Eastern European pimps being let in.
Ruthlessly murderous Somali gunmen being let in (FACT…most Black communities dislike Somali immigrants in the Uk more than anyone else!)
And West hating Islamists being let in….
(None of the above of course work or remotely care about the country and being part of it)… THEY feel the same dismay, anger and confusion as us white Brits!

Seems I actually have more in common with ALL those non-white immigrants interviewed on ‘Newsnight’ than ANY of you self-loathing white Brits on here.

And I’m glad.

Au contraire Davey. As you say, the fact that some black and Asian people can share your nonsensical opinions shows how well they have integrated into British society. But this is despite the apocalyptic warnings that people like yourself were making 50 years ago. The same hysterical libels were raised at the Windrush generation that you now level at Somalis.

The elephant in the room is that Cameron and his apologists have no hard, well-documented evidence for their claims of social tension. I read the Daily Telegraph from cover to cover yesterday as it harumphed about immigration through a front page article, a page of inside news coverage, an opinion feature and an editorial. In this mass of indignation, the only proof put forward of greater social division was that Polish shopkeepers can be quite grumpy. Not exactly the Tiber foaming with much blood. If we have just experienced our greatest wave of immigration over the past 13 years, we appear to have absorbed it with remarkably little upheaval.

The burden of proof is on the anti-immigration lobby. They need to build a case on facts and proven social trends, not anecdotes or semi-pornographic fantasies about pimping foreigners (white males have been thrilled by this idea, Davey, ever since the tales of Chinese white slavers). Where is the specific social and economic damage done by immigrants? OK, some of them may have worked as City bankers, but other than that, the evidence is conspicuous by its absence.

Davey Boy, tl;dr.

“”we appear to have absorbed it with remarkably little upheaval”"

LMAO! You live up a tree on a private island do you?

Either that or you are what I know you are…A Britain hating, West hating, White hating (self-loathing is soooooo this decades liberal black you know), appeasing, apologist, commie, hypocrite who would suck Bin Ladin’s dick as long as he whispered…”Stalin was groovy, death to America and Israel” in your ear.

And as for facts and statistics and real world cases about EVERY SINGLE THING I mentioned plus LOTS more. It’s all there. In the news, Police records, Court records, Government records.
All there.

But what do you care anyway. As long as you can read Marx sitting next to a mosque you don’t give a shit.

YOU prove me wrong. YOU show me what I said was incorrect.
I could fill this fucking site with proof to back everything I said up.

Your only argument seems to be “If a black person thinks like a white person he’s ALSO an idiot as all white scum are wrong and racist….just because”.

Fucking sop.

Davey boy I Have sEEn THE light!

You are so wise.

Swearing + CAPITAL LETTERS == win.

Everyone knows that AND YOU CAN’T PROVE OTHERWISE CAN YOU CUNT?

@58

I certainly seem to have touched a nerve. More homoerotic fantasies, I notice.

Do one thing. Read Ruth Duncan Edwards’ criticism of immigration policy in The Telegraph. Then read Mehdi Hasan on the benefits of immigration in the Guardian.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8451917/Who-is-to-blame-for-fractured-Britain.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/16/david-cameron-immigration-economy

Both have flaws. But one is calm, well-sourced and gives hard facts about the impact of immigration. The other is woolly, impressionistic, light on detail and relies on an imaginary “Joe Public” to support her case. The two pieces encapsulate the nature of the immigration debate right now.