By the way, if you're not remotely interested in:
- A grumpy old bugger doing a lot of moaning
- UK politics
- Natural justice
- Un-PC topics
Look away now. Because that's all this site is about.
Back to the figures relating to foreign nationals working - perfectly legally - in the UK. Well, back to the last figure in fact. What makes it interesting is that it just about matches the number of British-born people currently claiming unemployment benefits. So, here's the first conundrum. Why would any country allow 1.5 million of its own people to be out of work while welcoming the same number of foreigners to come and settle here?
According to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, over 52% of all the new jobs created in the last decade have been hoovered up by immigrants. Where's the logic in that?
Before anyone starts yelling racist, fascist or any of the other rent-a quote synonyms for a right-winger let me make it clear that my beef is not with the immigrants. If we are prepared to let them in, why should anyone blame them for coming. Given a choice between no hope in Bratislava and a chance to start afresh in Balham, anyone with an ounce of drive would jump on the next coach to Victoria Bus station.
The question is, why has the government not merely welcomed these people but gone out of its way to encourage them? A succession of Home Secretaries has stood up in the Commons - or more correctly appeared on TV - to promise they were getting to grips with the problem. Jack Straw (was anyone ever given a more appropriate name?), Blind Blunkett, Clarke, Reid have all talked tough about controls and repatriation while, simultaneously throwing open the doors as wide as they could get them.
Is there another agenda at work here? I believe there is. In another age it was called gerrymandering. All the parties indulged in it, moving boundaries to try to change voting patterns in their favour. Now, the current administration has taken it to a more sophisticated level. No label has yet been created for this particular practice. But, the motive is the same; to manipulate the vote.
The logic is inescapable. There are certain areas of Great Britain that have always voted Labour and will always go on voting Labour - whether the old or the New variety - because every wave of economic success passes them by. Equally, there are bastions of Tory support which catch all the waves for the simple reason that they create them in the first place. Noo Labour knows this. No matter how pathetic they may be as administrators, the Blairs, Mandelsons and Browns of this world understand politics. Equally, they know that the more prosperous people become, the more conservative ( with a small c) they tend to become in their habits. Owning a property in common with a bank has a way of concentrating the mind and stimulating an interest in economics that may have, hitherto, lain hidden. Consequently, with the British economy enjoying the longest sustained growth in living memory, more and more people have climbed onto the property ladder and, thus, have also taken the first, tentative steps towards small c conservatism. In fact, all that has limited the numbers jumping aboard the property bandwagon has been the astronomical inflation of house prices. ( One of the Laws of Unintended Consequences that we can discuss at a later date).
So, here's a conundrum. We ( Noo Labour) naturally want the country to be prosperous because it enhances our prospects for re-election. On the other hand, the better off the country becomes, the further away from our core values the electorate moves. This is particularly true in the engine room of the economy, in the South East where home ownership is at its highest; as is, surprise surprise, the level of support for the wretched Tory party. Even more worrying is the fact that the benefits of the economic miracle are also being enjoyed in our traditional working class heartlands where the same shift towards middle class values is clearly discernible. There are only so many times we can move to the right to maintain our appeal to "Middle England" before we alienate the Unions and there are only so many new government jobs we can create. So, where else can we look for the voting fodder we need to win the next election and keep ourselves in a manner to which we have become rapidly accustomed? The answer, my friends, lies some where else in a place known as Abroad.
Let us welcome the huddled masses, yearning to be free that the US, Australia, Canada, South Africa and most of the developed world - and virtually the whole of Europe, apart from Sweden - don't wany darkening their doorsteps. Let's remove all border controls and issue entry visas as if they were library tickets. If people swarm in illegally, let's pretend that we hadn't noticed even if, by doing so, we encourage slave labour in the form of Chinese cockle pickers or Romanian child prostitutes. We'll claim to be building a truly multi-cultural society. If people complain, we'll brand them racist. If they say we are destroying British culture, we'll label them Little Englanders. And, if they persist with their protests, we'll introduce a raft of new laws that make it illegal for them to do so. We'll deny, cavill, argue and prevaricate while, all the while, encouraging the largest continuous migration in British history. Because, while the rest of the country looks on the newcomers as immigrants, foreigners and threats to their jobs we see them in a totally different light. To us, this multi-coloured rainbow of cultures and religions represents the future. Our future, handed to us on an electoral plate by hordes of grateful Poles, Somalis, Albanians and Slovaks so different in their origins but united by one pure and beautiful emotion; undying gratitude to the party that gave them the keys to the Kingdom.
