According to Private Eye, the later smear on Fox’s alleged gayness was nothing to do with Davis. It was a Labour dossier passed to David Camerons gang.

I was accepting EUs point that no political or social group specifically wanted immigration. I would imagine most people don’t hold any specific views at all about immigration.

True enough. But it wasn’t always so. That it is so now is most likely because govt has already done a mostly satisfactory job of ensuring that most people don’t keep losing out to immigrants at interview.

Which may simply be yesterday’s problem, as globalisation and offshoring become the new immigration. After all, if you can’t move the people, you can always move the jobs.

Regulation doesn’t change the fact we are in a corporate economy. Rules and regulations are there to sustain us in it, not to change that.

The point is that corporations lobby for (and more often, against) the rules, they don’t set them. The big multinationals are the only ones that can really slap government around, although the reverse is also true.

That’s not a clever observation Frank - that’s my point. The public didn’t reject Conservative immigation ideas as you suggested they did - they rejected the whole shooting match.

I’m not trying to interpret the results based on the voting system - and I accept the point you make about people’s liklihood to vote if the system had been some other. But let’s not pretend it is irrelevent that in England the Conservatives (extremely narrowly) beat Labour in the number of people who actually went out and voted.

We deserved our loss - however it’s measured. We accepted the base assumptions - that spending on public services was the key issue and that small, presentational flourishes in other areas - immigration, for example - could spell the difference between success and failure.

The election made the whole political class look stupid. As things currently stand, if David Cameron wins then, with his Blair-like vagueness, it won’t look any better anytime in the near future.

Most people were aware of the Eastern Europe immigrant mini surge we have had recently. I live in Ealing, which means Polish translations in many shop windows.

The public did not rise up and ask for the peoples of Estonia to enter the building trade. More likley, the Embassy pushes the word out to colleges in the area that work visas will be looked on “favourably” for certain skill sets.

The Irish are pretty well off these days, and simply are not going to do all our odd jobs for us. They were the previous generations immigrants. Immigration is the way to bridge skill shortages. So either more people become plumbers, we pay them premium rates or we import them. Or are you going to urge your kids to be plumbsers? I thought not.

Of the six people who raised the need to manage immigration with me when I was canvassing for the recent election three were not white. One wasn’t even British. It’s an issue.

Which is why the conservatives achieved a landslide election victory in 2005 by making that very assumption, right?

Nor did the voters in May 2005 simply say ‘no thanks’ to the Conservatives’ immigration policy.

True, they said no thanks to your other policies also.

The answer to ‘are you thinking what we’re thinking’ was basically ‘Nope’. Coupled with a significant amount of apathy (which is more interesting to me - why do those people feel they can’t be represented?)

With jobs, rising ‘wealth’ (tied into house prices of course) and a general contentment Labour scraped (based on actual numbers of votes) a victory against an opposition that was almost not there.

Trying to interpret the results using a different set of rules than was operational is pointless and irrelevant. The system is not based on ‘actual numbers of votes’. Perhaps it ought to be, but people voted in the system as it is, not as it ought to be.

You might as well count only the votes cast in London or at lunchtime. It’s much like saying that Roger Federer ’scraped a victory’ at Wimbledon because Tim Henman had more supporters in the crowd and played more often at the net. That’s not the how the game works.

If you change the rules of the game, people will play the game differently in response. Had the voting system been different, the number of votes cast per party, and probably the turnout, would have been different also. This is because FPTP results in tactical voting, and also affects whether or not people feel there is any point in voting in the first place.

The fact is that the only place Labour ’scraped a victory’ is in a parallel universe. Under the system as it is, and as understood by those casting votes at the time, Labour won by a convincing margin.

Since citizens have been offered draconian policies against immigration for decades and routinely turned them down, that’s a bit of a stretch. It was a major issue in the last election, and those who could be arsed to vote said no thanks.

If draconian refers to National Front or BNP policies then you’re making a wild assumption that that was all the electorate considers when deciding not to vote NF or BNP. First, many people don’t want ‘draconian’ immigration policy because, BNP-style, this includes (or included) forced repatriation. Most of us will not tolerate this.

Nor did the voters in May 2005 simply say ‘no thanks’ to the Conservatives’ immigration policy. With jobs, rising ‘wealth’ (tied into house prices of course) and a general contentment Labour scraped (based on actual numbers of votes) a victory against an opposition that was almost not there.

England bears the brunt of immigration. Of the six people who raised the need to manage immigration with me when I was canvassing for the recent election three were not white. One wasn’t even British. It’s an issue.

Where people do benefit from immigration control is when it reduces the number of immigrants with which they must compete for jobs.

People benefit from controlled immigration because uncontrolled immigration can - and does - change the character of what were once English villages or towns. It’s an aesthetic thing as much as anything else but also a pragmatic one. I think you’ll find large numbers of securely employed people of all colours who recognise that immigration provides limited (although very real) benefits and numerous - and equally real - problems.

DE,

I didn’t realise business lobbied the government in favour of immigration. I assume they ask for specific skill-sets?

I was accepting EUs point that no political or social group specifically wanted immigration. I would imagine most people don’t hold any specific views at all about immigration.

Regulation doesn’t change the fact we are in a corporate economy. Rules and regulations are there to sustain us in it, not to change that.

I would say corporations prettty much do set immigration policy, partly via whitehall lobbying - but to all intents and purposes people move around to follow work, and thats natural.

Well, we the citizens did not want immigration no

Since citizens have been offered draconian policies against immigration for decades and routinely turned them down, that’s a bit of a stretch. It was a major issue in the last election, and those who could be arsed to vote said no thanks.

The reasonable conclusion is that the citizenry have the controls against immigration that they want - or at least can tolerate - give or take.

Where people do benefit from immigration control is when it reduces the number of immigrants with which they must compete for jobs. That’s why immigrants typically wind up filling crap jobs that insufficient local people want, or skilled jobs that insufficent local people can do.

Living in a capitalist democracy means accepting the role as workers under corporation rule.

Not in a regulated capitalist democracy it doesn’t.

If you don’t like immigration, too bad. I’m afraid you don’t have the power to stop it without addressing corporate interests. Its beyond a local issue.

Corporations don’t set immigration policy.

Well, we the citizens did not want immigration no - but we the citizens don’t drive commerce. Living in a capitalist democracy means accepting the role as workers under corporation rule.

This is no bad thing necessarily - but you can’t suddenly want “out”. If you don’t like immigration, too bad. I’m afraid you don’t have the power to stop it without addressing corporate interests. Its beyond a local issue.

What we strive for is control - thats quite different.

Thanks.

I’m standing for election in May. I’ll answer your question then!

If you’re still interested in that - and blogging - feel free to drop me a line and I’ll tell you all I know (which will make for a fairly short email…)

gary -dot- monro -at- gmail -dot- com

Interesting post. Agree with most of it except immigration (we need immigration but more along the lines of an Australian points system).
Did you become a councillor?

Part of the point, I think is that we, the citizen, never actually asked for immigration. Therefore, its a little disingenious to claim that first we wanted it and then we didn’t.

Or something else?

Rules tend to look good at the time they are set, but tend to reflect the times. Today we want Asian troublemakers out - decades ago we needed Asian immigrants in to run services. We were keen to grant passports to rich businessmen from Hong Kong and good athletes like Zola Budd from South Africa - sadly the businessmen went to Canada and Ms Budd did not go down well in the Olympics. Its hard to ever get it right - fairness gets taken over by events.

Not prohibition or even discouragement. I think that within a closed unit it is more desirable for minimal government. But when outside factors influence the unit then this must be managed - and this is one of the areas which government has a legitimate role.

While I completely reject the idea that immigration is completly good I would also reject the idea that it’s completely bad. Unmanaged, it will generally not help improve the general quality of life. I am hardly able to aspire towards Aryan purity when my Indian-born wife and I simply cannot produce the blue-eyed blondes necessary for such a project.

Fairness, DE, is relative. The fairness I prefer is fairness to you and I as Britons (which, I must admit, I’m assuming you are). Fairness for would-be immigrants is basically making the rules very clear to them and then us abiding by them. (We would expect the same in return, of course).

Chris,

As the Toffo advert used to say, Go get ‘em Floyd!

I’m waiting to hear from the local police regarding a bag-snatching incident (I’m a witness). They reckon the guilty party will actually plead guilty so court won’t be necessary. I hope they’re right…

It’ll be stopped, you mark my words.

I sometimes agree with your opinions Gary, but they’re always worth reading. Keep it up fella.

(The move went well - now much happier to appear in Court, as soon as March 2006! for the prosecution)

C

Actually the emphasis was on the ‘allow’. It read like there was a flipside where marriages with ‘foreigners’ would sometimes be prohibited or at least discouraged. Even as amended it still sounds a little on the Aryan end of the spectrum to me.

As for government being the natural outcome of capitalism, or free markets, I think it probably is. Left to their own devices people seem to wind up with laws and governments. It’s happened too many times independently to be coincidental, or so it seems to me.
(Not always democracies of course. But usually pretty big government, compared with any starting point you may choose, including complete anarchy.)

After all, once there was no government anywhere, and now it is almost everywhere. And as for this country, it too was left to its own devices, and look what happened.

What do you mean, ‘You’re going to allow marriage now?’ I’ve never had a problem with British people marrying foreigners.

By ‘limited’ I mean there could be a maximum number of marriage visas awarded each year and/or, following the Dutch rules enforce a minimum age for the two marriage partners.

There’s no tortuous logic to this. The government is macro-managing immigration, not micro-managing personal life.

Government isn’t the natural outcome of capitalism by any means. I’m guessing you already know this.

Shortly followed by government.

:-)