´óÏó´«Ã½

Always assuming, of course, that the whole thing wasn't stage-managed to allow Cameron to make his "dog whistle" appeal to white van man, the BNP and the EDL, while simultaneously allowing Cable (a busted flush anyway in governmental terms) to make the Lib Dems seem "different" enough to try and salvage some votes for them in a local election result that is going to make the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a walk in the park. Cynical, moi?

The thing to remember is that nearly all politicians suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder. In neo-Jungian terms, they all have both Sméagol and Gollum sides to their being. Sometimes Sméagol shows his face, but Gollum is almost always in charge.

Both personalities seek the ring of power, whose symbolism is very similar to the ring of the Niebelungen. Sméagol sometimes deceives himself that he want the ring to do good with, but in the end, it always destroys those who possess it and those who lust after it.

Another interesting facet of this is that Tory voters often prefer Gollum!

"IT SUGGESTS HIS PARTY STILL THINKS CAMERON A CAMPAIGN ASSET"

Is that really your view Michael? In a feudal hierarchy, what his party thinks is of no account, and only voiced openly shortly before the knives go in. All that matters, to absolute monarch Dave, is WHAT DAVE THINKS.

Remember the photoshopped Dave on the "We can't go on like this" poster? Did you not detect ANY Tories quaking at that crass error, AND WHAT IT IMPLIED?

It looks to me that Dave is even more stage-struck than Tony. The signs were there before elevation. I think PERSONAL APPEARANCE means more to Dave than any other facet of the job. Possibly that should be modified to OPPORTUNITY TO LECTURE. Dave has that 'mummy knows best' delivery - a give-away to his state of mind.

At root, it is just another aspect of Messianic Syndrome, indicating that

WE HAVE GOT OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE.

I was hard pushed to find anything on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ web site about Cameron's speech on immigration but I did find a link entitled "David Cameron rejects Cable Immigration Criticism"

/news/uk-politics-13072509

With around 2,500,000 unemployed, why in the name of sanity is Vince Cable criticising any cut in immigration? A great way of cutting the deficit would be to restrict immigration and train our unemployed to take their place.

As ever, there are stupid Liberals who attack immigration controls because it panders to "White Van man, the BNP and EDL" but those people are simply using false allegations of racism to stifle any intelligent debate on the subject.

It would also appear that Vince Cable is also ignoring his own supporters. From the ´óÏó´«Ã½ link "to Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of pressure group Migration Watch, said: "We should remember that Vince Cable speaks for a tiny minority of the public".

"According to our most recent YouGov opinion poll, conducted last November, only 4% of Lib Dem voters agreed that the present level of immigration is best for Britain, 78% wanted 100,000 or less, 19% did not know".

Well, if you think the role of government is to disappear up its own tailpipe and leave the private sector to its own devices whilst shrinking the public sector, there's not a lot for Cameron to do, is there?

I want to raise a concern about the way the Beeb is covering the LibDems.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that Clegg's ministers, like him, are virtually all "Orange Book" supporters?

And isn't it the case that the Orange Book's ideas were roundly rejected by the LibDem Party?

So the last LibDem manifesto wasn't advocating Orange Book policies - but the Coalition Agreement contains quite a lot of them?

That's why Clegg supported the NHS Reforms, but the Party overwhelmingly opposed then recently?

Given that the opinion polls show that the LibDems are probably going to be decimated (or worse) in the May Elections, isn't there going to be a hell of a backlash against the PLDP afterwards?

At what point will the uneasy support for the coalition within the LibDems begin to really crack?

My point about covering them is this. Clearly there is a growing gulf between mainstream LibDem policies and the Orange Book libertarian policies being applied by Clegg et al - yet this divide is virtually never picked up on - the LibDems are presented as a political monoculture, when in reality there are two flatly opposed strands of opinion, with Clegg's Orange Book cabal in a very small minority.

I'd ask that the Beeb stops presenting the LibDems as a unified Party with a shared vision - the leadership is totally out of step with the rank & file and simply rolling out the same ex PR woman every time, who pretends there are no cracks and everything is hunky dory is going along with this deliberate deception.

If you accept that Clegg went into the election with a manifesto he didn't support, then with a hung parliament he was able to simply dusted off the Orange Book and write whole swathes of it into the Coalition Agreement in flat opposition to his own Party's policies - in effect he teamed up with Cameron and staged a procedural coup to support policies his own Party had overwhelmingly rejected.

If rank & file LibDem councillors go down in swathes and the AV vote is lost, this spilt is going to come out into the open and the papering-over-the-cracks exercise the LibDem hierarchy has so successfully carried out is going to be revealed.

IMHO the divide between Orange Book Cleggites and The rank & file LibDem Party is every bit as bit as it was between Labour & the Militant Tendency, or One Nation Tories & the NeoCons supporting Mrs T - so why no coverage of it on the Beeb?

Mrs T won a majority in the Tory Party for her politics - the Militant Tendency were confronted and expelled by a big majority - only the Orange Book cabal have managed to gain control of their Party and impose their politics through a procedural device of the Coalition Agreement without ever gaining democratic support from their own Party membership.

POLITAINMENT (#5)

Never mind the quality, feel the width (of those megawatt studio walls).

This is the same ´óÏó´«Ã½ that caved-in to the 'Terror-ble Twins' Blair and Campbell.

FIRST WE TAKE WESTMINSTER - THEN THE ´óÏó´«Ã½.

busby2 @ 4

I agree that rhetoric like "white van man" doesn't lead to reasoned debate on the tricky topic of immigration. However it does fit nicely with the colossal amount of misinformation that right wingers like to throw into the ring.

Have you looked at ONS (Office of National Statistics) on immigration over the last 15-20 years? It makes interesting reading and certainly debunks a lot of myths around the pitiful immigration political debate.

In 2009 there was a net inflow to the UK of 10,000 immigrants who had a definite job to come to (129k in, 119k out). Looking for work the numbers were 28,000. Doesn't feel like a massive move by foreigners to steal our jobs does it? Bear in mind that almost half of all net immigration is through British citizens and EU citizens, no change in the law is going to alter their right to come to the UK.

The huge difference over the last 20 years is through those coming to study in the UK. I would imagine that this may be due to the increasing amounts of university/college places as a whole, but also because universities/colleges are able to make up funding shortfalls by charging foreign students very large fees (even in comparison to what English students are now being asked to pay).

This is where the debate needs to centre. What is the impact to the UK of foreign students. We will benefits from research expertise and potentially skilled people remaining to benefit the UK economy. However this needs to be balanced against the opportunities for UK students.

I despair at the lack of perspective in this field and I'm afraid to say with the help of media and politicians it helps to bring out the latent racist in too many areas of the UK. Thats not stupid Liberalism.

SUBSET RACISM (#7)

Animals are programmed to shun difference - seek sameness (the studies are out there). So-called 'racism' is - as I have written often - DIFFERENCISM. It is natural. We should inform our young of its manifestations - received and expressed. (Might be an idea to give MPs classes too.)

There is far too much guilt around; we shook off original sin only to get derivative PC.

AGE OF PERVERSITY.

Barrie@8

Eloquently put as always Barrie.

So long as your "differencism" is not used as an excuse for bare-faced racism then fine, I look forward to sensible debate around this area (ie not what we have had for last 30 years in this country).

Humans might still be "programmed2 in many ways, but we work best when we think for ourselves and dont let dimwitted at best, dangerous at worst, headlines rule our opinions.

Meanwhile, this is news?



I won't tell you which politician's face I spotted in a cowpat the other day. (Because I'd be making it up! :-D )

Sasha - what has happened to this country? How has Kate Middleton supplanted Jesus as "face most likely to adorn a jelly bean"?

"Differencism" might well be programmed into us, but so is a tendency to miscegnation (as an instinct to broaden the gene pool) - otherwise there wouldn't have been the "need" for so many laws to ban it.

TheGingerF @7

I'm glad that you "agree that rhetoric like "white van man" doesn't lead to reasoned debate on the tricky topic of immigration".

I must howver take issue with your statement that "it does fit nicely with the colossal amount of misinformation that right wingers like to throw into the ring".

You said "In 2009 there was a net inflow to the UK of 10,000 immigrants who had a definite job to come to (129k in, 119k out). Looking for work the numbers were 28,000. Doesn't feel like a massive move by foreigners to steal our jobs does it?"

Err, no. Net migration in 2009 was an estimated 200,000 according to Migration Watch and according to the ONS net migration to the UK (the surplus of people immigrating over people emigrating) in the year to June 2009 was 147,000. This compares with 168,000 in the year to June 2008.

Whichever of these figures you believe, your figures are utter nonsense!

We will not get any reasoned debate about immigration when liberals do not accept that we have had massive NET immigration over the last few years. And once in the country, it is very easy for anyone to overstay, settle here and take jobs. That is why accurate figures are difficult to obtain.

You are right about the inability to restrict migration from other EU countries. However we should require them to apply for resident and work permits so that we can ensure they pay their fair share of taxes and NI, as they do in the Netherlands for example, and to help crack down on benefit fraud. That will also enable us to count just how many are here and what they are doing.

Migrations is rarely of economic benefit - studies in Canada have shown that the economic costs exceed the benefits. This is because so many of them bring in dependants, fill low paid jobs, occupy expensive social housing and put huge pressure on services including education. A ´óÏó´«Ã½ documentary some years showed this very clearly when they followed a Polish man who was going to Peterborough to join his sister who had arrived 2 years previously. His sister had a council flat for herself and her 2 school age children - she brought them over to England after she had been here a few months and because her housing was inadequate for her family, she jumped the queue and got a council flat. She worked as a cleaner. You do not have to be an economic genious to work out that the economic contribution we get from her is deeply negative!

Yes, some of the Poles filled jobs the local English unem

Busby2@13

My figures were taken from the ONS website and are not rubbish (I actually got those looking for work wrong, it was 28k down from 1991 not up). As I said, most of the big increase in net immigration (ie inflow minus outflow) to the UK over the last 20 years is due to student numbers increasing. its not to do with those either coming to a definite job or to seek work.

Of course there are examples where you can show little economic benefit as there are those where there clearly is.

This is a vastly complicated issue and we need the UK debate to recognise this and shy away from easy headlines.

Strangely the last para of my previous posting was mostly missing from my previous post.

Yes, some of the Poles filled jobs the local English unemployed wouldn't fill but they also took jobs that they would do, like work as a warehouseman at IKEA. To be of net economic benefit, immigrants must (a) fill jobs that cannot be filled and(b) have no dependants unless they are filling well paid jobs where the economic benefits of the work they are doing covers the costs of any benefits their families may receive.

I REPEAT MYSELF - I CONTAIN MULTITUDES OF REPEATS

Homework: Take any local paper with marriages in - cut out the happy couples and lightly mark the back of their heads with matching symbols. Then cut the heads out - minimising surrounding clues to matches. Find an 'innocent other' and get them to quickly match the couples AS IF BROTHER AND SISTER (aka Family Face).
If too idle - just look at the couples in situ. QED

NATURE FLIRTS WITH INCEST (and a lot more of it occurs than is currently accepted).

After you have done the test, we can properly discuss gene-mixing and all manner of 'isms'. (Just being pompous for fun chaps.)

I much prefer my indigenous, local-sourced dentist to some ethniks I have had. (Though I once had a petite Portuguesa, for whom I made an exception) - it's complicated.

TheGingerF @14

"Of course there are examples where you can show little economic benefit as there are those where there clearly is.

This is a vastly complicated issue and we need the UK debate to recognise this and shy away from easy headlines".

I agree. The problem is that there is no proper debate because as soon as someone raises any criticisms of immigration, liberals play the racist card.

I believe for example that we are constantly being lied to by the liberal establishment about the economic benefits of immigration. The truth is that the economic costs of immigration outweigh the benefits in the majority of cases and that is costing us jobs and money. But, as I said above, anyone who questions that always runs the risk of being called a racist.

The ONS figures on net immigration can be found in the link below. They are far higher that the ones you quoted.



Australia has the right idea: the only immigrants they let in are those who will economically benefit their country.

I'VE JUST READ 'INCOGNITO' (#9)

Innate response needs no excuse - surely?

It is half term. I turned a corner to find standard oik pedalling toward me. I took the centre of the pavement and he met my challenge (the road was empty) by passing to one side with little clearance. I half-attempted to tip him off. it was an animal exchange. His and my behaviour, is present, more or less powerfully, across the spectrum of males - the same is true of differencism etc. In the extreme (my Amygdala is trigger-happy say) I might have killed him. . .

One could argue that oik must beware Amygdala-Man when abusing the pavement?

'Thinking for ourselves' is now very much in question. Right and wrong, crime and punishment, all in the melting pot.

busby2@17

My stats from this link:

www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Product.asp?vlnk=15053 - various spreadsheets, I looked at the one with reason for migration.

They are calendar year so potentially different to the mid year ones you have but same underlying source I would think.

UK inflow 2009 567k, including 211k students
UK outflow 2009 368k, including 23k students
Net inflow, ignoring students 10k

Same figs for 1991
Inflow, 329k, incl 56k students
Outflow 285k, incl 13k students
Net inflow ignoring students 1k

I dont think you or anyone else for that matter is a racist for questioning the economic benefits or otherwise of immigration. However there are currently no reliable statistic for this and so its back to my point that the debate gets dominated by red top headlines with no reference to verifiable statistics.

Liberal or conservative views on this remain to be proved. I'm happy however with my very high level analysis of the stats I have found on ONS!

The GingerF @18

Thank you for your reply and for quoting the stats you were referring to.

The problem I have from the stats is that we had a net inflow of 211,000 students and an outflow of only 23,000 students in 2009. Allowing for some growth in the numbers of student places filled by foreign students, why didn't we have an expected an outflow of say 200,000 instead of 23,000 in 2009? The stats show that we had a net inflow of 188,000 students in 2009 and surely that was mainly due to students who stayed on when their course finished, and yet they somehow don't count as immigrants! Even in 1991 we had a net inflow of 43,000 students. So every year we have more students arrive than leave. What does that tell you?

What it tells me is that these stats show that huge numbers of foreign students do not go home when their courses are finished and that they should be counted as immigrants, illegal or otherwise. What other explanation is there?

If I have it all wrong, please tell me why and how. I am beginning to think that the late Jean Charles de Menezes, who was tragically killed when mistaken for a suicide bomber, and who stayed on after his student visa expired was just one of hundreds of thousands of students who do so every year.

Busby2@20

The nub of the issue I think - what happens to all these students?

I think a proportion go back to their own country, but will appear in ouflow stats in one of the other columns (because they re no longer migrating for study purposes). I think there will be a fair few who stay and work in UK (research, skilled and in some cases unskilled). However the problem is I suspect there are no reliable stats on this to show how this may or may not be benefiting the UK.

Even for a lilly-livered liberal like me it seems that 200k students in with only 20k UK students going abroad to study seems excessive. Is our uni/college system really so attractive? I think it shows how much our institutions rely on foreign students for income, but also may be masking some other immigration issues that need to be addressed.

TheGingerF@21

Again, thank you for your reply.

We agree that the nub of the issue is what happens to these students who do not appear to leave when their courses end.

You wrote "I think it shows how much our institutions rely on foreign students for income, but also may be masking some other immigration issues that need to be addressed".

Again I agree and I'm pleased that you believe that the student issue may be masking other issues that need to be addressed. The fact is that nobody seems to be addressing the issue!

What do you think of my suggestion that we should follow the example of the Netherlands and require all foreigners, whether from the EU or elsewhere, to obtain a residents visa and to register their address with the authorities? We need to get a proper handle on who is here and what they are doing, whether they are entitled to remain and to work and whether they are paying income tax and national insurance. The Govt, and everyone else, is in the dark as to what the immigration situation really is.

What AV campaigners are overlooking is that just changing the system does not mean it will change voting behaviour. What will happen if over 50% of voters use just one preference (split amongst a numer of candidates) which may happen?

Michael Cricks example of 100 votes showed the 'winner' with only 45%, which as I understand would not be the case, still 5% short of the '50% threshold requirement of all valid votes cast' according to the Electoral Reform Society.