Globalisation In One Country

Jon Cruddas, 2005 :

“… immigration has been used as an informal reserve army of cheap labour. People see this at their workplace, feel it in their pocket and see it in their community – and therefore perceive it as a critical component of their own relative impoverishment. Objectively, the social wage of many of my constituents is in decline. House prices rise inexorably, and public service improvements fail to match local population expansion. At work, their conditions, in real terms, are in decline through the unregulated use of cheap migrant labour.”

Billy Bragg, 2010 :

“Everyone else in London benefits from multiculturalism and cheap labour…”

Karl Marx, 1847 :

“The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it”

Commenter Jim on Liberal Conspiracy, 2010 :

“Where I live, there is a meat packing plant that has provided many with stable employment over the decades. Of course, with the large influx of Eastern Europeans they have steadily displaced the locals from this factory and there is a surplus of labour in the area. Employment agencies have descended on the area like vultures and almost completely ‘causalised’ the workforce around West Lothian to the extent that the job centres are littered with zero hour contract jobs.

A friend of mine who has worked in said plant for over thirty years sees young men coming in on the Monday work for three hours, then sent home to sit by the phone in case they are needed during the week.

This was exactly the type of thing the Labour Party was set up to tackle. These conditions, nauseatingly described as ‘modernisation’ show up the failings of the NL ‘project’. Whilst they were swanning about getting middle class men in public sector jobs paternity leave, ordinary working class people watched as their terms and conditions were slashed to Victorian levels. These people (rightly or wrongly) feel immigration undercuts their living standards. Is it right that in this Country that we have reduced people to the condition of day labourers?”

(see also this post)

Another One

"Dame" Joan Bakewell does a John Humphrys :

Writing in Radio Times, the presenter said: 'The liberal mood back in the 60s was that sex was pleasurable and wholesome and shouldn't be seen as dirty and wicked. The Pill allowed women to make choices for themselves. Of course, that meant the risk of making the wrong choice. But we all hoped girls would grow to handle the new freedoms wisely.

Then everything came to be about money: so now sex is about money, too. Why else sexualise the clothes of little girls, run TV channels of naked wives, have sex magazines edging out the serious stuff on newsagents' shelves? It's money that's corrupted us and women are being used and are even collaborating.

I never thought I would hear myself say as much, but "I'm with Mrs Whitehouse on this one".'

Another innocent abroad. "Everything has been about money" - or in earlier centuries, power, forever - but that tendency used to be heavily moderated/controlled by Christianity - which was why we didn't send the mill-girls up the chimneys on a Sunday. What did she think would happen when that went ? The Age of Aquarius ?

Joan Bakewell is a Dame of the British Empire that she so heartily detested while it existed. Mrs Whitehouse never picked up any gongs or public appointments for her work, while even the grubbiest leftie careerist gets an OBE. I guess we get what we deserve.

As I said of Humphrys :

If you have no religious perspective and sex is a pleasant leisure activity, why should you not explore its dimensions, watching, participating, selling, buying ? After all, these dimensions have been around for a very long time. Mrs Whitehouse would have been well aware of these issues. As time passes the Humphrys view (1960s version) looks more and more out of touch with reality, and the Whitehouse version more and more realistic and worldly.

A Blunder AND a Crime

I don't know. If you wanted to dismay your friends and add a few new enemies I don't think you could do much better than Israel did yesterday morning. AS I understand it, in international waters (aka the "high seas"), you are governed by the laws and regulations of the country whose flag you are flying/country of registry of your vessel. You can be boarded by the authorities of that country but in theory no-one else.

If you are flying no flag/do not have a clearly defined country of registry, then you are de facto a pirate and can be boarded/challenged by any naval vessel.

Those Turkish ships hardly fall into either category vis a vis the Israeli navy. Attacking vessels on the high seas is piracy, isn't it ?

It's not as if the boats were carrying arms. Cement isn't a deadly weapon. And no matter who did what on the boats, the IDF had no right to be there at all.