A Few Old Paint Tins From The Curate's Skip

Michael Portillo, born-again liberal, on immigration :

The biggest single change in postwar Britain is the transformation in who the British are.

The new diversity of races and religions makes a big difference to life in the UK. Some places have changed their appearance and norms of behaviour entirely. Many people will applaud the transformation for the diversity and enrichment that it has brought. But if the alteration of Britain can be presented in such positive terms, then it is all the more remarkable that it has occurred without the British people’s consent being sought.

There are many things in life that are commendable in small quantities, but pernicious in large ones. Why should immigration be any less debatable than tax? If one quarter of the UK’s new babies now have a foreign parent, is it fine to argue that it would be preferable if it were one in two, but disgraceful to suggest that one in eight would be better ?

His conclusion ? it's probably not good that the subject's pretty much off limits, but the Tories lost the last two elections, so there you are.

More on Open Britain - health tourism :

A confidential internal report on health tourism estimates that the bill for treating foreign patients amounts to at least £62 million a year, The Times has learnt.

The figure is “bound to be an underestimate” since new rules intended to prevent the abuse of the NHS by foreign patients are being ignored, according to the report.

Surprise surprise - maternity and HIV seem to be big targets. Does maternity also feature a 'free citizenship' bonus, which with extra 'right to family life' has the possibility of opening up residence to the parents as well ?


As we leave Basra, is the surge working in Baghdad ?

Peter Oborne on the corruption of the British political class.

I learned to swim late in life, in my mid-twenties, and having done so learned to dive here - they had a 10 metre platform in those days, the height Olympic divers use. Now it's 5m - and there are only six 10m platforms left in the whole UK, with the obvious effect upon the sport. Our old friend health and safety seems to be the culprit.

Luvvie Laughs

Great new comedy writing in the Observer, when somebody calling herself "Julie Delpy" creates a hilarious caricature of a wealthy liberal actress who really, really cares about 'the poor' :

Of course, Sarkozy thinks he's a little American, looking busy all the time. Maybe he should come over to the States and see how the poor are getting on ...

Though my home is now Los Angeles ...

Shame

I wonder how many of us raised in poor working-class communities, who became the first generation to go to university, recognise this picture, from John Lloyd's review of Andrew Anthony's The Fallout ? Not necessarily in relation to racism. I can remember being uneasy (a student with a full grant and some scholarship money), when I talked with my uncles, steelworkers who would rise at 5.30 am to go to their shifts. They just didn't have much sympathy, to put it mildly, for people who lived for years on benefits. At Uni the Claimants Union movement was in full swing, and 'ripping off the State' was in theory bringing the Revolution that much closer. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa ...

Anthony uses an account of his early years as a vivid, emotively charged account of a working class-born, council house-raised and comprehensive school-educated boy who came to question his parents' outlook. In one instance cited, his mother asked her local councillor why it was that she, a model tenant for many years, had become a much lower priority for rehousing than a newly arrived immigrant family. The councillor to whom Mrs Anthony complained was Tessa Jowell, until recently Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; she gave her complaining constituent 'a brusque lecture on racism'.

This vignette recalls progressive, especially London, politics of the Seventies and Eighties, where largely middle-class politicians of the left did do good, did keep the local machines going, but with an overlay of moralising political correctness which assumed prejudice on the part of a white working class and innocence on the part of those with darker skins. In a comment which must be a painful memory, Anthony observes that at university, his 'enlightened concern was that she [his mother] didn't do or say anything that could be construed as racist ... I was now outside, like an anthropologist, looking in'.

With a similar, if rural, experience of growing up, getting out and looking back with contempt, I was hugely impressed and moved by the sad delicacy of his recreation of his mother, the regret that she should have been a victim of his newly adopted radical disapproval.

"Now he has suffered the consequences hasn't he?"

Anop Singh seems to have more of a grasp of what works and what doesn't than "Deborah Glass, IPCC commissioner for London and the South East". The consquences of his bad behaviour - he trousers 4K of our money courtesy of the Met - for the officers who tackled it, innovatively and with humour, written warnings on their records.

If you want less of something, don't subsidise it.

(via PC Bloggs)

Ian McKellen - Bible-Basher

"Yes it is true," responded McKellen in even tones. "Its Leviticus 18:22 that I object to, or is it 22:18, I've always got to look it up. Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman, it is an abomination. And they, I think the punishment for an abomination was being stoned to death," he said.

McKellen added, "I think it's rather obscene and pornographic, and shouldn't be there, so I remove it."

Asked how many bibles he has vandalized, McKellen replied, "I have no idea, but other people do it as well, people send me evidence that they have been removing that."

McKellen has been vandalizing bibles in the same fashion for at least a few years. He first admitted publicly to the activity in 2004 in an interview with the UK Telegraph.

I'm presuming Mr McKellen doesn't stay at Malaysian hotels.


(via iFeminists)

Council By-Elections

24dash :

Analysis of 11 comparable contests over August suggests a projected nationwide Tory lead over Labour of 12.5%, a bleak message for the Prime Minister as he ponders whether to face the voters in the autumn. This week's by-elections saw Tories defend two marginals - against Labour in Newport North, Isle of Wight, and the Green Party at Nailsworth, Stroud District, Gloucestershire. In a third contest at Epping Forest District, Essex, the BNP narrowly defended a seat at Loughton Alderton against a challenge from a residents' candidate. Out of the 11 comparable by-elections this month, only one produced a Labour performance sufficient at a General Election to see it narrowly retain power.

So that's three - two Tories and a BNP. Results via John Hemming.

Epping Forest DC, Loughton Alderton
BNP 393 (32.2; -5.4), Residents 367 (30.1; +1.0), Con 163 (13.3; -3.1), LD
Neil Woollcott 172 (14.1; +10.5), Lab 98 (8.0; -5.2), UKIP 28 (2.3; +2.3).
Majority 26. Turnout 36.7%. BNP hold. Last fought 2006.

Isle of Wight UA, Newport North
Con 207 (35.5; -3.0), LD Liam Verstraeten 189 (32.4; +3.9), Lab 137
(23.5; -9.5), UKIP 25 (4.3; +4.3), Ind 23 (3.9; +3.9), Ind 2 (0.3; +0.3).
Majority 18. Turnout 30.0%. Con hold. Last fought 2005.

Stroud DC, Nailsworth
Con 857 (44.5; +6.1), Green 810 (42.0; +4.1), Lab 261 (13.5; +0.2), [LD
(0.0; -5.1)], [UKIP (0.0; -5.3)].
Majority 47. Turnout 38.0%. Con hold. Last fought 2007

UKIP's absence saved the Tories in Stroud, their presence nearly did for the BNP in Essex. Cliff-hanger in Newport. Two more from John Hemming again :

Suffolk CC, Thedwastre South
LD Penny Otton 927 (41.8; +7.5), Con 833 (37.5; -9.4), Green 287 (12.9;
+12.9), Lab 88 (4.0; -14.8), UKIP 85 (3.8; +3.8).
Majority 94. Turnout 32.4%. LD gain from Con. Last fought 2005

Havering, Squirrels Heath:
Conservative 1828
Havering Residents Association 310
Labour 210
National Liberal Party, the Third Way 170
UKIP 134


No surprise in Havering, but UKIP and Greens take Tory votes, and tactical Labour defections give an LD gain in Suffolk. Four more :

Blaenau Gwent County Borough - Blaina: Ind 381, Lab 315, Ind 310, No description 49. (June 2004 - Three seats Lab 860, Ind 777, Ind 661, Lab 595, Lab 404, Ind 342). Ind hold.

Gloucestershire County - Lansdown, Park and Warden Hill: C 2208, Lib Dem 1605, Lab 226, Green 184. (May 2005 - Two seats C 3812, 2962, Lib Dem 2561, 2343, Lab 998, Green 968, Lab 832). C hold. Swing 1.1% Lib Dem to C.

Portsmouth City - Fratton: Lib Dem 1196, C 496, Lab 144, English Democrats 131, Green 56, Ind 17. (May 2007 - Lib Dem 1391, C 571, Lab 310, English Democrats 212). Lib Dem hold. Swing 0.6% C to Lib Dem.

Ryedale District - Sheriff Hutton: C 348, Ind 299. (May 2007 - C 386, Ind 367). C hold.

Blimey - those old tribal loyalties are sure breaking down. The Blaina and Fratton votes would have Ernie Bevin or Nye Bevan rotating in their graves if they were alive today. Last but by no means least - Shadwell and Elmbridge :

Elmbridge Borough - Walton Ambleside: Con 310, Walton Society 252, Lab 60, Ukip 33, Lib Dem 26. (May 2007 - Con 431, Walton Society 281, Lib Dem 94, Lab 90). Con hold. Swing 0.7% Con to Lab.

Tower Hamlets Borough - Shadwell: Respect 1512, Lab 1415, Con 476, Lib Dem 98. (May 2006 - Three seats Respect 1851, 1789, 1707, Lab 1287, 1141, 1054, C 723, 670, 605, Lib Dem 226). Respect hold. Swing 6.7% Respect to Lab.



Apparently "Delirious party members and supporters then marched down Brick Lane, the heartland of Respect's East End power base, cheering their way to a celebration meal well into the night.

(Nulab candidate) Keith may have been badly damaged by his gaffe earlier this week when he falsely accused the Tories of wanting to 'burn down' Shadwell's Sonali Gardens Asian elders day centre.

For Respect, their victory was crucial. Defeat could have meant disaster, an end to their East End power base.

But having beaten a massive Labour campaigning operation with sheer legwork, the boost to its morale is now huge.

The turnout at Shadwell was almost 40 per cent, well down from 46.2 per cent at last year's local elections, and included 504 postal votes, mostly for Labour."

There was some fuss about an alleged assault on Respect activist Carol Swords. From the bruising in the picture someone has grabbed her by the arms very firmly, as it appears you'd need to if you wanted either to stop her or move her. Lenin's comments say her fingers were broken. Tsk tsk.

As I wrote two years back :

Traditionally Labour has been the party of immigrants, but a point will be reached at which they (Labour) are not needed any more and with a cry of 'so long and thanks for all the outreach workers' the Muslim vote will depart. The divorce will be messy.

"The immigrant trickle that became a flood"

Graham Stewart in the Times :

A century hence, what will historians consider the most significant social change to Britain during the Blair years? Quite possibly they will conclude it was how immigration transformed the country. One in four children born in Britain last year had a foreign parent. This changing ethnicity has been further accentuated by a growing flight of British citizens, almost 200,000 of whom emigrated last year.

From a historical perspective, the emigration of this many native Britons is not so remarkable. Paradoxically, the greater Victorian Britain became, the more its workforce sought opportunities abroad — not just in the empire but also in the United States.

By contrast, today’s rate of immigration is producing the most significant change in the national make-up in 900 years. Indeed, it is noteworthy how relatively small waves of immigration nonetheless perturbed the natives. To his eternal shame, Edward I expelled England’s Jews even although they numbered much more than 5,000 very useful subjects. By the mid-15th century there were perhaps fewer than 16,000 foreigners living among England’s 2.5 million inhabitants.

And it is unclear why Elizabeth I felt the need to complain about there being “of late divers blackmoores brought into this realme, of which kinde of people there are already here to manie”. Even when their numbers peaked in 1770, it is estimated that there were only 14,000 black people, or 0.2 per cent of the population. In the first decades of the 20th century, the entire nonwhite population of Britain may not have greatly exceeded 10,000.

As for asylum-seekers, they hardly swamped England. About 50,000 French Huguenots fleeing Louis XIV’s crackdown on Protestantism settled and formed a distinct community in East London. However, they were only about 0.7 per cent of the population in 1700. A similar influx did not follow until the end of the 19th century when about 120,000 Jews fled Tsarist persecution. About 70,000 sought refuge from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Again, this represented a fraction of 1 per cent of the national population.

In between, there had been a big mid-19th-century flow of Irish to the mainland, but this was a population shift within the UK. There were also modest increases in the number of Europeans seeking work here. But the proportion of German and Italian-born residents in Britain in 1911 still comprised less than 0.2 per cent of the population.

Eastern European migrants filled skill shortages after the Second World War and “mass” Commonwealth immigration took hold in the 1950s. But even these changes are dwarfed by the inflow of the past decade, with official net immigration running at about 300,000 a year. In historical terms, it is quite an experiment.

I'm sure this will turn out to be Blair's great legacy, although he only accelerated an existing trend.

Compare And Contrast

Three years probation for a series of sexual assaults.

A £500 fine for slapping in the face and racially abusing a man who had damaged her car in an unprovoked attack.


(thanks to anon in the comments)

Two Stories

White people living in the UK's second biggest city are likely to find themselves in a minority in 20 years' time, according to researchers. A team of demographers from Manchester University has claimed that the number of white people living in Birmingham will be overtaken by the number of those with other ethnic origins by 2027. The news came as it emerged that 35 towns and cities in Britain have at least one ward which is "minority white". And experts have already forecast that Leicester could become the first city in which white people are a minority in four years' time.

The work is that of one Dr Steven 'Ludi' Simpson, so it comes with obligatory 'nothing to do with immigration' spin. For which see here.

Whites are now in the minority in one third of America's most populous counties and, overall, outnumbered in nearly one in 10 of the nation's 3,141 counties, according to new analysis of census data. The shift reflects the increasing diversity of the US, the result of immigration particularly from Central and South America and the higher birth rate among blacks and Hispanics.

The one thing I'm a little leery of is Dr Simpson's use of 'whites'. Given the million-odd Eastern Europeans in the UK, that particular category won't tell us how quickly the Native Brits are being replaced.

The Usual Suspects

Howard League, NAPO, Pauline Campbell and some new pro-criminal bunch called SmartJustice write to the Guardian to say 'don't lock them up'.

Unemployment Claimants By Constituency

Here (pdf).

Top of the list for Jobseekers Allowance is Clare Short's Ladywood, with 24.5% of males and 10% of females claiming. Of the top 25, all are Labour except for one Sinn Fein and one Respect.

The bottom 25 are all Tory or Lib Dem, with Lib Dem Gordon and West Aberdeenshire having the lowest percentage of claimants.

Now if only I could find the equivalent for incapacity benefit, that Glasgow and Liverpool could take their rightful places !

Hmmm...

From the Normblog profile of writer Elizabeth Baines :

Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > No way.

What do you consider the most important personal quality? > The ability to see others' points of view.

Underclass News

You can take a rabbit from the children's section of a zoo, feed it to an alligator to amuse your mates, and avoid jail.

I'm not sure Damien French will find that pulling off a woman's hijab is seen as leniently. His defence counsel seems worried :

Mr Treadwell claimed the hijab did not actually come off, the victim was caused no injuries and it was clearly more of a mark of disrespect than an attempt to cause injuries. But, he said, it was clearly an assault. He said he wished to correct any impression that French, who he said had learning difficulties, did not accept what he had done was wrong. Mr Treadwell said the pre-sentence report suggestion of a residence condition at a hostel to follow various courses, including an enhanced thinking skills course, was not a soft option.

I'm sure an enhanced thinking skills course is just what he needs.



Meanwhile, back in our soi-disant capital, the stabbings continue and more poor vulnerable children face jail.

One rocks the size of a cricket ball struck Mr Norton on the head, causing him to collapse and suffer a heart attack. He never regained consciousness. Mr Norton had undergone a triple heart by-pass 30 years ago but the stress and trauma of the attack made him vulnerable. When Mr Norton collapsed, the group ran off boasting to each other that they had got him.

After deliberating for three days an Old Bailey jury of six men and six women found the five, now aged 12, 13 and three aged 14, who cannot be named for legal reasons, guilty of manslaughter and violent disorder on February 26 last year. As the verdicts were read out, the five and their parents, broke down and sobbed.

Full of remorse, eh ?

During the 20-day trial lawyers and Judge Warwick McKinnon were unrobed and without wigs because of the ages of the five. However Judge McKinnon had to order that the children be accompanied at all times during the trial as they had been seen horseplaying around the court building, two had hung out of windows, and staff feared they might get up to more mischief. Indeed as they awaited for the jury to return with their verdicts they were seen play wrestling outside court.

UPDATE - the Mail has more on the perpetrators.

Death Valleys

During the 1960s the cultural revolution removed the moral foundations, but it was not until the economic scaffolding was taken down during the 1980s that the house actually collapsed. (During the 1920s and 30s the economic scaffolding had also been removed, but the moral foundation remained). Places like the mining villages of Yorkshire, the South Wales Valleys, or the heavy industrial areas of the North East, went from tight-knit, self-reliant communities to smack-ridden disaster zones in a generation. - this blog, February 2005.





People in former coalfields are nearly twice as likely to take heroin than elsewhere in Wales, research has shown. The study reveals 2.8 people per thousand in the valleys had asked for treatment for heroin use compared with 1.5 per thousand in the rest of Wales.

Plaid AM Leanne Wood, who commissioned the research, wants a review of problem drug and alcohol users' services. Ministers said spending on substance misuse had risen by 660% in five years and a new strategy was being developed. But Ms Wood, a former probation officer, warned that existing services were "not dealing with this worsening problem". - BBC News, August 2007.

BBC Stealth edits

This story on Malaysia's 50th independence anniversary has been edited, after the original was a bit too Jim Muir.

Revisionista shows the changes :

Revision 1 :

Racial divide

The celebrations come amid concern over rising social tensions in Malaysia. Half a century of stability and development has transformed a poor disjointed nation into an economic success story, the BBC's Asia correspondent, Andrew Harding, says.

But this anniversary has prompted some soul-searching about Malaysia's widening racial and religious divide, he adds.

Islam has taken a more conservative and assertive form, with Sharia courts challenging the country's secular constitution.

The large Indian and Chinese minorities are becoming increasingly angry about a much-abused quota system that restricts their access to education and jobs.
With elections coming and political parties polarised along ethnic lines, the country is struggling to cling on to its image as Asia's tolerant melting pot, our correspondent adds.

Revision 2

Dramatic Changes

The BBC's Asia correspondent, Andrew Harding, says Malaysia has changed dramatically since 1957.

Political stability and years of ambitious development have transformed the economy.

There are concerns that Malaysia's authoritarian brand of democracy is being challenged by an increasingly conservative form of Islam, with Sharia courts overriding the country's secular constitution, he says.

But the general mood in Malaysia seems to be one of optimism as this nation reflects on half-a-century of upheavals and progress, our correspondent adds.

Now it's quite likely that Andrew Harding said both those things. It's all in the presentation. I wonder who took the decision to 'accentuate the positive' and why ?

(via Biased BBC)

Stopped Clock Tells Correct Time

Old lefty luvvie Ken Loach on the Today programme (18 minutes in - RealAudio), discussing immigrant labour :

"it isn't something peripheral to our economy, it's at the very centre ... well in fact because the cheap labour of immigrants ... is central to Brown's control of inflation, because it depends on that cheap labour"

Now Ken's concerns are for the poor exploited migrants, not for the natives whose pay they undercut. But there's nowt wrong with that analysis.

Tell It Like It Is

Have the Tories changed? No, not really. Their party used to be a dazzlingly effective means to putting posh boys into positions of power and influence, entirely regardless of their views, if any. It is now a laughably ineffective means to that same end. But that's all. The real change has been in Labour.

Labour used to believe in social democracy. It did so precisely because it had profoundly conservative social and moral values, not least a strong British (and therefore also Commonwealth) patriotism focused on the institution binding together each and both of the Union and the Commonwealth. All of this was, and remains, mainstream opinion in Scotland, Wales, the North, the Midlands, and the decidedly less chi-chi parts of the South. In some such constituencies, turnout last time was cas low as one in three.

So there is a huge gap to be filled by the restored party of those Labour MPs who defended the grammar schools as the ladder of working-class advancement. By a party tough on crime because most victims are poor.

By the party of the Attlee Government, which dismissed the European Coal and Steel Community as "the blueprint for a federal state", which "the Durham miners would never wear". Of Hugh Gaitskell calling the Common Market "the end of a thousand years of history" and a threat to the unity of the Commonwealth.

By the party of ardently Unionist Labour MPs from Scotland, Wales, and their adjacent areas. Of Roy Hattersely sending British troops into Northern Ireland in order to defend the grateful Catholics there precisely as British subjects defined by their liberties under the Crown (whereas citizens are defined by their obligations to the State and to the government of the day). Of Roy Mason running Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom, with terrorism treated as a plain and simple security problem. Of Harold Wilson guaranteeing the Anguillan people's right to be British, explicitly outside the American hegemony that had wanted to re-create there the brothels and drug dens of old Havana.

By the party of those Labour MPs (mostly Methodists) who resisted relaxation of the laws on drinking and gambling. Of those (mostly Catholics) who fought against abortion and easier divorce. Of those who voted in favour only after warning against exactly what has come to pass: abortion more common than having a tooth pulled, and one in three marriages ending in divorce.

That was the party in favour of the Welfare State, workers' rights, progressive taxation, and full employment. It dissuaded Truman from dropping an atom bomb on Korea, and it refused to send British forces to Vietnam. It opposed the Soviet Union and wider Stalinism on the same grounds, and with the same ferocity, as it opposed Fascism in the Iberian world and elsewhere, as well as apartheid South Africa and its Rhodesian satellite. It won elections on enormous turnouts and in the face of serious opposition.

Britain is crying out for just such a party today. So let's get on and build it.

Never heard of David Lindsay, but his contribution to one of Mad Dog Milne's CiF threads is interesting. I wonder how he gets on at Labour branch meetings with ideas like these ?

Your Isolated Incidents Tonight

Newcastle attempted abduction : Det Sgt Steve Flook said: “This is an isolated incident and we are appealing for help from the public to identify the occupants of the van. The two girls were very sensible and did the right thing in running off and calling for help.”

Blackbird Leys Estate (see also here), Oxford - serious stabbing : South East Oxford Inspector Phil Standish said British Crime Survey statistics showed crime had dropped by 43 per cent on the estate in the last 12 months. He said: "This is a serious incident, but people do feel safe walking around Blackbird Leys and they do accept that this is an isolated incident."

Potters Bar fatal stabbing of John Redhead : Detective chief superintendent Bob Saunders said: "This is believed to be an isolated incident".

Exeter attempted abduction : DC Read said: "As far as we are aware, this is an isolated incident, but as a precaution, children should let parents know where they are going and when they will be home, and they should stay in groups."

16% of children in "families" where no one works

Chris Dillow has the details and for once seems stuck for an answer.

Another One Bites The Dust

When it's not Lib Dem vote fraud in Lancashire, it's benefit fraud :

A councillor has been told he faces jail after admitting a £3,000 benefit fraud. Shear Brow councillor Arif Waghat of Buncer Lane, Blackburn, admitted two offences of allowing or causing his wife Safia Umerji to make false income support and council tax benefit claims. After the hearing, Waghat resigned from the local Liberal Democrat party of which he was deputy leader. If he was to receive a three-month prison sentence or more at the next hearing, he would be disqualified from standing as a councillor under the council's Code of Conduct.

This is the bit I like :

After the case, leader of the Liberal Democrat group Coun David Foster confirmed Waghat had resigned from their party. When asked if Waghat should remain a councillor he said: "It is his decision. I'm sorry he's had to resign from the group but I respect the integrity he has shown in doing that."

The comments are interesting too. Apparently he worked as a benefits adviser for many years. And the mealy-mouthed response of the Tory, and the condemnation from Labour, are all explained when you look at the balance of power on Blackburn Council.