Gordon Brown's mask slips "she's a very bigoted woman"

[boyfriday]

I don't agree and can't see any good reason why we should be looking at having a 50-55 million population. Even if for sustainability reasons we did, stopping immigration would not be the means to achieve it.

We need immigration to keep the economy working by filling in skills gaps, for the employment they create, and not to stifle the economic growth we require to pay back the public debt.

 

I'm afraid my hand is forced Wildcat, clearly if the anti immigrant contingent are getting their knickers in a twist now, then factors other than the economic ones have to be considered to ensure the security and future of all our citizens.

 

All I can do is point out the benefits of immigration as I see them, however there will always be a significant minority of dissenters who punch above their weight, who seek to cause disharmony within our communties and won't believe the facts that stare them in the face-but they still have a vote.

 

Without it being evidenced based, I believe there is an 'emotional' limit to the numbers of foreigners or people with dark faces that 'significant minority' will tolerate.

[boyfriday]

'Brown in lying, thieving, sociopath, hypocrite scandal'. Who is actually surprised by any of this?

 

I'd be more surprised if I discovered there was a politician who didnt behave like this.

[Wildcat]

Same arguement used fo 62 years so obviously something is wrong with the business model.

 

No obviously about your conclusion. The obvious conclusion is that the business model works.

 

No you do though. Do call everyone who questions immigration as a xenophobe, racist, nazi?

 

No my response was to you saying that a sensible pro-immigration argument was scaremongering and I asked why the labelling.

 

Always something odd about a person who spends his life on this forum spewing out the same old nonesense and thinks his case is so strong that he has to resort to name calling.

 

Indeed, except it is you that is doing the labelling and scaremongering.

 

Of course immigrants don't have children do they, or bring them over, never get ill, never come over ust for treatment and as has already been shown immigration has not bought any real economic benefits to this country.

 

In fact if we factor in those groups who get taxpayers money for promoting the pro-immigration stance, we as a country are even more at a lose.

 

That has not been shown on this thread or elsewhere, indeed your conclusions fly in the face of all the evidence and common sense.

 

I'm still waiting for an answer to how illegal immigrants are here by the way.

 

I expect they fly or come by boat and in a rare case reported a few years ago a couple swam the channel.

[retep]

Are you saying, you oppose China's rules on the number of offspring you can have? or are you suggesting that here?

 

Are you trying to read too much into it wiki.

[boyfriday]

Same arguement used fo 62 years so obviously something is wrong with the business model.

Not quite, it suggests that demand for NHS services outstrips the labour that the indigenous population can supply, isnt that obvious? Unless your business model would advocate culling people who get sick or old.

 

No you do though. Do call everyone who questions immigration as a xenophobe, racist, nazi?

I think those terms are used to describe people who put forward anti immigration arguments that are illogical. For example, how could anyone believe that immigrants aren't essential to maintain the NHS? It's not perfect now, but imagine what it would be if 30% of its workforce weren't there tomorrow? What would be your view of the NHS if you or a family member required urgent medical treatment and you couldnt get it?

 

Of course immigrants don't have children do they, or bring them over, never get ill, never come over ust for treatment and as has already been shown immigration has not bought any real economic benefits to this country.

Of course immigrants have children, British ones, Im the offspring of an immigrant and like most people in my position believe Im as British as anybody else and fully committed to this country and it's future. Most of us have jobs (just like other British people), businesses and create employment for all the countries citizens..if you see that as a bad thing, then it's an example of the illogical thinking I mentioned earlier.

 

It's true that the fiscal benefits of immigration are small (but they are still positive, so immigrants cost you nothing), but more than that they supply labour mainly to our public services which would be unable to function without them, that's an economic factor that isn't measured.

In fact if we factor in those groups who get taxpayers money for promoting the pro-immigration stance, we as a country are even more at a lose.

Any evidence to support that?

I'm still waiting for an answer to how illegal immigrants are here by the way.

 

I thought you detested scaremongering?

[DragonofAna]

Tim Finch, head of migration for the IPPR, said that just because migration was very often a good thing it didn't follow that 'more of it is necessarily better'.

 

The comments were described as an extraordinary change of position by the think-tank which has led the way in backing Labour's open door policy. The Tories said it demolished once and for all the case against stricter border controls.

 

Mr Finch, writing on the IPPR website, said ' progressives' had taken a proimmigration stance in part because this was at odds with public support for stricter controls.

 

'There is nothing that convinces a progressive more that they are in the right than finding that most people disagree with them,' he said.

 

'A particularly unfortunate element of this syndrome in relation to migration is a tendency to characterise our opponents as nasty, stupid and backward.

 

'By so doing, we give ourselves licence to either patronise or ignore them. But it is not the case that the classic progressive view on migration is disputed only by extremists, such as the BNP.

 

'In fact, as must now be obvious to us, the vast majority of mainstream public opinion does not see the logic or the ethics of our case.'

 

Mr Finch conceded that the strain on public services has been overlooked by the Left.

 

He writes: 'A real blind spot in the progressive case is this question of negative impacts from migration, particularly in more deprived areas.

 

'At its worst, this can amount to complete denial that migration brings anything other than benefits.

 

The Article does go on a bit. Seems strange that so many people in the real world are changing the way they think about immigration, but not the die-hards on sf!

[Wildcat]

I'm afraid my hand is forced Wildcat, clearly if the anti immigrant contingent are getting their knickers in a twist now, then factors other than the economic ones have to be considered to ensure the security and future of all our citizens.

 

All I can do is point out the benefits of immigration as I see them, however there will always be a significant minority of dissenters who punch above their weight, who seek to cause disharmony within our communties and won't believe the facts that stare them in the face-but they still have a vote.

 

Without it being evidenced based, I believe there is an 'emotional' limit to the numbers of foreigners or people with dark faces that 'significant minority' will tolerate.

 

I am not sure whether we should pander to minority views, and if we should the extent to which we should. To keep things in perspective, my earlier figures show we already have lower levels of immigration than comparators like france, germany, USA, Canada, Australia etc. In my opinion we already pander too much to the vocal minority, the way to address the vocal minority is to enforce better rules we have on media coverage being fair and unbiassed. The Polish federation won a case against the Daily Mail a year or so ago against their consistent negative stereotyping of poles and immigrants, the IPCC however is toothless and largely allows the tabloids and the interests they represent to unfairly influence public opinion with spreading myths and outright lies on the matter in opposition to the wealth of academic research. If there is any way in which there should be a reaction to these concerns the sensible approach is to address the causes, and they are not immigration or the facts underlying them but the biassed news coverage that is set by the tabloid owners and unfortunately followed by the rest of the media.

[boyfriday]

The Article does go on a bit. Seems strange that so many people in the real world are changing the way they think about immigration, but not the die-hards on sf!

What about the diehards who are unable to appreciate the benefits that immgrants bring to our public services, such as the NHS?

[Streamline]

No obviously about your conclusion. The obvious conclusion is that the business model works.

 

Clearly it doesn't, 62 years of immigration shows that it doesn't.

 

 

 

No my response was to you saying that a sensible pro-immigration argument was scaremongering and I asked why the labelling.

 

 

Of course you did but then when have you offered a sensible pro-immigration arguement?

 

 

Indeed, except it is you that is doing the labelling and scaremongering.

 

Really? Where have I claimed that stopping immigration will cause more people to die as your comrade has?

 

 

That has not been shown on this thread or elsewhere, indeed your conclusions fly in the face of all the evidence and common sense.

 

Common sense comes from people experiences not posting links to wikipedia, masses of statistics and advocacy research.

 

 

I expect they fly or come by boat and in a rare case reported a few years ago a couple swam the channel.

 

The question was how many illegal immigrants are here. I know you understand what I meant and know you can't answer it. So all your evidence is blown out of the water.

[DragonofAna]

What about the diehards who are unable to appreciate the benefits that immgrants bring to our public services, such as the NHS?

 

There are some on both sides who seem stuck in their way of thinking. It needs something to be sorted out. If you continued to read the article rather than just the part about whatsherface then you would have seen -

 

'But it is self evidently the case that large numbers of migrants arriving in some areas, particularly if it happens very rapidly, can have serious downsides.

 

'An obvious problem is that the provision of infrastructure and services lags behind the increase in the population.'

 

The landmark article called for 'a well-managed and controlled migration system based on transparent criteria for entry, fairly applied'.

 

'In the end, more migrants do not equal a more progressive attitude to migration - indeed it is just this fuzzy logic which has weakened our case in recent years,' it said.

 

You have to decide whether it is, or it isn't damaging. And as the IPPR states - a majority of people think it is. Are all these people racist bigots? That's a hell of a lot of people.