Why 5 May matters
Many people have told us they won’t vote on 5 May.
Reasons vary; many are indifferent to Labour, others feel impotent to change anything.
We’ll give you one reason why Michael Howard must never be Prime Minister.
He was asked on 8 November 2004 how a Tory government would handle refugees fleeing an atrocity abroad.
He said that once a quota had been met:
“We would say ‘I am really very sorry, but actually there is a limit to the number of refugees we can take’.”
Howard is a Romanian Jew whose family fled Nazi persecution - yet he would refuse protection to those suffering in similar situations.
Read his full statement and vow to vote.
April 24th, 2005 at 1:52 am
Hmmm… not really a reason, is it? Just a quote, unsupported by what you actually think.
So Michael Howard is from immigrant stock - does that mean you are denying him an opinion on our (failed) immigration and asylum systems and an opportunity to propose a policy which might rectify them and protect the security of our country at the same time? So much for liberals and their sacred human right of free speech…
Furthermore, do you REALLY believe that we can simply continue to take in refugees for decades to come? If you are sensible, you would agree with me that the answer is NO - because it is a matter of space in our country, the resources that we have available and the increasing demands on our public services (because of people living longer, for instance) - all these reasons mean that we must restrict the numbers entering the UK - in terms of economic immigrants and asylum seekers.
April 24th, 2005 at 10:23 pm
““does that mean you are denying him an opinion on our (failed) immigration and asylum systems and an opportunity to propose a policy which might rectify them and protect the security of our country at the same time?”
Errr, no. Our ToryScum host a) quoted Mr Howard directly and then b) linked to his original statement in full. If that’s a denial of freedom of speech, then I’m Kim Jung-Il.
April 25th, 2005 at 11:25 pm
Actually Michael Howard is now claiming to be of ‘immigrant stock’. During his interview with Paxman last Friday he claimed that his father came here ‘to do a job’ and was thus ‘an economic migrant’. Quite aside from having changed his own personal story, under his system, his family might still have been refused access to the UK, and, if they’d been forced to stay in Romania, may well have been killed by fascists.
“a matter of space in our country, the resources that we have available and the increasing demands on our public services”
Take a train or drive somewhere. You’ll see that you get out of our cities remarkably quickly and into vast areas of empty countryside. Did you know that converting just 1% of agricultural land into housing would solve our national housing shortages? So let’s not pretend the country is “full”. It’s just a question of how we use the space. As for resources and demands on public services, we’re the world’s 4th largest economy - if anyone can afford to provide good public services and fulfil our humane duties to refugees, Britain can.
What Britain is confronting is not a poverty of space or resources but a poverty of the will. Having raped the world of its resources and wealth for several hundred years, we are now unwilling to share any of it with filthy foreigners. That is what it boils down to.
Thankfully, OJ, I’m not thinking what you’re thinking.
April 26th, 2005 at 2:18 pm
There is no confusion about what stock Blair is from. Posh public school stock, just like his Home secretary Clarke and the strange Ruth Kelly. I’m not posh enough to vote Labour. It’s grammar school boy Howard for me. Upper class twits like Blair have no idea about what is good for the common people.
April 30th, 2005 at 11:15 am
If you want to slag off Tory immigration policy, you can try. But you’ll fail miserably. Becuase the facts always shine through.
April 30th, 2005 at 11:16 am
For instance, the Conservative plan would mean more genuine refugees than under Labour. Didn’t mention that, did you?