Comments on: Why 5 May matters

By: RAS

RAS — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 10:16:36 +0000

For instance, the Conservative plan would mean more genuine refugees than under Labour. Didn’t mention that, did you?

By: RAS

RAS — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 10:15:56 +0000

If you want to slag off Tory immigration policy, you can try. But you’ll fail miserably. Becuase the facts always shine through.

By: tim

tim — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 13:18:14 +0000

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.

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 22:25:59 +0000

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.

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 21:23:58 +0000

““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.

By: OJ

OJ — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 00:52:57 +0000

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.