Daily Mail race obsession gets worse

Are you British but not white? The issue is really bothering the Daily Mail.

The right-wing rag is widely known for its routine pieces on "Britain to become mega overcrowded by 2030/2040/2050 [select year at random]", "migrants rob jobs and steal packed lunches" and "'too many immigrants' warns objective anti-immigration think tank", generally based on a selection of myths and half truths.

But in an article appearing in today's edition (complete with trite picture of a crowded city street, yawn), the poisonous tabloid goes one step too far in emulating BNP literature.

"White Britons 'will be outnumbered' if immigration continues at current rate", is the appalling headline, a classic piece of scaremongering based on a number of quotations from one Professor David Coleman of Oxford University.

The academic, as quoted by the Mail, seems to be especially worried about skin colour, drawing a clear dividing line between white and non-white Britons.

Which is what makes the article particularly obnoxious: the "concern" no longer being just about non-British people outnumbering British people, but about people of a certain skin hue, which is exactly the kind of game the BNP has been playing for years.

Do we really - in 2010, while you'd have thought this kind of shit died out decades ago - do we really have to remind the Daily Mail and Professor Coleman that many people are as British as the Queen even though their skin colour may be another?

Are they aware of how appalling it is to place under a "different" category millions of people who may have been British for generations and are still made to feel alien (as if their Britshness was not quite the same or, worse, something to resent altogether)?

For the record - and needless to say the Daily Mail makes no mention of this - Prof Coleman is not an objective source, but the co-founder of right-wing lobby group Migration Watch, an organisation known for its cavalier use of statistics when issuing those press releases that make up half the content of the Daily Express and other UK tabloids.

In the past, Coleman also became the focus of some controversy for its connections with the Galton Institute, formerly known as Eugenics Society (see here and here for details).

Priceless

I took the liberty to cut and paste this comment from an online Daily Mail reader:

Letter to Sunny Hundal

On the suprising support lent by Liberal Conspiracy to Ed Balls' attack on immigration.

Dear Sunny,

Ed Balls' piece in the Observer two days ago seems to have caused a bit of a stir.

In a nutshell, his point was: we were wrong to allow so many Eastern Europeans into Britain; we should revise the free movement of labour and keep it one way only (1m Brits can live and work in Europe, but not the reverse); his government, Labour, was wrong in a) both not placing restrictions on new EU states and b) not implementing the agency workers directive.

James Macintyre and Mehdi Hasan in the New Statesman dismissed Balls' "tough rhetorical stance" on the grounds that "[e]vidence -- from the BNP's trouncing, the fact that the Tories had the same 'cap' policy and lost in 2005, and the fact that even Mrs Duffy's seat was retained by Labour -- suggests this is a bit of an easy myth".

Others have noted how unfeasible it all looks that Balls is suddenly laying into entire chunks of 13 years in power while he seemed to be happily going along with it all until May 7 (he recently claimed he wasn't really pro-Iraq war too - and don't give me that "collective responsibility" stuff because Balls wasn't even in the cabinet in 2003 - he was free to speak).

I'm sure you will agree that it's baffling when an aspiring Labour leader get his words praised by Balanced Migration and even Stormfront (links not provided), whereas even the Conservatives ("on immigration Ed Balls is to the right of Enoch Powell"), the Spectator ('Balls: we have to be more bigoted') and the Daily Mail ("shameless hypocrisy") found his words ranging from opportunistic to altogether wrong.

But what I found most disheartening was the argument you put forward on your blog Liberal Conspiracy, an important voice in the left-of-centre "blogosphere" (god I hate that word, blogosphere).

For some reason, you appear to be giving Ed Balls a fantastically easy ride ('Why I'm defending Ed Balls over immigration').

Yet when only two weeks ago another leadership hopeful, Andy Burnham, spelt out concepts not dissimilar to those now backed by Ed Balls' ("Our priorities were not [the white working classes'] priorities: [...] we were in denial about the effects of immigration - on wages, housing and anti-social behaviour - in places where life is hardest", said Burnham), you dismissed it all with sarcasm and exclamation marks:

"Mr Burnham will be radically different from everyone else by having a one-issue campaign. Immigration! The issue no-one talks about. The issue that Phil Woolas did not constantly bang on about. Talking about immigration will bring back voters and help Burnham take back the country!".

It reminds me of Arsene Wenger when he complains that Man Utd players' tackles were out of order, but he's fine when his own do exactly the same.

Andy Burnham bad, Ed Balls good. And why is that?

"Because", you explained, "I think we have to accept we lost the debate on immigration and do something about it. We failed in pushing a coherent and positive narrative during all those years and now have a situation where the public is very right-wing on the issue. [...] We can't afford to ignore people's perceptions whether we like them or not".

You get that? You lose a political argument, so you may as well start agreeing with the "winning" side.

Just think if that applied to every aspect of politics. Like, the British public have consistently supported the death penalty over many years as the best way to combat crime. Does it mean we should concede defeat and look sympathetic with "public perceptions", or shall we still reject calls for the introduction of death row because we believe they're wrong?

Or...Those old enough to remember will note how, throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, Tories and assorted supporters of Section 28 would routinely dismiss the pro-LGBT argument by saying that public opinion was simply hostile to same-sex relationships. It was true. Opinion polls at the time did not leave ground to interpretation. But we didn't give up the fight because we were a minority.

For, call me thick, but there is a simple, unanswered question here: are Ed Balls' words to be backed for reasons of PR - that is to say, so that the left doesn't look like it's ignoring "people's perceptions" - or because they make for good, honest, coherent policy? Is Balls right because his (newly adopted) principles are right, or simply out of political expediency? Do we believe in them, or do we just go along because we're tired of fighting an uphill struggle with a tabloid-led rhetoric that has started to seep through society?

There is a fallacy the size of the Gulf of Mexico in your line of reasoning, Sunny. You later commented:

"The changed reality is that we lost the debate on immigration because of the lack of political courage on behalf of politicians and because the left didn’t have a narrative on this either. We avoided the issue and now it’s become an albatross".

So, on one side you criticise the "lack of political courage" (presumably to point out that what the left needed to do was to tackle the problems for which people blame immigrants rather than the immigrants). On the other, the moment the issue becomes "an albatross", we should just somersault the other way and go along with a bit of Eastern European-bashing because it chimes, apparently, with "people's perceptions".

You wrote that "[J]ust screaming racist everytime a politician talks about it is not getting us anywhere and frankly I’m getting sick of that too".

But no-one said Balls was being "racist". Why are you saying that? I don't think anyone, for a second, believes he was being "racist". Opportunistic, maybe. Unprincipled, possibly. A hypocrite, surely. But racist? That's a red herring, my friend.What next? Are you going to say that "immigration is a taboo subject" too?

Those, like me, who are shocked by Balls' road-to-damascus conversion do so not on the basis of "racism", but because we think it's unfeasible, it's wrong, it's ill-conceived.

If Balls really wanted to "reconnect" with traditional Labour voters he could, for example, go further than just pay lip-service to "the agency workers directive" that, lest we forget, only six months ago he himself contributed to rejecting.

He could endorse Jon Cruddas' analysis of how endemic casualisation has led to a race to the bottom in the workplace. He could look at the central issue of affordable housing.

He could choose to go the Ed Miliband way, making the living wage "central to his campaign" or calling for the introduction of "wage ratios" between top and bottom salaries in the work place.

Because, fundamentally, these are the battles that nobody is fighting. There are plenty of parties, groups and newspapers setting migrant workers against British workers as they advocate that there are "too many immigrants" taking our jobs and depressing wages.

But very few arguing loud and clear that, if only working people were paid properly and were handed back appropriate protection in their work contracts, the issue of immigration would probably eventually self-regulate.

Until the root of the problem is addressed - the fact that in this country it is possible to pay people a non-living wage, sack them on a whim and hand them an existence cut out of job insecurity - tuning in to the dog whistle politics of "too much immigration" will just remain that: dog whistle politics.

More jobs went to UK nationals in 2009...

...But don't expect the Mail and the Express to write anything about it...

Good piece by BBC home editor Mark Easton on his blog. The headline ("British jobs for foreign workers") may be a bit ambiguous, but the content is clear.

In spite of the galloping hysteria we see on a daily basis on our right-wing tabloids, the share of British jobs going to UK nationals has actually started to go up again.

Easton explains that, after peaking in 2007, immigration figures began to go down again. He compared figures from 2008, when 91.9 per cent of jobs were held by UK nationals, with those from 2009. Last year, British nationals made up 92.1 per cent of the UK job market.

Non-EU workers took 4.4 per cent of the share and EU ones 3.5%.

Rest assured though, Daily Star, Express, or Daily Mail readers. You're unlikely to ever find out.

BBC shame: "Is Britain full?"

Panorama: the London Underground is packed and house prices are sky-high because of mass immigration.

This programme was broadcast two weeks ago as part of BBC Panorama, but I only watched a re-run last night. I wish I hadn't. It was a spectacular collection of half-truths and distortions straight from the scaremongering book-of-bollocks that reigns supreme amongst the pages of both the Daily Mail and the Express.

Forget debate, different opinions or a simple comparative look across trends in similar countries. For 28 minutes the licence payer was bombarded with images of overcrowded London trains, kids in maternity wards, busy London streets and satellite pictures heaving with city lights. The message? Immigration is turning Britain into an excessively overcrowded place.

According to BBC Panorama, seriously, the London underground is packed because of immigration. Not because it's a big capital city or a highly touristic destination. As if Paris, Berlin, Milan and New York could boast empty carriages all the time. Nah. In London, the tube is crammed with people because of immigration in the last few years, and if you don't believe it, look at the footage of packed carriages.

According to BBC Panorama, incredibly high house prices are an obvious direct consequence of immigration. Nothing to do with Margaret Thatcher's deregulation of lending and the financial markets that turned housing into the centre of a casino economy of asset bubbles and speculation. Nothing to do with City gamblers and assorted tycoons pricing Londoners out of their own city. That'd be too complex. The fault lies with the immigrants, who else.

According to BBC Panorama, England (not Britain) is "the most densely populated country in Europe". They obviously forgot the Netherlands and Malta, but nevermind, that's the Daily Mail school of churnalism. It wouldn't sound scary enough if they'd said "the third most densely populated country in Europe".

According to BBC Panorama, 52.3m people lived in the UK in 1960. That went up to 57.2 in 1990, meaning an extra five million. Twenty years later, in 2010, the total is 62.2m, another five million.

I know it's boring, but just look at those figures. The population growth in the last twenty years isn't significantly higher than the period 1960-1990. Of course Panorama didn't mention at all that people now live a lot longer. In 1960 an average person would live until 69. Now it's around 79. Yet Panorama tells you that the population is growing purely because of immigration.

BBC Panorama did not bother to check what percentage of the population in Britain is made up by immigrants. If they did, they'd have to tell the viewer that the figures are much higher in Austria, Germany, Sweden, Spain, France and the Netherlands.

BBC Panorama did not bother to investigate what the trends are like in Germany, France, Spain or Italy, countries with similar levels of wealth and population. They were too busy showing constant footage of overcrowded London streets and trains, just in case the viewers don't twig that it's the immigrants' fault.

And yet in the last ten years alone France has seen an increase of 3m, Italy of 2m, and Spain of a staggering 6m people. Elsewhere too. Australia's population has gone up by 2.6 since 2000 and let's not even mention the United States, where there are now 32m people (that's thirty-two million) more than there were in 1997.

Clearly immigration is an international phenomenon, but if you were to base your judgement from BBC Panorama you wouldn't have had the slightest clue.

The next time I hear anyone saying that the BBC is "left-wing" or "biased towards the left" I will slap them with a recycled arse wipe or, better, a soiled copy of the Daily Mail.

Shame on you, Jeremy Vine.

Exactly the same rhetoric as the BNP

Since election day was announced, the Daily Mail has gone completely apeshit.

Britain's worst tabloid has literally been acting like a male dog smelling a bitch on heat. If you've ever owned a dog, you'll be familiar with their all-over-the-place, erratic, hormone-fuelled behaviour as they scent a menstrual female dog.

Their main story today is a 'Best Of' of Daily Mail myths and half-truths as dished out relentlessly in the past few years (like this or this). The language, the rhetoric, the one-way perspective is exactly in line with the BNP's own "literature".

Let's start with the headline: Labour's betrayal of British workers: Nearly every one of 1.67m jobs created since 1997 has gone to a foreigner.

As you plough through the piece, in typical Daily Mail fashion, there is no sign of where their figures come from. There's a mention of Tory MP Damian Green and then a sudden leap to unspecified "ONS figures", with repeated distinctions made between "British-born" workers and "foreign-born" workers.

The article rings fishy on so many levels.

The tone, for one thing, in which foreign-born workers are by default treated as some kind of dangerous and intrusive alien species. It's as if they didn't pay tax or as if many didn't carry out day in and day out the most menial, physically unpleasant, lowest-paid jobs in the country that most Daily Mail readers and their kids wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

Imagine being a foreign worker in Britain. Waking up every day to go to work amidst the constant media barrage suggesting that you're doing something wrong or you're simply not wanted.

In Daily Mail-world a "foreigner" can't do no right. They're damned if they're unemployed and they're damned if they work their ass off. In Daily Mail-world, quite simply, we don't like you here - or as Edward from the League of Gentlemen would have said, "local shops for local people, there's nothing for you here".

Let's leave all that aside. The headline is misleading, because after a quick online research, it emerges the Daily Mail are simply distorting figures that appeared yesterday on The Spectator online. The numbers mentioned by Fraser Nelson's paper were exclusively about the private sector, and not all jobs, as the Mail's headline suggests.

And yet research published earlier in the year indicated that 57% of the jobs created in the UK since 1997 have been in the public sector. Out of 2.24m jobs created since 1997, 1.27m were in the "wider public sector".

In 2007, the Statistics Commission published similar figures (link here, see page 9): about 2.1m new jobs were created in total between 1997 and 2007. 1.1m went to "foreign nationals" and 1 million to "UK nationals", suggesting that most public sector jobs go to UK-born people.

That paints a radically different picture from the Daily Mail's hysterical article. Instead of "an extraordinary 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts were taken by immigrants", the figures point to just over 50 per cent.

And if you live in the UK and speak to friends, family and colleagues or simply look around instead of soaking up that bilefeast of a paper, you will simply notice that it's not true that 98.5 of every new job created went to "an immigrant". Just think about it.

And put it into perspective, out of a total workforce of 28.4m, in 2007 there were 2.1m foreign nationals employed in Britain and 26.4m British nationals.

But chances are this won't be the angle chosen by the Daily Mail to present any of their "stories". It just wouldn't peddle enough hatred.

One Day Without Immigrants

On March 1st, migrant workers in France, Italy and Spain will go on strike to demonstrate the importance of their work and fight for their rights.

Last Wednesday's BBC documentary The Day The Immigrants Left, presented by Evan Davis, was one of the most instructive pieces of television as seen in quite a long time.

The experiment took place in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, a town hit by high-unemployment. Twelve Brits on the dole, some long-term, were offered a chance of filling the shoes of as many immigrant workers in the fields of food packaging, agriculture, catering and construction.

Best of all, the programme didn't pass judgement. The viewers could make up their mind over whether tabloid-based common places such as "the foreigners are stealing all our jobs" or "the British are lazy" have any foundation at all.

And the result was a mixed bag. There was the proud local carpenter displaying a work ethic that could give the most eager Lithuanian a run for his money. Also, two guys who turned up for work at a food packaging plant with a massive chip on their shoulders seemed quite determined to prove that it's the "foreigners"' fault and that British workers could do as well if only they were offered the chance.

Alas though, some simply couldn't be arsed. One of the local chaps who was due to show up at the same factory the following morning texted in sick before he'd even started. The same happened with the three out of four people who'd been given the chance to work at a local Indian restaurant. And the only one who did turn up threw in the towel after a couple of hours.

And then there was the asparagus farm where, quite simply, the three Brits could not hold a candle to their foreign colleagues. They were slow, unwilling and clearly not interested in the job. One in particular appeared extremely resentful when any advice or guidance was given.

Most interesting was the opinion of the local employers. The one in charge of the potato factory was adamant that the number of British applicants slumped in the late Nineties. Evan Davis double checked: are you sure that they stopped applying before the latest wave of immigration took place? Yes, was the answer.

The boss at the asparagus factory was positive: without migrant workers he'd have to shut up shop. And for all talks that foreign labour is undercutting 'homebred' workers, it was only thanks to the minimum wage that the British asparagus pickers didn't end up earning significantly less than their Eastern European counterparts.

On March 1st a similar experiment is going to be repeated but this time on a massive scale.

France, Italy and Spain are all about to witness the first concerted migrant workers' strike. "La journée sans immigrés, 24h sans nous", "Un Giorno Senza Di Noi" and "Un Dia Sin Immigrantes" will call for a mass boycott of buying, selling and working - highlight the social benefits of immigration.

From farming to food packaging, from builders, cleaners and carers to nurses, chefs and the hospitality industry, the idea is to show that, without migrant workers, a whole country can easily grind to a halt.

For too long, too many people in the whole of Western Europe held too many jobs in contempt. Somebody else filled that gap for us -often in really crap conditions- and made it possible for society to carry on and expand.

Like a bunch of spoilt little brats, we've been too quick to forget.

Shooting at immigrants: the case of Italy

Last week's riots highlighted the explosive combination of modern slavery, organised crime and racism.

The old saying that history tends to repeat itself is looking particularly true these days. Last week the Southern Italian region of Calabria ('the toe of the boot') became the theatre of a depressing anti-immigrant witchhunt eerily reminiscent of last century's Ku Klux Klan violence in the US.

First off, the background. Like in most of Europe, fruit-picking is carried out by immigrants, except that in the South of Italy, those are largely underpaid and illegal - under the ruthless watch of the local mafia (n'drangheta), one of the most powerful groups of organised crime in the country.

Reports suggest that up to twenty thousand illegal immigrants in the region are paid £20 for a 12 or 14-hour working day minus a £5 'fee' handed to their gangmasters for transport and "protection".

They live in appalling conditions, amassed in rat-infested warehouses with no light and poor sanitation and with nothing to do but work and sleep - effectively becoming profit fodder for the n'drangheta. Every morning they are rounded up together, packed into rusty trucks and driven to orange or olive groves.

Last month, a report by Italian daily la Repubblica highlighted a ticking bomb, comparing the migrants' living conditions to concentration camps. "About seven hundred of them live jam-packed into a derelict paper mill", wrote reporter Carlo Ciavoni. In the article, volunteers from Doctors without Borders described an alarming high rate of respiratory illnesses amongst the migrants, "mostly due to fumes coming from the fires they start in the warehouse to cook and keep warm ".

Calabria is also the poorest and least developed Italian region. The grip of organised crime is visible at all levels. Many councils in the area were long ago "dissolved" on suspicion of mafia infiltration and provisionally handed to a commissioner.

The levels of unemployment are staggering: 28.3 per cent with peaks of 65 per cent amongs those under-25. Per capita income is 50 per cent the corresponding value in the Centre-North of the country.

It is against this background that one of the ugliest pages of European history was written last week. On Tuesday a legal immigrant from Togo was wounded in a random pellet-gun attack which was reportedly carried out for fun by youths associated with the local mafia clans.

This became the spark for the immigrants' frustration. Obviously letting off steam for their subhuman exploitation, hundreds took to the streets of a town called Rosarno. According to the BBC, "the protesters clashed with police in riot gear [...]. Cars were burned and shop windows smashed. Many shouted 'We are not animals' and carried signs saying 'Italians here are racist'".

It's at this point that Ku Klux Klan-style lynching took over. In succession, immigrants were runover by cars (and in one failed attempt, a bulldozer), more locals began shooting at any non-white person they could spot (injuring several) and, in many cases, gangs of youths beat up migrant workers with iron bars. Amongst shouts of "negroes out", about thirty immigrants ended up in hospital.

Things turned even uglier when volunteers who were spotted taking meals and warm clothes to the migrants became the target of a spontaneous local residents' demonstration. A crew from national television RAI was pelted with stones and, according to peacereporter, journalists were threatened with phrases ranging from "don't you dare take photos" to "mind your own fuckin business".

In the end, three hundred policemen were called into the area to save the immigrants from being lynched. Most migrants have now been evacuated from the area and scattered around asylum centres around Italy, while encampments have been bulldozed by the authorities.

In the midst of all this mayhem, the target chosen by Home Secretary Roberto Maroni, from the far-right Northern League, was clear: "In all these years illegal immigration has been tolerated without doing anything effective, an immigration that on the one hand has fed crime and on the other has led to situations of extreme squalor such as that at Rosarno". "All the clandestine ones will be expelled. Someone could have died there", he added.

Homophobic fomer Archbishop speaks out on immigration

Lectures about social cohesion from this man? No, thanks.

George Carey, Archbisop of Canterbury until 2002, wrote today an article in the Times in which he just stopped short of calling for Christians to be given priority in a migration point system ('Migration threatens DNA of our nation').

The article echoes what he already said yesterday on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The former Archbishop and current member of the Balanced Migration Group followed a template that we've recently seen far too often from the usual suspects: a) if you talk about immigration you are branded a racist b) if you want to stop the BNP from growing you need to "seriously address the concerns" c) Britain is a Christian country.

To which the answers are:

a) Immigration has been discussed relentlessly for the whole of the past decade. All the best selling dailies -we're talking millions and millions of copies everyday- have been hammering the point in that immigration is the scourge of our times.

It's a myth that a national debate is not taking place. Far from being cornered with accusations of racism, on countless occasions the tabloids have perpetrated outright lies about immigration - with most politicians rushing to endorse their "grievances".

Take a look here for myth-debunking on several levels.

b) The fact that the BNP rise can be stopped by stealing their clothes is simply the most pathetic way to give in to them. At what point would Nick Griffin give up? A white-only policy? Barbwire erected along the borders? Repatriation? Two passports one for "ethnic Britons" and one for "civic Britons", to quote Griffin's criteria?

What exactly does it mean that we need to "seriously address their concerns"?

c) Britain has indeed Christian roots, but what makes her an amazing country is the fact that on so many levels -and unlike other Christian countries- she has managed to evolve with the times, adopting tolerance and secularism which should rank amongst the country's proudest traits.

Luckily the BNP hasn't clocked it yet, but insisting on the Christianity vs Islam angle doesn't rub off on the British population at large because, quite simply, the country has not been interested in religious divide for donkey's years.

Carey made a good point about the "deeply socially divisive" nature of "immigrants who immediately establish their own tribunals to apply Sharia", but he's hardly the one to talk about "socially divisive" actions.

In fact, if it was for people like George Carey and his own notion of "Christianity", for instance, homosexuals would still be forced into hiding. Which, come to think of it, would be in line with his calls to "address the concerns" of the BNP.

Not many may remember, but during his tenure as Archbishop, Carey managed to alienate thousands of people with some of the most right-wing/medieval views to ever emerge from Canterbury.

He has always fiercely opposed an equal age of consent and even employment rights for lesbians and gay men. He condemned legal rights for LGB couples (including next-of-kin access) and actively repressed any homosexual involvement in the clergy.

This is also the man who said he was proud of Britain's leading role in arms manufacturing and whose most compassionate words were his calls for the release of Chilean fascist dictator General Pinochet.

Placed next to him, Pope Ratzinger looks positively liberal.

Decade reviewed (5): UK politics

From predictable and apathetic to volatile and polarised- how British politics changed in the last ten years.

Much has been written about the Nineties as the 'consensus decade', the 'end of history' and no major divide within Western politics, at least in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Indeed the Noughties began with one opinion column after another celebrating Middle England, New Labour's 'third way' and the alleged end of class division. More, many questioned whether the Tories' would ever stand a chance of winning again.

The decade started with New Labour displaying their democratic credentials by kicking Ken Livingstone out of the party in the run-up to London's first ever mayoral elections. But Livingstone stuck to his guns, stood as an independent, and secured Tony Blair's first significant humiliation of his career.

The lowest turnout in history at the 2001 general elections was evidence of galloping apathy and disillusion. With barely over half the country bothering to cast a ballot, Tony Blair celebrated his second landslide in a row and, when William Hague stepped down as Tory leader, not many seemed to care. in the leadership race that followed, Michael Portillo missed his chance of a lifetime and lost to lesser-known Iain Duncan Smith.

In the meantime, with the far right showing its ugly rear in the Oldham and Bradford race riots of summer 2001, the country's community relations took the first tangible battering of the decade.

The 9/11 attacks were the undisputed watershed. Affecting everything, from the way we look at national security, through the way we travel, to the notion of multiculturalism, it truly messed up the following few years. Still blown away by the attack, very few questioned Tony Blair's unadulterated support for George W Bush's foreign policy and the ensuing Afghanistan war enjoyed widespread support in both the US and Britain.

Things however, took a different turn in the run-up to the Iraq war. From Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech to the heated debate with France and Germany over the second UN resolution, many will remember the countdown on Hans Blix and his team of weapons inspector amongst claims that Saddam Hussein was '45 minutes' away from doing us over with WMDs.

Amongst the most memorable moments, the 1-million strong anti-war march on 15 February 2003, the biggest demonstration ever in British history. People from all sections of society, regardless of political allegiances, defied the freezing weather to voice their scepticism. Most remarkably, the issue stirred some serious passion amongst people who'd never before expressed an interest in politics.

And yet it was obvious that Tony Blair had obviously made his mind up. A month later, a nail-biting parliamentary vote saw the anti-war MPs narrowly defeated in spite of 112 Labour backbenchers rebelling. Robin Cook's resignation speech was the first ever to receive a standing ovation in the history of the House.

Starting a few days later, the Iraq war marked the beginning of Tony Blair's undoing. The government's handling of the (very) strange death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly and the emerging truth that were no WMDs in Iraq tarnished Blair's reputation forever.

The firefighters' 2-year-long pay dispute (2002-04) came to an end with the adoption of the New Fire and Rescue Services Act, resulting in all ties severed between the Fire Brigade Union and the Labour Party.

In 2004, "Teflon Tony" survived another backbench revolt as he led his party through a spectacular u-turn on tuition fees. A push, a shove and a last-minute whip in the jaffas (i.e. minister Nick Brown defecting back into the government), pushed the price of a single year at one of the country's Universities up to £3,000 (plus booze).

In the meantime, Thatcher's ugliest legacy, the uber homophobic Section 28, was finally scrapped. Like with the repeal in Scotland a few years before, the Conservatives voted compact in favour of upholding discrimination but were resoundingly beaten.

In June the anti-Europe UKIP came third in the European elections. Former TV presenter Robert Kilroy Silk helped raise UKIP's profile but fell out with the leadership within months and branded the party "a joke".

In September, the pro-fox hunting Countryside Alliance clashed with the police on Parliament Square. Some protesters stormed into the House of Commons but failed to stop the government from passing (after years of wrangling) a watered-down Hunting Act.

In the meantime, the Tories elected yet another new leader. With Iain Duncan Smith oozing the charisma of a turnip, the Conservatives showed political acumen by handpicking draculesque Michael Howard, a cabinet member under both Thatcher and Major, a man with "something of the night about him", as their 'new' and 'fresh' leader.

And yet the 2005 general elections turned into another Tory failure. The biggest success came instead from the Liberal Democrats. Thanks to the leadership of Charles Kennedy and their opposition to both the Iraq gamble and tuition fees, they won their biggest share of MPs since 1929. Not enough, however, to stop New Labour from winning a record third election. Tony Blair celebrated by promising to serve a "full term".

The London bombings in July, the biggest terrorist attack in UK history, threatened to be another nail in the coffin for community relations, also reminding the country that, far from increasing security, the Iraq war actually brought terrorism home.

In August, former Foreign Sectretary and Iraq war critic Robin Cook died. The year ended with the Tories appointing -amazingly- their fourth leader of the decade, this time at least opting for a younger option: 39-year-old David Cameron. Also, the first same-sex civil partnership in the UK was celebrated in Belfast: one of New Labour's proudest achievements.

Less than two months later, LibDem leader Charles Kennedy confessed to having an alcohol problem and resigned -its party hasn't fully recovered yet. Also, anti-war MP George Galloway squandered his political capital by appearing on the 2006 edition of Celebrity Big Brother, while a swirl of speculations mounted over Gordon Brown's alleged "coup" to oust Tony Blair and the disgraceful cash-for-honours scandal which resulted in the arrest of Labour's chief fundraiser Lord Levy.

In the meantime, outrage over the Iraq war didn't relent. 2007 turned into the bloodiest year since the invasion and not many shed a tear when Tony Blair, fresh from signing the Trident renewal agreement, finally resigned in June after years of speculation.

Following the initial honeymoon period, new PM Gordon Brown hit a bum note when he dithered over an early election in October 2007. Nick Clegg became the third LibDem leader in two years and the bail out of Northern Rock heralded the worst economic crisis since WWII.

In May 2008 Boris Johnson replaced Ken Livingstone after eight years as London Mayor, confirming suspicions that the pendulum may be swinging towards the Conservatives for the first time in fifteen years.

Nosediving in the opinion polls, Labour found little consolation in the fact that a devastating MPs' expenses scandal hit all political parties. Moats, duck houses, fridge magnets and porn videos were all found amongst the list of stuff subsidised by the oblivious taxpayer. A series of high profile resignations hit the Brown government in June 2009, adding to the biting recession and relentless rise in unemployment.

The 2009 European vote signalled more bad news for Brown. Much was written about the far-right BNP securing two MEPs for the first time in history, a combination of incredibly low turnout and the vicious anti-immigration line adopted by a number of red tops.

Fears of a far-right revival increased in summer, when race riots took place in both Luton and Birmingham during demonstrations organised by a new group called the English Defence League.

In October, a heated debate surrounded the invitation of BNP leader Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time. However, his botched attempts at introducing fascist policies to a wider audience ended up into a major media own goal. In the meantime, the postal strike in Autumn drew comparisons with the 1984 miners' dispute.

The picture at the end of the decade is that of a much more polarised and volatile British politics. On one side, the economy is looking much worse than ten years ago, with unemployment over twice as bad, rampant family debt, businesses going bust and a rising wealth gap. Though the public remains widely suspicious of free market policies and the Conservatives, 13 years in power have obviously taken the sheen off New Labour.

Sceptical though they may be, most Conservative voters seem set to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt, while millions of traditional Labour supporters appear put off by a party that, through their tenure in power, outToried the Tories on too many occasions. The lack of a major option for the progressive vote may ultimately pave the way for the Tories' return to power.

It's interesting that the economic crisis appeared initially to be the perfect scenario for an overhaul of the brand of 'turbocapitalism' that ruled for three decades. However, with leftist parties widely failing to make hay of it, right-wing populism looks like the most likely beneficiary.

The forthcoming general elections will reveal whether the immigration debate that monopolised the second half of the decade will result in significant gains for the far-right and if Labour's haemorrhaging votes will benefit either the LibDems or the Green Party (the latter on course to secure their first MP in history).

Above all, 2010 will soon reveal whether Britain will be under Conservative rule again for the first time since the days of John Major.

Immigration myths (4): "EU=net migration"

The perception is that it's a one-way issue. It's not a problem if the Brits do the same in reverse. Because they're not migrants. They're EXPATS.

Labour aside, the daily negative bombardment about immigration is also centred around the European Union. Widely frowned upon for its unaccountability, the EU is also routinely slammed for allegedly contributing to wild migration patterns into Britain.

Indeed, it is undisputable that being part of Europe has made it remarkably easier for migrants from the continent to seek work and live in the UK. Since a number of Eastern European countries joined in 2004, hundreds of thousands of workers came in from Poland, the Czech Republic and so on.

But as always, the perception is that it's a one-way issue. It's not a problem if the Brits do the same in reverse. Because they're not migrants. They're EXPATS.

When you read that Britain should put up barriers at the Channel, or indeed leave the EU altogether, as often advocated by tabloids and at least one political party (the UKIP), no-one bothers to explain the repercussions it would have for millions of Brits in Europe.

In 2001 around 771,000 citizens from other EU countries (excluding Republic of Ireland) lived in the UK. No doubt the figures went up significantly since Eastern European countries joined. Sadly there aren't any reliable numbers, especially as most are here temporarily. We know that 56,000 people from eight key Eastern and Central European countries went back in the year to September 2008 and the trend continues in that direction.

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, "a total of around 1 million people had moved from the new EU member states to the UK by April 2008, but that half this number have since returned home or moved on to a third country".

But let's ignore all that and assume that 1 million Eastern Europeans arrived since the 2001 census and never left. That would mean 1.771 million EU citizens currently live in the UK.

Still, that just begins to resemble the number of British migrants to other EU countries.

The figures speak for themselves.

A survey published by the BBC in December 2006 revealed that between 1.7 and 2m Brits live and work permanently in the EU. Spain alone is home to a staggering 761,000 British citizens, and the figures doubled in the last decade. The Brits are "outnumbered as an immigrant population only by Moroccans, Romanians and Ecuadorians", and bear in mind many don't register with the local town halls but still peruse local public services.

The irony is that the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Sun and the Express all have "printed in Spain" editions available. They are the most popular papers amongst expats, so that many can read about the UK being swamped and taken over by migrants while they themselves can swamp and take over (literally) entire areas in Spain with very little levels of integration.

Many are doing exactly what they believe migrants to Britain are guilty of: living together, owning shops and not learning the language.

About 291,000 Britons live in the Republic of Ireland, 200,000 in France, while 115,000 live in Germany. Many more permanently live and reside in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, the Netherlands and so on. The figures are available here.

So what would happen if the tabloids or the anti-immigration lobby had it their way and the UK decided to erect immigration barriers with the EU? Do you ever hear about it? Would 1.7 to 2m Brits suddenly have to rush to embassies or local councils to apply for work permits, visas and various papers in the hope of being spared illegal status?

And, realistically, would the new British regime back home provide for such massive numbers to return home and place a strain on services, the housing system and the job market?

Immigration myths (3): "Overcrowding behind BNP rise"

Part three of our analysis of tabloid-led misconceptions about immigration. Apparently, the far-right is growing because Britain...oops, I mean England, is packed.

When anti-immigration campaigners are presented with comparative figures showing that other EU countries are host to a much higher number of migrants than the UK, they then often resort to the "density factor".

Interestingly, suddenly the focus switches from Britain to England. "We're only a small country", we hear, and the headlines are often accompanied by a picture of a crammed street, better if in Central London. Aside from very small states like Malta, and also the Netherlands, England has the highest density rate in the EU. If you consider the UK, however, Belgium's also more densely populated, while both Germany and Italy are just a little behind.

Yet a man from Düsseldorf will point out that North Rhine, his hugely overcrowded state, is twice more densely populated than Germany and way more than England.

An Italian could say that if you consider Northern Italy only, then the country's density is higher than that of Bahrein. And that if you discount the Alps, which are objectively quite difficult to inhabit en-masse, population density will reach Singapore-levels.

Similarly, a Catalan will tell you that their density is six times higher than Spain's, and so forth. Yorkshire counts more people than Cumbria. Where do you draw the line?

But I'm diverging. The argument you hear is that, while France and Germany have more room, England is overcrowded. Therefore, the rise of the BNP can be explained by this alarming, simple, visible fact.

So let's have a look. Are far-right anti-immigration parties a direct product of high population density? If tomorrow England woke up the size of Russia, would Nick Griffin retire from politics and the BNP die a sudden death?

France, a nation four times the size of England, has long boasted one of the most successful far-right parties in Europe. In 2007, the Front National tallied 11% of the national vote. Its leader Jean Marie Le Pen notoriously qualified for the second round of the French Presidential elections in 2002, netting over 17 per cent of the votes.

Their figures are similar to those of Vlaams Blok, the far-right Flemish nationalists in super overcrowded Belgium.

Italy, the cradle of fascism, is also home to a thriving far-right anti-immigration movement. The country may be getting increasingly densely populated now, but Mussolini's political heirs have regularly won a fair share of MPs since WWII, averaging 6% of the vote at each national election- and that's before, during and after inward migration began in Italy.

Sweden has an incredibly low population density, but with 7.2% according to the latest polls, its far-right party, Sverigedemokraterna, can currently piss all over their German colleagues of the National Democratic Party who scored a rickety 1.8% at last September's general elections.

Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom may have netted 5.9% at the 2006 Dutch national elections protesting that Holland is packed, but Vladimir Zhirinovsky's far-right party in humongous, sparsely-inhabited Russia managed 9.3% at the Presidential elections in 2008.

And back to England (or Britain, depending on the data you're expected to swallow), the BNP gained 192,000 votes at the 2005 general elections, the same as the National Front in 1979, when there were less people and less immigrants around, the EU didn't exist and builders from Eastern Europe were kept in by the iron curtain.

The picture emerging, therefore, is one where overcrowding, population density, centre-right or centre-left governments, the EU and the Muslims all matter very little when it comes to justifying the far-right racist vote.

Read "Immigration myths": PART ONE and PART TWO.

Immigration myths (2): "Immigration is Labour's fault"

Part Two of our myth-debunking series on the tabloid-fuelled anti-immigration hysteria.

Another typical remark you hear is that Labour is almost single-handedly responsible for Britain's overcrowding as "the population has grown by 1.8 million because of immigration since Labour came to power in 1997".

According to Migration Watch UK, one of their SIX KEY FACTS is that "net immigration has quadrupled since 1997 to 237,000 a year".

So let's look at population figures and growth rates in the same period around other advanced countries.

France. In the last ten years, France has overtaken the UK in the ranking of Europe's most populated countries. It is now third. Migrants continue to come in from both former French colonies and other EU countries. From 59.3m people in 1999, the total population surged to 62.2m in 2009. That's 3m people since Labour came to power in the UK. For the record, during those ten years, France has been almost exclusively ruled by centre-right administrations.

Italy. Italy's population went from 57.4m in 1997 to 59.6m at the end of 2007 (also see this), almost an extra 2m people since Tony Blair won the elections back in Britain. 488,000 people alone arrived between 2007 and 2008. The figures don't account for illegal immigration. In the past twelve years, Italy has been run by both centre-left administrations and Silvio Berlusconi's openly anti-immigration coalition.

Spain. According to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística de España, under both the conservative Aznar government and the current socialist one, the population of Spain has seen a massive increment of 5m people in less than ten years (2000-2008): from 40m to the current 45.8m. Large-scale immigration from North Africa, Latin America, Britain and Eastern Europe accounts for the significant increment: five times more than the population growth in the UK.

The Netherlands. Despite being one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, Holland has seen an increase of almost 1m people since 2000, but out of a total population which -at 16.7m- is a quarter that of the UK.

If comparative figures from other EU countries aren't satisfactory enough, we can also take a peek at the population trends in other prosperous nations across the planet.

Australia, for example. With their "point system" often cited as a model to imitate, the Ozzies have seen their population increase by 13.6% in the last nine years, mainly under the expert watch of John Howard's ultra conservatives. In 2000 they had just over 19m people. In 2009, the figures stand at 21.6m. That's over 2.6m people since Labour came to power in the UK.

New Zealand, with an open immigration policy, has experienced an annual increase rate of about 1 per cent. In 1997 there were 3.7m people in New Zealand. The current total is estimated at 4.3m. Apparently a new migrant arrives in New Zealand every 17 minutes and 55 seconds.

The United States of America boasts one of the highest migration rates in the world. It is currently home to 308m people. In 1997 there were 276m people. In the twelve years since Labour gained power in Britain, the USA experienced a population growth of 32m people (also see this) - under the watch of both Republicans and Democrats.

Canada, also known for being home to a very selective immigration policy, has seen a population growth of 5.4% between 2001 and 2006. That's an extra 1.6m people. It sounds reamarkably similar to the UK figures "since Labour came to power in 1997".

[Read "Immigration myths PART ONE" here]

Immigration myths (1): "They All Come Here"

How many people know that Britain is actually 10th in the EU league of immigrants as percentage of national population?

A couple of weeks ago, a member of the audience on BBC Question Time (it was the edition from Weston-super-Mare) said something we've heard time and again: "why do all immigrants come here? Can't other European countries chip in and do their bit to take their share?".

Whichever your views on immigration, statements like the one above need challenging in the strongest, most unequivocal way. Simply, because they are ridiculously false.

Like Unity wrote yesterday, "[i]t’s not racist to talk about, and debate, immigration as long as you’re putting forward an honest and truthful argument". And what good can possibly come from perpetrating myths aimed at reinforcing the BNP-friendly notion of a beleaguered little island with hordes of "enemies at the gates"?

And yet the amount of people who think like the chap on Question Time is spectacular. I will never forget the look of shock in one of my colleagues' eyes when I cracked her the news that both Italy and France are home to a vast number of migrants. And yes, as much as -if not more than- the UK. And if you think responses like "REALLY?" and "IT CAN'T BE" are remarkable, surely the following beats them all: "Yeah, but they all want to come here eventually, don't they?"

So, let's just look at the plain facts.

France. Figures published in 2006 indicate that about 5 million people (8% of the country's population) are foreign born. In metropolitan areas the percentage approaches 17%. And no, they're not just walking through France with their evil sight cast on poor little Blighty. About 6.7 million current French citizens were born from immigrant parents.

Spain. Immigration to Spain since 2000 would have caused the Express and the Daily Mail severe apoplexy. In the last few years, foreign population has gone from just over 900,000 in 2000 to 5,268,000 in 2008. That's over 4m extra people in less than a decade. In the same period, the number of Spanish passports granted to foreign-born residents has gone up by 600%. 12 per cent of residents in Spain were born abroad. These include an estimated 761,000 Brits (according to the UK Foreign Office).

Italy. Similarly to Spain, Italy has attracted an enormous amount of migrants in recent years. Between 2007 and 2008 alone, an estimated 458,000 people moved to Italy. The number of legal immigrants in 2008 totalled 4.5m people (7.5% of the population, around 15% in metropolitan areas), yet it is widely accepted that the real figures are much higher due to a significant number of illegal or non-regularised migrants.

Germany. In 2007, just under 9% of German residents were foreign passport-holders. According to official figures, from 1995 to 2004, about 1,278,000 foreigners obtained German citizenship by naturalization. This means, that about 1.5% of the total German population had been naturalized during that period.

According to the International Migration 2006 UN report, Germany is by far the European country hosting the largest number of immigrants (10.1m), with France second (6.5m), the UK third (5.4m) and Spain fourth (5.2m).

If instead immigrants are viewed as percentage of the whole population, at 8.9% Britain is actually well behind Austria (14.9%), Ireland (13.8), Germany (12.3), Sweden (12.3), Spain (12), the Netherlands (10.5), and France (10.1).

This is not to deny the significant increase in migration to the UK in the last decade. There's no question. However, the phenomenon is perfectly in line with migration patterns across Europe, and the population at large could do with things being put into perspective as opposed to hysterical scaremongering.

But chances are the Sun, the Daily Mail & co will be too busy with their headlines about asylum seekers stealing British swans to mention any of the above.

Also read:
Immigration myths PART TWO.
Immigration myths PART THREE.
Immigration myths PART FOUR.

Poles Apart

Officially 60,000 Polish people have come to Britain to seek work since 2004. Two British lads, Dan and Mark, reversed the trend to get work in Warsaw; this is their story.

[A guest post by D.Hoffmann-Gill]

Last year, sick and tired of the endless dirge of bigotry, lies and anti-Polish sentiment coming from the right-wing press, me and my mate Mark decided to go to Poland. We wanted to get a job; to put our money where our mouth is and garner a small taste of what it means to be an immigrant. We wanted to single-handedly reverse the Eastern European immigration trend.

So we got our CVs and covering letters translated (badly as it turned out) into Polish, put on our best interview clobber and made our way to Poland in a Vauxhall Astra.

We spent over two weeks as immigrants in Warsaw, ate a lot of lard and pigs feet and attempted to get any job we could, whether it be as a lift operator, a porn film star or a guttering and flues salesperson.

It was an amazing adventure that taught us much on the realities of life as an immigrant.

We eventually returned home and made a comedy show about our experiences that covers not only our time as economic migrants but documents the history of Poland, it’s 300 year relationship with the UK and the highly charged immigration debate in the UK.

The show contains Poland’s brightest new stand-up comedy star: Dariusz Drag, with jokes about Russians and Jews, a beginner’s guide to Polish culture, Political Correctness being wrestled to the floor and made to gag, the 1973 World Cup qualifier between England and Poland brought to life in front of your very eyes and Poland’s leading avant-garde theatre cooperative re-creating the invention of the Keroesne Lamp via interpative dance and extensive harmonica use.

Plus, Nick Griffin, avec eye patch, may be appearing to stroke his mandolin and sing his favourite ballad: “I’m Not Racist But…”.

It’s on at The Lowry in Manchester on the 26th November at 7:45pm and the RichMix theatre in London on the 27th and 28th November at 7:30pm, so why not pop along and support us?

Watch the Poles Apart trailer here.

1 million affordable homes

The long-term benefits of public intervention in the housing sector.

Most people are aware that waiting lists for council homes have hit an all-time high. Trouble is, courtesy of industrial-scale tabloid bombardment, most people would probably blame immigration and single mothers.

The reality, however, is different.

Here's the facts. It is true that the queues are dramatic. The crisis brought a massive increase in repossessions (65,000 homes this year and 45,000 in 2008). At the start of 2009, 200,000 extra families (not people, families), were added to already long queues: 1,8 million families are waiting their turn as opposed to 1.6m in 2008.

Yet how many people are aware that there are one million fewer homes available for rent from councils and housing associations than in 1979?

Read that again: one million fewer affordable homes than twenty years ago. And don't forget that, compared to 1979, today the UK is home to an extra 4.5m people, which can only highlight the urgency of the issue, especially as construction in the private sector has also ground to a halt.

Earlier this year, it emerged that in Scotland there are fewer council houses for rent now than there were 50 years ago (see here for details).

This is why today UNISON launched a report "urging the government to remove all legal and financial barriers to council house-building", calling for 1 million council homes to be built in the lifetime of the next Parliament.

The benefits are obvious. Along with a new generation of high-standard sustainable homes (learning from the recent past mistakes of estates built 'on the cheap', both in the private and public sector) and the chance to replan and regenerate entire areas according to local needs, the programme would benefit the wider economy. Think of all the jobs and training opportunities that would be created and the impulse it would give to the supply chain.

Yes, it would be a massive public investment, but it's one that would bring both long-term benefits and be definitely in the interest of the wider public.

According to UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis, council housing "can also help to prevent another housing and debt bubble by providing more affordable homes".

Fear of change

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