Putting Immigration to Bed

With David Cameron continuing to beat a hyped up UKIP tempo on the immigration drum this week it was refreshing to see Nathalie Bennett coming out to question the Prime Minister and his political doppelgängers in the purple & yellow.

"This is a speech addressing non-existent problems - the government has not been able to produce evidence of systemic 'benefits tourism' or 'health tourism"

The Green Party position on immigration is one which I share: that many of the worries surrounding the issue are caused by government failure to address societal needs - the blame for these failings is then apportioned to the catch-all political scapegoat which is immigration. It taps into a latent instinct of suspicion and a wariness of the unfamiliar and allows staggering injustices to hide in plane site while Cameron et al continue to work flat out to direct our ire onto those around us; most of whom may well be facing the very same struggles. It is a lazy excuse to cover years of neglectful policies courtesy of successive neoliberal governments. A brief look at some of the typical immigration complaints bears this out:


Housing
There simply has not been anywhere near enough housing built for over 25 years; this, paired with an idealogical drive to transfer existing council housing stock into the private sector, has resulted in a disgraceful shortfall in available housing. This shortfall has not been addressed by successive governments and has resulted in swathes of council housing stock falling into the hands of private landlords - many of whom proceed to rent the properties back to council tenants; and so public money is transferred into private pockets. A nationwide scheme of house building would alleviate these tensions, provide affordable housing, create jobs & boost the economy. It's hard to see the downside - unless of course you're a party using social tension to deflect political discussion & criticism away from your own failings.

Jobs
It is a line which has become synonymous with the current political Zeitgeist 'coming over here and taking our jobs' and while it is of course true that every job which goes to a non UK national is one which cannot go to a UK born citizen this, as always, does not paint the complete picture. The fact is that without immigration the country truly would be in dire straights; 26% of NHS doctors are non-British and 11% of NHS workers as a whole. Much of the home grown British fruit & vegetables sold in our supermarkets are picked by immigrants, work which some UK job seekers deem beneath them; just this week Next admitted a need to advertise for warehouse jobs in Poland to supplement the 500 Brits they have hired for festive work.

Just 1 in 40 jobs created since the recession has been full time, the rest being part time and zero hours contracts; this against a back drop of unprecedented government cuts to swathes of the public sector: 5,000 firefighters, close to 6,000 nurses, 15,000 police staff to name a few - the private sector has not picked up the slack. Not surprisingly massive austerity and cuts to public spending have not created an environment where widespread, meaningful employment is available.

Benefit Tourism
Polish immigrants living in the UK are 20 percent more likely to have a job than those born in the UK according to the latest UK census; indeed 73% of EU born nationals in the UK are in employment, this compared to 69% of Brits. The net result being that immigration contributes billions more to the economy in taxes than it costs in welfare; money which could, and should, be spent on improving public services to cope with the added demand. The upshot of immigration, money in the public coffers, is conveniently ignored by the political establishment who much prefer to stoke the fires of discontent.


All of this got me to romanticising about a non-Tory government putting the issue to bed. Could they choose an area, afflicted by these tensions, and embark upon a first class house building programme while fostering a burgeoning clean energy market as has been undertaken in Germany. A focus on proper recycling and waste disposal could create jobs in the community and local farming could be encouraged to grow organic and sell to local businesses; keeping commerce local and cultivating a connection with food and how it is produced.

This may sound like pie in the sky but it simply isn't; a government project like this in an area such as Romford & Strood could serve as a microcosm for nationwide policy, it could expose the huge lie that is the immigration debate and blow a hole in Tory & UKIP's politics of hate thy neighbour. It could show us that policies of hope and aspiration serve us better than those which denigrate others for the failings of the state & the 'free market'.

We need something radical; should the electorate opt for anti Tory, anti UKIP & anti austerity then neoliberal-lite is not going to cut it. Renationalising the railways and rolling back Tory NHS privatisation may serve as a start but what's needed is a top down reorganisation of British society.

Staggering Contempt

Yesterday saw hundreds of firefighters protesting against attacks on their pensions & cuts to the UK fire service; the opening of a new fire station at West Norwood provided the back drop for a passionate confrontation when Conservative MP Penny Morduant arrived for a ribbon cutting ceremony at a time when firefighters are facing unprecedented cuts and pension reform.

Much has been said about the proposed cuts, reckless & ideologically driven by the Tories with a disregard for public safety - the below articles highlighting the effect to response times in several London wards as a result of closing 10 stations and removing 500 front line firefighters from operational duty.

Response times increase in East London wards

Boris Johnson cuts increase response times across North East London

Response times increase in all but 1 of 20 Newham wards

But it is a small twitter exchange which I was staggered to come across this morning which provides the inspiration for this article. Chair of the London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) James Cleverly was in attendance at the station, acting as guide to Ms Morduant along side London Fire Brigade Commissioner Ron Dobson, and it is his comments following the visit which give this article it's title.

After Penny Morduant tweeted an image of herself and the LFEPA chairman within the fire station several users made reference to the absence of firefighters who had refused to meet her, Cleverly then tweeted this caustic response:

It truly shows a staggering level of contempt for the firefighters which he represents as the figurehead of the authority charged with managing the fire service in London. It surely calls into question his ability to make key decisions uncoloured by his obvious disdain for the men and woman of the service.

More than that I believe it shows a glimmer of the pervasive disrespect which Conservative politicians have for public sector workers and working class folk across the land.

Hashtag Backlash

With #CameronMustGo trending for four solid days it's astonishing that the BBC has failed to pick this up in any capacity and surely displays a desire to hide it's organisational head in the sand until the dust settles.

Make no mistake, the tendrils of government influence and the Murdoch empire are as long as they are crooked and only a fool would suggest no influence is exerted by either inside the impartial walls of the BBC. There is a concerted effort to keep this story online with the lefties and the young people; away from an elder generation, who perhaps don't use twitter but certainly watch the BBC and turn out on election day.

You could perhaps forgive the BBC for not having the hashtag story at the top of it's bill on the evening news or sitting pride of place on the BBC News website but the story is no where to be found; it is, as the term goes, a black out. For anyone still sceptical; consider the stories which have been deemed news worthy in it's place:

This BBC news story about an Ex-Tory MP having an argument with a taxi driver about his best route home. The story is front page on BBC News UK.

An interview with Hugh Bonneville on the Andrew Marr Show promoting the new Paddington Bear Movie.

I'm not going to go on listing slow news day stories which have been given recognition over what many people believe to be an important political narrative however...consider this; there is a branch of the BBC media beast devoted entirely to Twitter Trends which has conspicuously failed to make mention of the hashtag, instead preferring to muse on these dancing Chilean firefighters.

Formed in a Bubble

I was sent this message on social media earlier this week and thought it deserved posting, I'll leave the definition of 'they' open to interpretation:

They have grown up in such an elite, privileged, sheltered social circle where they have only known one world view. They simply are so far removed from reality, the reality which the majority of people live & work in, that they believe they can step over everyone to preserve that ideology. They don't even see anything wrong with their actions, there is a genuine belief of superiority.

A world of backhanders and champagne banquets where deals are made that effect millions. The only thing that matters to them is maintaining power and profiteering. The political elite just want to preserve their control while corporations chase endless profits. It's mad.

The thing is, we use all these things, we need these services and we don't mind paying for them. Corporations will always make money; capitalism isn't inherently evil if it just played by the same social contract that everyone else abides by. We need a political system which balances economic growth with regulations that force companies to give back to the communities which drive profit, to ensure that workers are paid fairly for their labour, to care for the planet that we all live on, to not exploit whole regions of the world for the extraction of materials. We need a political system which regulates money, not private companies that well money at a cost to governments. Banks need to abide by the same social contract too, not float around extortionate bonuses for gambling with people's lives and flaunt regulations knowing a slap on the wrist while barely dent profits.

Spread the word people!

A Broken System

First and foremost let's dispel any idea that this Coalition Government has been acting in the best interests of the general public, at any point, since they took control of Westminster in 2010. The austerity project foisted upon us by has been a roaring success for the rich and powerful, as successful as it has been devastating to many of the most vulnerable in our society. 

And it's not just the vulnerable who are paying; it's everyone, where welfare has been squeezed so have wages - the majority of working Brits are worse off than they were 4 years ago. 

The money missing from your wages, the food from your weekly shop, fuel from your car, heat from your home; has been carefully & deliberately filtered up and into the coffers of the establishment. And not just that; your safety is also for sale - what price to reduce fire service response times in 371 London wards? Just £28.8m. The right to legal aid. Gone. Nurse and Police numbers slashed, the university funding system considered the worst deal for all parties, 900,000 people using food banks in modern Britain. Sadly, the list goes on.

This is happening now. To us all. Whether we like it or not.

And all for nought. All of this pain we were to endure was to balance the books, to cut the deficit, 'pay down Britain's debt' - it simply isn't true. It is not happening. The deficit is not cleared, it has grown. The Coalition Government have borrowed more in less than 5 years than Labour did in the proceeding 13.

The system is broken, it's rotten to the core. It's not hyperbolic to say that corruption, greed, contempt for the working class is endemic.

But the message is spreading, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope. The Green Party, among other organisations, offer genuine opportunity for change. A poll today suggested that 26% of voters would vote green if they had a chance of winning; well let's spread the word, spread the message that the mainstream parties do not give a damn, and maybe, come May, we will have a chance.

The Fall of the Left

I read an article yesterday discussing the rise of the right, laying the blame for this at the feet of the left; the left which has fallen away, marginalised as no longer relevant in our globalised world of free markets and corporate driven politics. I happen to disagree with this statement. I believe that socialism has it's place at the table of political debate and, in my mind, beyond just that. But then it has become a dirty word, tarnished by the cold war era of Bolshevism and kicked, sullied, into the verge where it has remained; off topic, off the table of debate and certainly out of UK the political sphere since Thatcher and the Conservative Party so ruthlessly destroyed the unions and social syndicates of working class British communities.

Mrs Thatcher herself deemed Tony Blair her greatest achievement; a legacy of her ideals born within the ranks of the Labour Party - and so we lurched to the right, to live out the century as middle class, one and all, while a neoliberal beast quietly took hold. It is a beast of self preservation, a parasite of sorts - driven by profit, GDP, growth; all the while tightening it's strangle hold on our politicians & media. The balance sheet is king, the worth of things measured only by the bottom line and so the public sector, with it's aspirations to help the most vulnerable, prop up the needy, feed, clothe, treat, ferry, advise, represent - without the need for profit: must go. And so we strip it all away, strip the state back to corporate tax breaks and transnational trade agreements with a comprehensive disregard for the effects of a dog eat dog world ruled by corporate wolves.

Convenient Myths

This Tory government has embarked upon an unprecedented dismantling of our public services, all on the back of a number of convenient myths used as justification for their ideological whims.

We're all in this together; perhaps the most pernicious of the myths peddled by the govt and right wing media. In fact this government has presided over one of the most economically polarising parliaments in history. Wages in the bottom deciles have flat lined while those of the top earners in society have reaped the rewards of a growing economy. The royal mail sell off put billions of pounds into the hands of banks and bankers, Michael Gove's toxic education reforms have allowed billions to be siphoned out of our school system, NHS privatisation has seen contracts awarded left and right to companies with links to Westminster; we now live in a society where the top 10% of UK earners have salaries totalling more than the bottom 40%.

Bankrupt Britain. This is a myth perpetuated by David Cameron, George Osborne, the press and many right wing supporters, bloggers and thinkers. In fact this statement couldn't be further from the truth; although in a terrible state (exacerbated by 4 years of austerity) we didn't even come close to bankruptcy and the economy has grown consistently since 2013; this money has gone into the pockets of the richest, most affluent members of our society as well the big corporations which have so much influence in Westminster (Oil, Coal & Gas Subsidies). At the same time the idea that we have a bankrupt economy has been used as a stick to repeatedly hammer wages, social security & public services.

There's no money to spend on the public sector and so cuts are inevitable. This, again, is pure fallacy; the UK is the 6th largest economy in the world; the idea that there is no money available for public services is a convenient myth which the Tories have used to decimate public services as part of their ideological drive. To put their approach to the economy into perspective the subsidies to multinational Oil & Gas corporations could have paid for the 5,890 nurses, 5,000 firefighters & 15,000 police staff which have been cut since Cameron and the Government came into power.

We paid multinational companies with public money to help them extract our national resources which they then sold on the open market to make billions in profit.

Immigrants are over running our services and coming from the EU to milk our welfare system. The government has slashed at almost every public service while simultaneously trotting out the idea that said services are being over run as a result of increased demand due to immigration; this is a myth. The Governments own figures show that while 2.2 million EU nationals have settled in the UK 2 million Brits have settled abroad. Immigrants are also 45% less likely to claim benefit than UK natives and estimated to contribute billions more in tax revenue than they receive in state welfare.

It's vitally important to view the immigration agenda for what it truly is: a crude strategy orchestrated to deflect blame, anger and political debate away from the true source of social issues. The true source of these issues is, of course, failing government policy.

There is a theme running through every one of these points, the fact is that this is a government which has the interests of the minority at it's heart. As far as they are concerned things are going swimmingly and the more than can get away with, the more damage they can do to public institutions, the more wealth they can transfer from public ownership into private hands; the better . In almost every walk of public life, every section of the economy, everything they have touched over the course of this parliament we have seen a movement of wealth, income and opportunity away from the public at large, away from the public sector and into the hands of corporate interests and wealthy elites.

This cannot be allowed to continue come May. Much of the damage all ready done may be irreversible, another 4 years would be catastrophic.

#webackEd (into a corner)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10,2014

It seems the knives may finally be out for Ed Miliband as the Labour Party political machine again considers the chances of being led to victory in May 2015 by the man considered by many to be a PR disaster,

In a week where we saw the #webackEd twitter campaign championing the Labour leader the party faithful will have woken this morning to articles deriding his leadership and questioning his position as the man to take them to victory in 2015. Sources in support of Miliband have been quoted suggesting the number of Labour MPs unhappy with his tenure is less than those in the Conseravtive Party unhappy with that of David Cameron; if this is the best support he can muster then surely there is cause for concern.

I believe that Ed Miliband is failing the Labour Party in his role as its figurehead but far more importantly the Labour Party as a whole is failing in it's role as opposition to a coalition government peddling austerity. You'd think that a Conservative government slashing public spending while living standards fall, inflation outstrips wages and the housing crisis rumbles on would be music to the ears of a Labour opposition; but they are failing. They are failing for precisely the reason that Mr Miliband is struggling at the top and that is a lack of courage along side a chronic absence of policy pluralism. Politics is operating within an acute spectrum of fear & hate thy neighbour mongering alongside a race to the bottom with UKIP; aspirational Labour policies of hope and building for the future could be a shining light amidst the mire. To call this a labour opposition is laughable. TTIP, monetary reform, electoral reform, austerity; on all of these issues Labour tows the line.

The problem, for Ed Miliband, is that when politics is so acutely homogenised through a prism of Thatcherite neoliberalism then there is nothing to choose between the parties. Faced with a lack of policy pluralism voters will make decisions based on people; unfortunately for the Labour Party the face of the party is that of Mr Miliband and it doesn't look like it will be winning them an election any time soon.

It seems that Ed may be backed into a corner.

Change is Coming

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2014


This is a blog inspired by the idea that a change is coming.

I'll come out and say it early doors; I'm going to mainly talk UK politics here and I believe that a wind of change is blowing. It may be more of a breeze I can feel but the political Zeitgeist is moving, subtly. Our politicians, chosen to represent us, are failing. They are letting us down en masse and an awareness is creeping out. Social Media is the new voice, one which cannot be so easily nobbled and a generation of opinions are being informed outside of mainstream media. 

The more of us who air our thoughts and share those of others the better; the stronger the web of real news & genuine opinion the better. Information is vital, it's power; it's all of those cliches and I want to try and do my bit to spread the message of those who are crusading for the 99%.

In a week where we saw the Occupy/Anonymous movement march through London and almost every media outlet pick up solely on the presence of Vivienne Westwood & Russell Brand it's at the very least cathartic to try and do something towards rebalancing the discussion.

The Daily Mail et al would have you believe the event was orchestrated by a group of lawless hooligans venting spleen and being driven on by Brand in a gilded chariot holding a placard denouncing material living. Clearly neither of these movements represent a panacea but they are demonstrating against a crooked system propped up by a corporate media determined to smoke screen any opposition to the status quo. They represent a growing section of society detached from politics as we know it, riled by rampant inequality and what they perceive to be a broken system pandering to the establishment it is run by.

The name of this blog belies a degree of affiliation but I am a member of neither group. I believe, however, that as movements growing in popularity and representative of an expanding section of public opinion the views and intent of both organisations deserve some column inches. Rather than reporting only on the number of arrests at the protest or sneering at the wealth of Westwood & Brand, who dare to stand up and denounce a system from which they have profited; how about a look at what the thousands of marchers were standing for? 

Occupy are a group of activists protesting against social and economic inequality. They stand against globalisation, corporate dominance and a political system of neoliberal deregulation which serves the interests of the few whilst disproportionately ignoring the needs of society. Put simply; they are crusading for the 99%, for the redistribution of wealth and for a fairer, ecological and sustainable political system. 

The Anonymous group, self proclaimed 'Hactivists', stand for freedom of information and of the internet, freedom of speech as well as the exposure of corruption, greed & injustice. Among their campaigns they have stood against Scientology's intimidating legal practices and the Westboro Baptist Church as well as in support of WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring movement. Their methods are unorthodox and morally ambiguous but that shouldn't disqualify any discussion of their message.

This being my first foray into Blog-dom I'd gladly receive any comments, thank you for reading.