h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You seem to have missed my point entirely bouncy - never mind.

I'm merely pointing out things which I feel many researchers seem unaware of and are naive about because of the sort of people who generally post on hootoo. it seems to be beyond the comprehension of some people that not everyone lives a nice little life, pays their taxes and gets to vote every 4 or 5 years. You may not realise it that some people would even be too scared to register with something like hootoo in case they get a 'knock' at their door. So you certainly won't hear their views, and if you did you'd probably be as sneering as you are towards me.....

Keep on with thoses stats bouncy!

Here in N Ireland, we cant vote Tory Lab or Lib dems, we have no input to YOUR election, we can only live with the results

>you'd probably be as sneering as you are towards me<

Nobody is sneering at you, we are merely pointing out that your experience is different to a lot of peoples and does not apply to the whole country.

For example, as far as I'm concerned, the playing odf the immigration card has little or no meaning to me. Immigration simply isn't a concern for people with a brain in *this* constituency.

Nor does a genuine concern about inner city overcrowding by, say, Bengalis in say Brick Lane stop that concern being based on racial lines. Whilst they would move heaven and earth to get more members of their own families into the are, they object to, say, Somalis.

Somebody asked about Blair and Bush's integrity regarding WMD's. The fact of the matter is that when it became obvious the WMD's weren't there, it would have been far simpler to 'manufacture' them than sit through the sh*t storm that followed. It shows a certain amount of bottle if nothing else.

So many people have been posting here that it is wrong to make immigration an election issue and that it isn't an issue that affects peoples votes ~ yet one thread after another here has turned into a discussion on immigration.

>>The fact of the matter is that when it became obvious the WMD's weren't there, it would have been far simpler to 'manufacture' them than sit through the sh*t storm that followed.<<

Would it be 'far simpler'? I don't follow this at all. As much as I personally would like to believe that the Governments of the UK and the US would stoop so low as to colluded to 'plant' evidence of the crimes used to justify a war, I do not think it is credible to argue that not doing so confers onto them any significant rectitude. The absence of one particular conspiracy proves nothing. I certainly do not equate it with "bottle", as if this was somehow courageous and to be congratulated.

"sh*t storm "? Did I miss it?

Clive I'm not ignoring you I just wanted to comment on Pixel's point, which I think is very interesting.

I think maybe people on hootoo are disgussing the immigration issue so much because maybe it is less scary than in RL. I think people who just want some common sense shown are fearful as being labelled racist. Personally I don't much care if people misundersatnd me and think that, I know I'm not racist.

I think it is a good and healthy thing for normal basically liberal (small l) minded peole to feel able to discuss it and reclaim it from the preserve of either the extreme right or the extreme left. The last thing we want is what happenned in France and have some Jean Le Penn figure emerging.

* Clive I didn't notice the sh*t storm either!

Blues, I have to agree with Clive on the manufatured evidence thing. Too many people would have to be involved, and it is inevitable that one of them would get chatty about it whether through stupidity or a chance for gain.

I can't imagine either leader or country's military being that naive and moronic. Big lies may be effective, but big frauds are not. This is especially true in countries with a free press.

It was far easier to just claim that WMDs were not the focus in any event, when it is perfectly obvious that they were the primary bit of convincing to a trusting public as to the serious need to go into Iraq.

Fair enough Red, I'm trying to avoid discussing Iraq seeing as it makes The Ed's nervous - but I couldn't pass up Blue sharks remarks.

Evening Redpeckham,

Just returned to the board after 3 days away. fascinated by the somewhat tetchy exchanges between you and Bouncy and Blues while I have been away. I have made my own view on immigration crystal clear on earlier posts so we won't go over that again.

I am interested however in your comment about the people who are "too scared to sign up for hootoo in case they get a knock at their door"
Should I presume that they are illegally here, not paying tax or NI, or is there some other reason? Perhaps one which I don't understand because I live in the north of England, parts of which resemble a province of the Indian sub -continent.

Novo

Morning All,

Immigration is an issue but I doubt if it is really the biggest problem facing the country at this time. Comparing us to other less fortunate countries we have a lot to be thankful for. But that isn’t how politics works, especially Dog Whistle politics with it’s undertones of snide innuendo.

I don’t have any facts but I would guess that the agricultural / horticultural, NHS and hospitality industries are the sectors that depend most on immigration. It would seem that certainly the first two are now fairly well regulated regarding taxes and welfare. And realistically the country needs legitimate, controlled immigration to compensate for the falling birth rate and to fuel the economy.

I doubt if any of us would be happy if the controls were so strict as to ensure that all incomers to the country were totally legitimate. Imagine the fiscal and societal cost in terms of Inland Revenue administration and police resources for stop and search to enforce it. The area that does fuel fears, rightly or wrongly, is failed and illegal asylum seekers. However with our mix of tabloid journalism and inherent xenophobia this will always be an easy political target.

Well, I'll be honest, Iraq isn't an issue I'm at all concerned with in this election. Bt neither really is immigration.

BUT: Whilst I would agree that the discussion on immigration needs to be moved into the open and away from the dog whistle politics of the Tory party (on this issue at least) and BNP/UKIP/Veritas, I think that discussion needs to be conducted on a far wider platform than the concerns of those parts of the country which are over-crowded. Heaven knows there is a healthy core of bigots in my constituency which would claim it was 'over-crowded' when it patently isn't. That cannot be the sole are of intelligent meaningful discussion of the problem, if for no other reason than the ladder pulling effect described by Ben.

I'm alo touched by WA's faith that the horticultural/agricultural industry is well regulated in terms of tax and welfare. It's doubtful that it ever has been but it certainly isn't now. You don't think those poor sods who drowned at Morecambe where the only illegal gangs working in low wage, high labour areas agricultural areas did you?

Good Morning W A

I presume that you were promted to reply to my post to Red..

I have no beef about legitimate immigration, and I don't advocate a Slammed Door policy. I don't object to immigrants per se. my only concern is the wholesale transformation of certain areas of the country into something which doesn't begin to resemble Britain, and where the values which I hold do not run writ. All successful immigration is accomplished when people integrate, not when they isolate.

However I was going to post on another thread today but I'll raise it here and see what happens, since you spoke of "the biggest problem".

For me the biggest problems ( as a previous Labour voter) is the Iraq war: I know we have to move the political debates on but I cannot understand how this can slide gracefully away as if it had never occured. Obviously TB is pleased if it does but This he ,and this Govt took us into a war which we didn't need to fight, where we were actually under no threat , and under entirely a false prospectus. So we attack a country , kill thousands and then forget it?

I have a conspiracy theory about this war. I begin to wonder if it was a way to show certain Fundamentalists , represented by Osama Bin Laden ,that if they tried to overthrow the Saudi regime and take the Saudi & Gulf oilfields then we would have gone to war with them, and simultaneously destroyed ( by military action or from sabotage) the very oil we depend on. So a softer target is chosen as a 'demonstration'

It may be thinking the unthinkable , but it is to me at least, a better reason for fighting Iraqis, who though bellicose, had no weapons up their voluminous sleeves.

Novo

>So we attack a country, kill thousands and then forget about it?<

My difficulty has always been two-fold.

1) There is still no proff Blair lied. Every enquiry has cleared him of doctoring the evidence, though we still have to see what legal advice he was given.

2) We have removed one of the world's uglier regimes, which was in the habit of killing and torturing it's own people and attempting to commit genocide against the Kurds. We have given a voice to both the Kurds and the majority Suni's in their own country which was previously denied them. I have always maintained that had we gone into the war stating 'We are going to remove an odious and unpleasant dictator' and properly educated the country as to what Saddam WAs up to, rather than what he wasn't up to, then the country would almost certainly backed the war.

But that's all rather off topic and I've probably said it before.

I assume you mean the North West where the immigrant population fuelled the textile industry and the Midlands where they staffed the engineering industries or the whole of the country where Asian and West Indian immigrants keep the NHS running. Or maybe Liverpool where the Chinese and Nigerian communities are testament to the city’s heritage as a great seaport. Does your writ run within the Jewish communities or fundamentalist evangelical Christian sects of USA origin. Do kippahs and ringlets resemble Britain more so than dreadlocks and beenies. You can’t cherry pick which parts of this multiracial little island qualify as successful immigration.

morning all

Yes novosibirsk my 'knock at the door' remark did mean people, not neccassarily illegal immigrants, but basically anyone who has slipped through the official system for one reason or another, often just to survive at all, I only pointed that out to demonstrate that discussions on hootoo aren't neccassarily representative of all people living in the UK, and stats can be misleading. It was a somewhat tangential point.

It's hardly a tangential point.

Effectively, these people who have 'slipped through the net' 'just to survive', are illegal immigrants.

And they're trying to pull up the ladder on *legal* economic migration?

Hi Blues Shark,

You have said it before........ I agreed then , and still do.

You are also correct that I would perhaps have supported 'The War 'had we been told the real reason, but then, if we set ourselves up as the worlds police force against wicked dictatorships ( with George W of course) where would you suggest we aim next ?

Novo

Damn

You beat me to that one B S

Novo

Successful immigration also requires a level of intergration.
While you cannot expect immigrants to give up their religious and cultural beliefs there has to be a better way then some communities isolationist policies.
If we are to get rid of many of the tensions that exist we need the different communities to quite literally mix together though i cannot see that happening until those who come into this country feel welcomed enough and accepted enough that they start to think of themselves as British.

'Aiming next' is much more propblematical, not least because I don't think George W is remotely interested in playing policeman to the world.

I also don't think ir negates the removal of Saddam to say, well, we don't fancy Korea because that would entail much greater casualties.