Canning Seeks to Clarify Miliband’s Statement
January 27, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The Zimbabwe Times – British ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mark Canning has clarified that the British government or the European Union reserved the right to lift targeted restrictive measures that President Mugabe’s party is strongly agitating against, and said Britain would make its own judgment without direction from anyone whether sanctions will be removed or reinforced.
Zanu-PF stepped up the call for the removal of sanctions, which Mugabe claims have serious hurt Zimbabwe’s economy, riding on recent remarks by British foreign secretary David Miliband that the UK government would be guided by advice from Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s party on the issue.
Simon Khaya Moyo, the new Zanu-PF national chairman, installed at the party’s fractious national congress held last December, said the MDC could no longer claim it had no influence over the issue and “must” now call for the removal of the sanctions.
The Dean of Southwark Cathedral Challenges Carey
January 14, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Ekklesia – The Dean of Southwark Cathedral has publicly challenged comments by a former Archbishop of Canterbury about migration as ‘extraordinary’ and lacking a connection between “political thinking and scriptural integrity”.
Last week, George Carey backed an attempt by anti-immigration campaigners to turn migration into a confrontational election issue, saying that migrants who accepted ‘Christian values’ should take priority.
The group of largely Conservative politicians, backed by Lord Carey, Baroness Boothroyd and Labour’s Frank Field MP, issued a call on 6 January 2010 for manifesto commitments from the main parties to reduce net immigration to the UK to 1990s levels and to except a population cap of 70 million.
Lord Carey should Get Real on Immigration
January 12, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
By Vaughan Jones
Ekklesia – Lord Carey, who has joined forces with a group of lobbyists wanting to shoehorn their anti-immigration views into the forthcoming election campaign, is living in an unreal world.
Church offices and local clergy do indeed face daily frustration around immigration issues. But the problem is about restrictions on the life-chances of vulnerable people, not how to get people anxious about abstract population numbers or how to portray those of different background, culture and religion as a ‘threat’.
For members of churches, for international theological students and for visiting church officials – among many others – harsh immigration controls championed by the main political parties (David Cameron has just joined the bandwagon, it seems) are biting hard.
Read more – http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10981
Cameron’s Empty Immigration Promise
January 11, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
By Alan Travis
Guardian – David Cameron’s weekend promise that the Conservative cap on immigration will bring net migration to Britain down to “the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands” is beginning to look like the dance of the seven veils.
Once again the Tory leader has garnered widespread tabloid coverage for his policies on curbing immigration without spelling out how his fixed cap or quota would actually in practice.
He also made clear once again that he didn’t “support the population going to 70 million” as though it was some kind of clear aim or manifesto commitment being promised by either Labour or the Liberal Democrats to be achieved within the next parliament.
Read more – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/11/david-cameron-immigration-cap
Concern Grows for Homeless as Freeze Continues
January 11, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Ekklesia – With temperatures unlikely to rise much above freezing, the plight of the country’s thousands of homeless people has been highlighted by charity workers, who are urging local authorities to step up efforts to combat the extreme weather.
Shelter Scotland director, Graeme Brown, commented: “We must make sure people who are homeless or forced to sleep rough are not forgotten as this severe cold snap continues. The best local authorities will already have measures in place through their homelessness strategies to ensure no one has to sleep on the streets in these extreme weather conditions.”
Read more – http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10969
Lord Carey’s ‘Christian’ Anti-immigration Views Challenged
Ekklesia – The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has been strongly criticised for backing an attempt by anti-immigration campaigners to turn migration into a confrontational election issue and for appearing to want migrants who accept ‘Christian values’ to have priority.
A group of largely Conservative politicians, backed by Lord Carey, Baroness Boothroyd and Labour’s Frank Field MP, issued a call on 6 January 2010 for manifesto commitments from the main parties to drastically reduce net immigration to the UK to 1990s levels and to except a population cap of 70 million.
However, data from the Office of National Statistics released in November 2009 concluded that net migration – the number of people who come to live in Britain minus the number who move abroad – actually fell by more than a third to 163,000 in 2008, its lowest level since Poland joined the European Union.
Immigration reached 590,000, with the largest single group comprising 85,000 British citizens returning to live in the UK. That total compares with 574,000 in 2007 and 596,000 in 2006.
Read more – http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10956
Let’s Take Immigration Seriously
January 8, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
By Tim Finch
Guardian – The ‘declaration on population’, backed by Lord Carey, is the wrong way to tackle the complexities of migration management.
A “declaration on population” has been issued today, signed by 20 parliamentarians, including Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury and Lady Boothroyd, the former Commons speaker. Its headline is “70 million is too many” – a reference to an Office of National Statistics projectionthat predicted the UK population would reach that level by 2029 if recent trends continue.
But whatever the headline, the aim of the declaration is really to call for stringent limits on immigration. It is high immigration which the signatories say will have “a significant impact on our public services, our quality of life and on the nature of our society”. While much of the projected population growth is a result, directly or indirectly, of immigration, you have to wonder if the signatories of the declaration are really concerned about population projections as such. If the population was growing fast because many more British-born couples were choosing to have large families, would they have made their intervention?
Read more – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/06/lord-carey-declaration-population-migration
Immigration Should Be Talked About More Than It Is
January 8, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Why so? It’s a complex and emotive issue. Some voters who wouldn’t dream of doing society’s rotten jobs themselves want to “send them all back” yesterday. The BNP and its like hover malevolently without having anything useful to say either.
Our society does kind of work . . . sort of
September 11, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
By Hugh Muir
The big day arrives and Nick Griffin, leader of the racist BNP, finally prepares to take his seat on Question Time – only to find there have been some changes. David Dimbleby has swine flu; instead, host for the evening will be Sir Trevor MacDonald. Diane Abbott, Jesse Jackson, Linda Bellos and the comedian Shazia Mirza are the other panellists. The venue has changed, too; unavoidable, a regrettable case of double booking. Still, all will go well in Handsworth, he is told. The alternative was Peckham.
This is all fantasy, alas, for Dimbleby is in rude health, and the chances are that quite a few of our would-be panellists wouldn’t hose Griffin down if he was on fire, much less appear alongside Britain’s most high-profile extremist. But what is not fantasy is that Griffin will appear on Question Time sometime soon, and as he prepares to parade his bigotry to the nation on prime time, it might be a good moment to reflect on a few hard facts about the country he now represents in Brussels.
Eighty-five per cent of the inhabitants of our country describe themselves as white British. The largest visible minority group is of Indian origin, comprising just 2% of the population. And forget headlines to the contrary; about half of us are optimistic that Britain will be a more tolerant society in 10 years’ time, and 70% would be comfortable – in theory – to see their children choose a partner of a different race or faith. And that’s just as well, for many of them already have. Nine per cent of our children live in homes with multiple heritages: 9% and rising. People voting with their squashy bits. The dreaded miscegenation, Mr Griffin. Horizontal integration.
The facts do not suggest that indigenous white Britain feels besieged by different races. In fact, for the most part, “native” Britons, as Griffin likes to call those deemed acceptable, handle the juxtaposition of people with different skin colours comparatively well. Certainly better than many countries on mainland Europe: just ask many black British families about their experiences on trips to places such as Italy, Germany and parts of France.
Even the BNP, in its public pronouncements, recognises this. Oh, they don’t like the darkies and never will, but the sell to the public has, through necessity, been repackaged. It’s not the darkies per se, it’s the crime they bring with them. It’s not the Muslims because of who they are – yeah, right? – it’s what they do. It’s not that we’re afraid of difference, but these Poles, half of them don’t even speak proper English. And they work too cheaply.
The frontline was once marked out by race, but these days it zigzags: it’s race, it’s culture, it’s working space, it’s living space. It’s how much immigrants have brought with them; how much they have left behind. How much they are willing to compromise; how much others in society think they should.
How well Britain deals with diversity is not so much about a yearning for homogeneity. Instead, the drama we see being played out daily is about the rules of engagement. That makes it sound bloodless; it’s anything but. The rules of engagement will govern whether parents, be they Jewish, Muslim or Catholic, are allowed to separate their children in their own schools. Whether they want to. Whether anxieties are eased about the burka. Whether they ought to be. Whether, or when, we all speak English. It’s bare-knuckle stuff. It raises hackles. It’s all sensitive.
Our society may not always work as we would like it to, but it does kind of work, even as we read about the rows and conflicts, magnified through the crooked lenses of some newspapers. Even as we laugh at Carol Thatcher trying to explain that she didn’t know it was non-U to describe a black man as a golliwog. Even when a councillor in Barnet blacks up for a fancy dress party as Nelson Mandela and professes surprise when people object. Even when white far-righters and football hooligans, self-cast as warriors against “Islamic extremism”, clash with Asian youths in Birmingham. Even when, as occurred this week, commentators despair because so many babies born last year were called Mohammed.
The interaction between the various and varied elements of our 21st-century society causes worry, confusion, sometimes discord, sometimes bloodshed – but isn’t that inevitable? It is fascinating, but it shouldn’t be justification for doom and gloom. It’s just the way we rub along, progressing step by uncertain step.
HAT News is not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are of the author’s alone.
Immigrants who helped build Britain
August 26, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
It became a symbol of Britian during the “swinging sixities”. As British as roast beef and the Queen, it was often daubed in the Union Flag. But the Mini was not actually born in Britain. The car, which celebrates its 50th birthday today, was designed by an immigrant – one of many to help build Britain.
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