Main menu:
Journal Items - Classified:
Which is more damaging - the lie or the silence?
03 April 2008 .
The point is not so much whether or not the government has lied to us about the benefits of immigration, as that we (the great unwashed) have been prevented from discussing the issue almost at all for thirty years (mainly through fear of being accused of racism - which can lose many people their jobs).
'benefits of immigration' discussion
It does matter, but I don't suppose anyone will take any notice...
03 April 2008 .
Details of the breeding habits of Gussie Fink-Nottle, the mayor of our fair city, have filtered down to us know-nothing ordinary folk today. It seems that whereas we fondly imagined that he has just two children by his live-in partner (whatever has happened to the word 'wife'?), the fact is that he has actually fathered five children by three different women.
It's all right, he says. In a sophisticated modern metropolis, nobody is going to be the slightest bit bothered by his egregious promiscuity. He added that so long as children, animals or vegetables aren't involved, nobody cares.
I assume that last bit's meant to be a joke. Not very funny, though: so far as I can see, there are 5 children involved.
As for the rest: even if you're not a Malthusian, you cannot possibly believe that this country can afford - or fit - the population which Fink-Nottle, all by himself, is projecting for the next generation. (He particularly promotes immigration... which of course is wholly unconnected with the truth that it provides the greatest part of the constituency which elects him.)
'Ken Livingstone' promiscuity
Blessed by God?
09 March 2008 .
When I was a teacher, I sometimes used to feel that I had to bite my tongue on what I thought were important issues; with hindsight, I believe that keeping quiet wasn't always at all the right thing to do, but jobs and mortgages make for very effective gags. Often it was the shenanigans of politicians in national and local government and of the wannabe politicians in teaching which got under my skin but, just once in a while, it was students and/or their families.
A recent case in the national press leads me to report this, from a few years ago: I may be wrong to do so but, as I've said on this site, I've grown tired of feeling muzzled by the exigencies of tact and discretion.
I had a family of brothers in my class; each year seemed to bring another. They were gentle and affectionate boys but they were all in one way troubled and dysfunctional, to the extent that I was eventually spending probably a third of my working time on this one family. The family consisted, in all, of mother and nine boys and girls by seven fathers (just one of whom would occasionally drop by). There were said to have been two more children by different fathers, but whether they actually existed, or had left home or been fostered, I never found out.
One evening a couple of the boys came to me in flood of tears because their 14-year-old sister had run away from home; they wanted me to help find her (in the West End!) How we actually found her still seems like a moderate miracle - driving around, we saw her by purest chance, in the Haymarket; I had taken the boys because they wouldn't accept anything else, assuming that it was a hopeless task but that at least I could 'be there' for them.
After this fraught evening, I had a chat with a friend on the local council. He was quite angry with me for being 'taken in'. In explaining that there really was very little more the council could do to help, he told (and showed me evidence when I found it hard to believe) that this one woman, with her children, had cost the local authority and the state, in present day prices, something over 7 million. (Education, housing, medical and social care, benefits etc. etc... it really did add up.)
I promise that I don't think it made a jot of difference to the care and attention that I gave to those boys; however, knowing what I now did, I found myself facing questions which have never quite left me since.
Some of the questions are all too obvious. Can we afford to pay seven million quid of taxpayers' money to just one family? And, how much more are we going to have to find when these children have possibly large and very possible dysfunctional families of their own?
But there are deeper ones. I have friends who have felt that to have more than one or two children - even though they wanted and could afford to do so - would be socially irresponsible in the present circumstances of the world. What purpose does their self-restraint serve? Are they simply mugs? Should no-one bother about controlling their family's size? There are folk I know, of my generation and younger, who are deeply upset that their own responsibility will be of very reduced benefit to their children: a dozen promiscuously-breeding women one can undo all the social responsibility of a hundred other families, whose children will find the housing market tougher, food prices higher, and so on, as all the while they have to contribute in taxation to the children of the profligate. Stuff 'not entirely her fault, it's a lack of education'; we can't afford it except at the expense of our own.
You have to ask yourself the question, on behalf of your grandchildren: do you really believe that life's going to be good when the UK population reaches the 100 million which even the government is forecasting (but doing nothing about).
The problem is numbers; it's not likely, I know, but it's conceivable (if you'll forgive the word) that our friend's children will follow in her footsteps and have equally large families: on that basis, the raw maths suggest that by the end of this century she could have 10,000 descendents, including her great-great-grandchildren.
Parting thought: Jodrell Bank is being closed down to save money. What the taxpayer has spent on that one family could keep the observatory going for nearly three years.
'large families' 'Jodrell Bank' 'population control'
Asylum and Immigration.
29 February 2008 .
Newsnight tonight has been discussing the new immigration rules being introduced today: on the face of it, the new structure seems to constitute a streamlining but it won't make more than a very small reduction in the levels of people coming to this country - 10% was the figure implied. At least the conversation seems to be moving towards numbers and the stress on our resources rather than focusing on race.
Somehow, though, it still works out that the countries from which numbers will be reduced are those where the natives are darker-skinned. Either we have a resource and population pressure problem or we don't. If we do, then we must be looking at all immigration - and at our own birth-rates.
It's a pity that, judging by a questionnaire they put out, even Newsnight still sometimes seems to treat immigration and asylum as a single issue. My own feeling is that asylum-seekers are often under extraordinary pressure and stress, and that there is often tragedy and/or terrible fear in the background. The treatment they frequently receive in this country from the government and its agencies and from some the tabloid press is almost indistinguishable in my eyes from the way the Nazis treated the Jews up to the moment when they started killing them; fortunately the rest of us haven't quite been terrorised into silence yet (although attempts are apparently sometimes made).
The prior position of immigrants is, on the whole, qualitatively quite different - although I admit that the previous experiences of many illegal immigrants were probably awful (and probably those of some legal immigrants too, for that matter). But it's this balance which needs to be assessed more realistically: between on the one hand the number of people this country will be able to sustain in a future which increasingly seems likely to become increasingly hard - to a point which I don't think most of us understand yet - and on the other hand the needs and desires of people to migrate to this country and the desires of some of the indigenous to continue to have large numbers of children.
There is a harsh rule of nature which we'll have to face eventually: the more children we have now, and the more people who move here, the less space and resources there'll be for children just a few years down the line. Are you happy to let X in now (never mind where from) if it means you must have one less grandchild? Equally, are you happy that other families having four or five or six children now also means there'll be less space for you to have a grandchild? The last time this country faced such acute population pressure, the problem was solved by the Black Death. Learn from History!
I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer, except insofar as I suggest that there has to be a balance; just that even now I'm not sure our politicians are doing their homework.
asylum immigration population Malthus
An Objective Assessment of the Impact, please.
24 January 2008 .
One and one third million Poles alone (and that's only those who have registered correctly) arrived in the UK last year. And who knows how many people from other countries?
Where will we all live? How much extra oil and energy are we going to have to pay for? Where's the classroom space for their children? Where's the capacity in our transport? Where's the water?
Not 'no immigration'. Just 'what arrangements and adjustments need to be made?'
'Adapting to immigration'
On Abortion.
17 January 2008 .
There are parts of the world where the authorities forbid abortion; their rationale is moral or religious, but essentially that the foetus has the right to survive. There is at least one country where the authorities impose it; the rationale is that the population as a whole has the right to survive without being threatened by an unsustainable birthrate. There are people who demonstrate against abortion but none yet, that I know of, who demonstrate for it to be imposed on mothers who wouldn't want one (although that may happen if or when the Malthusian consequences of continued population growth become too painfully obvious).
I have said elsewhere that I find the idea of abortion horrifying. But, I have to accept that that is my opinion, or feeling, albeit shared by millions of people; whatever I may believe that God has to say on the subject, I do not have the right to impose my opinion on others. The question came to a focus for me today, not for the first time, in a discussion about the very specific circumstances of a pregnant but ill woman who will die before coming to term unless she has an abortion. She is unhappy about it, but requests the abortion. This strikes me as an exceptional occasion; if I were involved, I would reverse my normal position without too much soul-searching: with an abortion the mother will live; without, both mother and child will die. It is, as they say, a no-brainer.
1. Despite what seems to me to be so clear, an opinion has been expressed that the abortion is still wrong and ought not to be allowed.
2. I'm more exercised by this thought, however. The decision must be made whether a foetus is taken from this woman's body. The question is, who has the greatest right/responsibility to make that decision? There are so many people, and a more than a few legislatures, who feel that their right/responsibility overrides that of the mother. Other than a hot-line to God, what gives them that certainty?
[In ancient Rome, fathers had the right of life and death over their children until they came of age at 14. I wouldn't advocate that even as a joke - the Romans were barbarians - but it would certainly save a great deal of heart-ache and discussion.]
This item is not meant to be an argument for or against abortion in principle; although the conversation I was in today was interesting to me, I wouldn't even have posted this item today - it might have even less to do with the purposes of the site than some of my other egregious musings... except that it bears on a central issue - that of population, which I've tried to argue cannot be ignored forever ( Population: The Maths). What do we make of China's enforcement through abortion of the one-child rule? Is it moral? Is it, or might it become, a key to human survival?
Incidentally: Why the label "Pro-Choice"? Many of the women facing abortion feel that, through poverty, rape or what have you, 'choice' has very little to do with the decision they must make. And is there not a risk that the idea of 'choice' about abortion is itself dangerous - I speak living in a country where abortion is a matter of choice - and we have hundreds of thousands of them each year. But then, in practice, we more than condone under-aged sex. And why the label "Pro-Life"? Those who favour abortions are not all murderers intent on the slaughter of innocents: Sometimes, as in the example above, it is not the "Pro-Life" lobby who want to save that of the mother.
I may be flattering myself, but I think this is one of the worst-argued items I've written on this site. I leave it for your perusal anyway.
abortion morality 'population control' 'Pro-Choice'
Immigration and The Bishop Of Rochester.
08 January 2008 .
A couple of days ago I tried exploring my attitude to the question of immigration; I thought I'd be writing something fairly short but, watching it get longer and longer, I took a break. Before I returned to it the next day, I'd heard about Rochester's article. I think that he's going to create quite a stir; so, rather than continuing my article, I'll leave it for a while and come back to comment if and when.
Added 17 Jan: A hornets' nest in the rags for a couple of days... then nowt. I'm waiting on the weeklies.
'Bishop Of Rochester'
On Migration; On Immigration.
06 January 2008 .
Human migration is a fact of life, and it always has been.
In Europe there has been a steady movement - or at least a pressure for movement, driven from central Asia - of peoples, generally from east to west, which has gone on for millennia. Roman military power was able to put a break on it, to some extent, for perhaps three centuries; the moment the Romans weakened, the movement recommenced, until the beginnings of the modern nations once again stabilised things (again, to some extent: for 500 years, since the 'discovery' of the Americas, the movement has leapfrogged western Europe; and even in Europe it's only sixty years since the entire Polish nation was bodily moved west). It has been driven by pressure from behind, motivated by the need for living space, often accompanied by the force of arms. In the end, it swamped Rome; in the other direction it has come close more than once to finishing China; and it was arguably the ultimate cause of the existence of the modern US.
[Hitler's search for lebensraum followed a long-standing German tradition of attempting to expand eastwards. The joke is that in his belief that he was fulfilling some sort of manifest destiny, he was actually going against a tide - almost literal - of history which has flowed since before civilisation came to Europe.]
A stalinist, isolated UK might be able to reduce the flow for a while, with an intensive border controls and a strictly controlled internal ID system; but to sit in an imagined Fortress England and think that we could do more than interrupt the flow of people arriving and people leaving is a non-starter. (Stalinist Russia admittedly came close to managing it, but only for a generation or so and only at an appalling social cost.) Migration and, at the moment, specifically, in the UK, immigration, is probably about as controllable as sex. War and drugs are far more damaging, but we've got almost nowhere being Canute-like about drugs. (Mind you, we're not even Canute-like about war; we re-elect leaders who seem actively to seek to embroil us in elective wars.)
The question on immigration is, does this mean we just have to lie back and enjoy it? (And, presumably, try not to think of England.)
I'll be frank about myself: I don't like immigration at the levels it's been happening during my lifetime.
1). The country is congested and overpopulated. For those who have no hope of buying a house, for whom travel has become a nightmare, who are going to find it harder and harder to afford fuel to keep warm, who lament the loss of space in our country; for those in local councils trying accommodate large numbers of incomers; for those who have noticed that the availability of water, locally produced food, health-care or unimpeded education are becoming an increasing worry; for those who have noticed that we have a looming balance of payments crisis of horrendous proportions (thank you, mr. chancellor brown, for sitting on that one); for those who are being increasingly affected (whether they know it or not) by the growing scarcity of resources in this country; for all of these people and plenty more:
A large increase in our population may not be the only cause, but it is at the root these concerns. Further: even the level of population we have is looking increasingly unsustainable: where do the politicians think all the oil we'll need in 20 years time is going to come from? All the windmills and nuclear piles in the world won't supply the oil we're still going to need, even in the unlikely event that they supply enough energy.
1 a). But: despite the fact that I can be pretty misanthropic in my old age, it's not immigrants themselves I dislike - not as individuals; it's the sheer numbers. The Great Leaders boasts of 3,000,000 new homes in the next dozen or so years. It won't happen. Even if it were possible, it would not be enough for the growing population. And if the numbers were not due to net immigration but to an unsustainably high birthrate, my arguments would (so far) be the same.
2). There are the social and cultural problems. too. It's worth remembering that such problems may be fairly indirect, as in 1), above, but others can result from immigration fairly directly - obvious to those who see no go areas in 'their own' country because of the racism fundamentalism of some of the incomers, or see much of certain sorts of crime as imported - and feel that it is tabu to suggest it, or see their children knowing more about Diwali or Eid than about Christmas or Easter, or who believe that they see immigrants' problems being headlined, or who endure hostility from aggressive incomers in the neighbourhoods where perhaps they were born before the mass immigration started, or who are told that in any dispute because white and black, the white person must by definition be the racist (or even, must by definition be a racist irrespective of any dispute). [And yes, I have been told by people who don't even know my name, at national and local government-organised meetings and lectures, that because I am male and white, I am by definition racist. My actual degree of racism, or lack of it, being unknown and presumably of no interest. And, frankly, after 40 years of it, I'm fed up with it.] [And yes, I'm perfectly aware that I'm writing this column very much from a white, male, middle-aged viewpoint; it's my site: anyway, I've spent too much of life being amicable, conciliatory, courteous, or just plain polite (which is the name we oldies use for treating our neighbour as ourself)].
2 a). Having written section 2) because it's part of the argument, I will now say, it's irrelevant to me anyway, because I happen to like the mixing of cultures and races; and anyway I believe that people in this country and people who come to it are strong enough that as and when social problems arise, we will sort them out. But
3). While the economic benefits to employers of large-scale immigration are palpable and quite considerable, those to government are less so: central government - while singing the economic benefits - has put much of the financial burden of coping onto local government, and schools, and hospitals: and the benefits are not long term; as the immigrant population ages, it will put the same demands on resources as the rest of us (having, incidentally, possibly contributed a lot less in taxes if they started work elsewhere). Since, now it comes to light that the earnings being remitted to countries of origin are much larger than the government knew (or admitted?), the govt's argument is even weaker. The economic benefits to the ordinary working person are largely actually non-existent or negative: wages forced down, prices forced up, pressure on housing and other resources, etc.
4) There is also the question of the effect of emigration from countries of origin: some, like Poland or Pakistan, benefit from reduction of social pressure, plus the remittances from their workers overseas; but many countries, especially in Africa, are being put in real difficulties by the siphoning off of so many of their young and skilled workers and professionals. However, for the moment, this site is where I'm being grumpy on my own WASP behalf, so I won't pursue this route now.
There is one invented problem, not about immigration itself, but about the discussion of it. There are too many sections of our society who see an expression of objection, or reservation, or argument, or even simple uncertainty about levels of immigration, as being racism, and who are quite willing to make the accusation rather than engage in debate. This includes, unfortunately, a number of local councils, or members of councils (including, certainly in the past, the locally to here), and quite a large number of schools, or influential groups within them. The mindnumbing effect of the possibility of being accused of racism - which can be nearly as serious to a career as an accusation of paedophilia - has been one of the most effective weapons of the mind-police in my time. Socially, it is the heir of witchcraft.
Time out; more later.
Monday: I didn't see the Bishop of Rochester's article in the Telegraph yesterday; that I wrote here (and what I wrote) was, so far as I know, a coincidence. The first I did see about it, in today's papers, was that Muslim groups are outraged and even are calling for his resignation.
The Bish may have opened a very large tin of little pink wrigglers.
migration lebensraum overpopulation
Andrew Marr: Mankind On The Brink (Daily Mail)
29 December 2007 .
This is an article which acknowledges the millennial scale of the problems facing an overpopulated world, but which displays (by choice) an underlying optimism. He sees hope in technology; but he also believes, rather darkly, in 'an invisible rain of pessimism, even of defeatism, silently pouring down in the background....' For many of us, he says, it's the under-discussed dirge in the distance, even during happy times. In other words, he is saying that many of us are aware of the threats, even if we don't know what to do about them.
But... the reason why I finally impelled to start this site was because I perceived precisely the opposite: around me, even among my friends, I saw nothing but a wall of complacency; in the car park I see endless SUVs and expensive racing cars; shopping is a drug; the advertisers live on another planet, as do the colour supplements; we're chucking away a third of our food uneaten and business still regards zero growth as the kiss of death; and, another kick in the teeth, easily two thirds of houses seem to be covered in Christmas lightshows this year, which must cost a fortune in energy.
And we're still prepared to say that four children to Ulrika, or 12 children in a family in the news, are "wonderful".
I admit that I don't enjoy shopping, haven't felt the need to own a car for 30 years, and have a tradition in the family that the only light we show outside is a candle in the window (it was a venerable tradition at Christmas, which seems to have disappeared in a remarkably few years.) So I claim to be a bit of a goody-two-shoes? So what... I am!
And I believe that most people, faced as we are by problematic future, either do not know, do not believe or do not care about it.
'Mankind On The Brink' 'Andrew Marr' 'Acting to protect the environment' 'Don't know' 'don't care' don't believe'
How Wonderful?
21 December 2007 .
The two most recent surveys I've seen of the cost of bringing up a child included (along with food, clothing, etc.) driving lessons and the cost of the child's first car, as if they were - should be? - routine expenses.
-/-
Two newsreaders, heard on ITV Meridian local news this evening while a house decorated with Christmas lights was being shown:
"The house is full of children.... a twelfth baby is on the way."
{To paid for largly through our taxes?]
"How wonderful!" they said.
'Who pays for huge families?'
You May Have Been Right After All, Mr. Malthus.
11 December 2007 .
The government's statisticians have reported: the new figures show that human fertility in this country has risen sharply over the past four years, and is now back up to the level of c1980.
It seems that this is universally greeted as excellent news.
>>>> ? <<<<
fertility Malthus
UK population may almost double in this century.
28 November 2007 .
According to the Office for National Statistics, we'll be at 109 million inhabitants in the UK by 2081 (apparently, according to the Independent, if levels of immigration, fertility and life expectancy remain high).
Well, I very much doubt it; but, what are the implications of the projection, both in the figures themselves and in the extrapolation to such an extraordinary figure?
My understanding from the government's annual abstract is that the rate of reproduction of the UK indigenous population has been under 1.9 per couple for a generation (30 years) and is probably now about 1.83. I emphasise that I may be wrong on this, but I'm sure that the rate certainly isn't up to replacement. If that is the case,
A change in the ethnic nature of a large part of the population is probably in line with what is occurring in many parts of the world. However:
a) politically motivated: I don't know if I need to argue that, but I will settle for now at pointing at sections of the Labour party; particularly apparent if you happen to live in Islington
b) economically motivated: all that lovely cheap labour!
I wonder about such a change to the make-up of the country - largely because the evidence is growing in Britain, and is always clear in too many parts of the world, that the stresses resulting from enforced mixing can be unsustainable. (NB: When entertaining criticism of these comments from white US or white Australian folk, I'm always thinking in the back of my mind about the beams, as opposed to motes, in those particular nations' eyes.) I remember my previous generation, 40 years ago - who would have been appalled to be thought racist - nevertheless beginning to worry about what was then called the 'intelligence reaction' against the pro-immigration lobby (and, whatever the history books may say, that lobby was already increasingly powerful even in the 60s). I thought they were wrong and I have spent most of my adult life working (by choice) in a environment which consciously and actively sought and promoted multiculturalism, as a teacher in London. In my dotage, I sometimes have doubts about the work I have been doing for so long.
But then, whatever the problems might be, you can't escape the fact that the most vibrant, exciting, tolerant and on the whole viable places to live have always been the culturally inclusive, not the exclusive.
Anyway, it isn't the make-up which worries me. It's the sheer number.
Discussing the make-up of the future UK population, I am entitled to a hope (even if it seems a bit forlorn right now) that my country will make a success of it, and I see the need for and usefulness of dialogue. But 100+ million? It's beyond even discussion: Environment? Congestion? Resources? Food? Services? Housing? Water! There is nobody, politician, businessman, economist or anyone, who has even begun to give a rational explanation of how these little islands will cope. (Another NB: Wishy-washy predictions that science/technology will solve our problems are up there with astrology.) (Memo to Ulster Loyalists: whatever the politics, I'd break your connection with a 100-million UK asap.)
[On immigration... should the public at large, the people, have been consulted at some point? Perhaps it is right that they were not; after all, they might have voted to retain capital punishment and, on the whole, it is regarded as right that that decision was taken by parliament... but in that case there was a clear-cut debate, resulting in a clear-cut set of laws. The one question that lurks in the back of my mind is, who decided that the immigration decision should be kept away from ordinary people? After all, if we had decided democratically in favour, it would have taken the wind out of the sails of the BNP and their fellow travellers. I'm not sure what I think about this issue right now. I do resent that those who would like to see limits to immigration are too readily labelled as racists.]
[Actually, We should remember that when Parliament abolished the death penalty, we were promised that life should mean life... but how long a life sentence should be is another issue I'm uncertain about, because I also believe in the possibility of redemption.]
PS: The L6 billion, or whatever the figure is, which the government tells us that immigration has benefitted 'us'. This is disingenuous spin. The problem, however, is not that the government is spinning for yet another political agenda - we all know that's par for the course - but that if and when 'we' (people) realise that this is not a L6 billion benefit to the general public, then we become even more cynical about an issue which should be judged on its own merits.
'Office for National Statistics' 'Growing population' 'benefits of immigration'
Ulrika:
10 November 2007 .
Not so long ago, to have three children out of wedlock by three different men was regarded as evidence of insanity. That may have been a bit OTT.
Much more recently, a woman who put herself in that position was still regarded - not to put too fine a point on it - as being of small virtue.
However, I admit that I am being rather old-fashioned on this issue: it is a personal moral judgment and it's not for me to dictate the morality of others. (Just to pre-empt an accusation of double values, I have an equally disdainful attitude to men who father children promiscuously.)
Despite this opinion, I find that I am disturbed that what discussion I have heard and read has concentrated on her morality and made no mention of what seems to me to be the infinitely more critical issue of her selfishness.
In the 21st century a person who breeds four children, whether in or out of wedlock, has gone beyond immorality to the point of a selfishness which ought to be criminal. There isn't room. There won't be the resources. The environment cannot take it. Her four children are going to make the lives of your one or two even harder than they are going to be anyway.
'Ulrika Johnsson' 'irresponsible breeding'
a42.