Blast from the past

The theme of the BBC’s election coverage today is immigration. 

You might have already watched the above interview with Rt. Hon. Lord Green Migration Watch and Peter Whittle in his series “So What You’re Saying is”. Here it is again, anyway. 

This matter has been simmering away for a decade. I’ll quote, from 2009:

 “…the BBC hasn’t much to say about the Andrew Neather story. It’s a pity because it’s regarded as explosive. Mr. Neather admitted that mass immigration was deliberately engineered by the labour government who wanted to: a) rub the right’s nose in diversity, and b) to fill skills shortages. 

Now that things have gone awry Andrew Neather still wishes to make a case for immigration, and a very good case it might have been, if no-one existed outside London. What he doesn’t know is that people live in far-flung places like Luton, Dewsbury and other outer-reaches of the stratosphere. 

He is all in favour of Londoners having easy access to nannies, gardeners and cleaners, perhaps drawn from the pool of immigrants whose good English and previous earning capacity earned requisite points for easier entry. 

The Neather children are enriched by the cosmopolitan make-up the south London primary school they attend, and he shudders to think how parochial London might be without its diversity. 

The government knew that white working class voters, now known as the indigenous British, wouldn’t understand, so speeches were constructed to obfuscate rather than elucidate. 

The article was spotted by the right wing press but it was too late to undo the damage. Even his backtracking attempt entitled ‘How I became the story and why the Right is wrong’ couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle. 

Some commenters pointed out that if we had a decent skills education all this would have been unnecessary, Melanie Phillips and the Telegraph took it by the scruff of the neck.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think tank, said: “Now at least the truth is out, and it’s dynamite.” 

All of this, and hardly anyone dares mention the thing that really scares people. It’s not really Poles, eastern Europeans, Chinese, Indians, or black immigrants that are worrying indigenous whitey, although when any of these work in the health service without a good grasp of colloquial English, that is a disgrace. 

It’s the immigrants who don’t like us; who “see us – but don’t wanna be us” that we could do without. 

Everyone seems to need to back up their every opinion these days. They deflect criticism with the preemptive/defensive declaration: ‘It’s not “me“ saying this”.

I too wish to say “it’s not me saying this”  but unfortunately it was me. I was fresh and enthusiastic then, and not the worn-out, jaded husk of my former bushy-tailed, bright-eyed self I am today.  :-(