Dave's wrong choice of words on immigration

Richard

I think more could be made of the article on BBC News about a month ago, that various skilled immigrant workers may have to leave the country under new proposals. So perhaps the immigration debate could be phrased as following: why are so many UNSKILLED immigrants being admitted, with almost no controls, while SKILLED immigrants are being turned away - when the only difference is that the former come from one of the countries almost arbitrarily labelled as 'European', and the latter don't? Indeed, Mr Cameron would have even more incentive for bringing up this matter, as I read in last Monday's Telegraph that the Pakistani wife of a Conservative candidate is being deported even though she has just had a child! So come on Mr Cameron, don't let people confuse this immigration debate with those of the 1950s - the immigrants now are not ethnic minorities, or greatly different in culture to ourselves, they are just the children of some other country with a dodgier economy than our own...

hogarth zombie

but why pussy foot around the truth? it's about time the Tories spoke plain English

dizzy

Matthew, I'm not sure he did say that. If I recall corrcetly he said the question of immigration was not about sending people already home, but was about understanding the question in terms of people that want to enter the country and crucially their impact on public services. The choice of words was right because it was not about the "Right" but about the question of maintaining the integrity and quality of public services. It triangulated the Left making it very difficult for anyone to scream racist and deliberate conflate the two issues which are very separate.

David

"It triangulated the Left making it very difficult for anyone to scream racist and deliberate conflate the two issues which are very separate." Particularly because it implicitly implies that you can turn round in response and say 'if our public services were more efficient, we could have higher levels of immigration'.

Tiberius

I don't agree with Matt's conclusion on this. I think Cameron has probably done enough on the re-branding of the Party (or certainly himself) to be able to avoid the shrill cries which were successfully aimed at his predecessors. I also think that the debate has moved on, certainly from the days when William Hague was leader, because many people do see the purely economic and social problems caused by the extra demands placed on public services, and on housing in particular. Indeed, if he were so minded, Cameron could successfully argue that if he didn't, as leader of HM Official Opposition, challenge the government head-on over this and present an alternative, he's failing in his job and opening a void for extremist parties to fill. And this would amount to an irresponsible omission in his policy-making. I do think, however, the Newsnight team let him off the proposition which had a very full airing on an edition of Question Time in the lead up to the 2005 election: if your immigrant quota is full and a number of genuine asylum seekers appear over the horizon, would you turn them away? Cameron would do well to have an argument rehearsed for that one if he hasn't already.

Hoi Polloi

Quite predicatably this is the view of the prissy Tory metropolitan dinner parties and is not the view of the overwhelming majority of British voters. Moreover, this canard that a tough line on immigration is a vote loser is one that the wet Tory Left has been allowed to get away with for too long. What happened in 2005 was that the polls reflected very strong support for Michael Howard' policy but this was completely undermined by the usual anonymous briefings that senior members of the Party (code no doubt given their long record of loyalty for people like Maude, Clarke and Yeo) were unhappy with the policy. Predictably, and probably as intended, New Labour and the BBC ran with this line. Remember the "Today" interview by Humphrys - he focused for virtually the whole time on immigration and the alleged disquiet and distate from within Michael Howard's own party for his policy. Talk about breaking your own captain's bat - long an art form with the modern Tory Left. Labour stole tough on crime rhetoric from the the "hug a hoodie" Tories, now stand, watch and admire while Gordon shamelessly does the same on immigration. "British jobs for British workers" was just the start.

Perry

Conservative is about conserving (though what, one wonders, is left to conserve?). The foppish rebranding was about ephemeral issues. The plain simple unadorned truth, - in plain simple words (as HZ advises) should be all that is required, - albeit difficult for those tempted to dissemble.

Tom M

I think Matt's absolutly right on this. There's no need at all to get into a debate about what the "correct" level of immigration is. The Tory line of attack should be straightforward Labour incompetence. Labour abolished border controls. Labour has no idea how many immigrants are in the country or who they are. That is not an immigration policy, its a dereliction of duty.

CCTV

Of course we should not set a limit of the numbers of people coming to the UK - with 8.5 billion in the world we can always squeeze more in. It is time though to build up the British Army and start looking for Lebensraum. Maybe we should re-occupy Northern France and find new space for our burgeoning population ?

jimmy

Phew! I hope Mr Cameron doesn't sell his soul short, whatever that might mean. / The trouble with this subject is the scarcity of comment from our members of Parliament on it. Journalists have to editorialise in order to fill the space/time in their reports on the issue. And in the editorial narrative there appears to be room only for two camps: those who are "nice" and those who are "nasty". / But surely there are facts and figures that should be shared, and debated openly. And our members of Parliament should take their full part in such debate. / I think Mr Cameron has "won" the Tories and himself the right to be heard in the BBC again. (As the principal opposition party it should not have had to do this of course). And having "won" that position, I think most people watching, unlike some paranoid Westminster Villagers, will have given him a fair hearing. / After all, I don't recall hearing an unfair or even a "nasty" statement from him that evening.

Jez W

"But my own view is that the proposition he should be making again and again is that the Labour Government has managed the immigration system incompetently rather than the quite separate contention that there are too many immigrants in Britain." Ahh, just let em' all in. Go on. Let's have the lot of them over here. They can live in my house- i'll just reside in a small cardboard box at the end of our garden with the wife and kids- thats if they'll let me of course. I could pay rent for garden space to all these enrichers of our un-PC culture with regular donations of cash for a new Subaru Impreza maybe? Brilliant.

PETER GARTON

You are wrong and Enoch was right: England has been swamped with third world immigrants. Perhaps you will see things more clearly when Leiscestershire is overrun by Somali warlords.