Rochdale, revisited
Fraser Nelson 3:11pm
Putting Ed Balls into Home Affairs is like trapping a bee in a jar: he’ll come out
furious, and anxious to sting. In his new brief, he has immigration. And he’ll know Cameron’s vulnerabilities. The greatest threat facing the coalition doesn’t come from Ed
Miliband. It comes from a deep dysfunction in Britain’s economy: that when it grows, we just suck in more workers from overseas. Balls knows this, and the resentment it causes in affected
communities – which is why he was talking tough on immigration during the leadership
contest. He knows where the economic bodies are buried: he dug the graves. He also knows that unless Cameron manages to make work pay, he’ll end up with what is – for UK workers –
a jobless recovery. As Obama is finding out, this goes down rather badly.
In many ways, Ed Howker’s post on Rochdale highlights the problem. In its centre, 84 per cent are on benefits – and it has been not far from this level for a decade and more. And why?
No Jobs? Hardly. The ONS estimate (not online) is that Rochdale’s immigrant population jumped from 4,000 to 15,000 over the Labour years. So Gillian Duffy had a point when she asked Gordon Brown where all the Eastern Europeans were coming from. As I say in the News of the World today: it didn’t make sense to her. She saw thousands of
locals on the dole. She saw thousands of new immigrants, settling in to work. What’s going on?
The answer is what I call the British Economic Dysfunction: that our growing economy sucks in people from overseas, rather than reducing dole queues. Unreformed welfare pays people not to work: and
I blame the system, not those who follow its perverse incentives. Nor do I blame hardworking immigrants for filling these vacancies. The Osborne-IDS reforms will sweep away this rotten system
– but the Universal Credit will take a decade and start in 2013. Let’s set aside the economic and social problems that the unreformed system will create in the meantime. Osborne is part
electoral strategist, so I’d like to give him an early warning of what could be a major political headache.
As The Spectator pointed out, the Dysfunction means that 99 per cent of the new jobs created under
the Labour years can be accounted for by extra immigration. The companies grew, the tax was collected – but the welfare ghettoes remained and places like central Rochdale remained a state.
And people like Mrs Duffy thought it all a bit mad. That’s Labour’s legacy. Enough said.
But I also requested new data for the last year of Brown (Q2 2009 vs Q2 2010). It shows that the ‘recovery’ also sucked in overseas workers. Between these two dates, there are 118,000
fewer UK-born workers, according to the Eurostat-mandated Labour Force Survey of working-age people. Over the same period, the number of foreign-born workers is up by 122,000. Welfare is, right
now, competing with low-paid work. If things carry on, Cameron will have a very unhappy and underemployed electorate on his hands.
This is not some denouncement of immigrants – as CoffeeHousers know, I’m a fan of freedom of movement. Mass immigration is an expression of our labour market problem: tightening the
points system and kicking out X-Factor contestants won’t help. The newcomers are a direct result of the vacuum blown in the heart of our labour market by the welfare state.
Much can go wrong in the next three years of unreformed welfare – mainly that foreign-born workers will probably take most of the jobs created this year and next. There is another way.
It’s time for an emergency tax cut on the low-paid could be partly paid for by putting the DfID budget back to where it was in 2006. Life expectancy in these welfare ghettoes is lower than
many countries we ship aid to (65.3 in central Rochdale, worse than Western Sahara or Pakistan). It’ll be
expensive, but not as expensive as keeping folk on dole. The Swedes took this route, and it stoked the recovery (full report, by yours truly, here).
Mass immigration has broken the link between economic growth and reduced unemployment. The Treasury doesn’t realise that (its internal calculations don’t distinguish between UK-born and
foreign-born), so Osborne will be working on false economic models. Brown did it knowingly: he and Balls covered this up. Osborne must be careful not to carry on with this system unwittingly
– and Balls will be waiting with some modernised version of ‘British jobs for British workers’.
A tax cut for the low-paid is a crude measure. But we need to fix this welfare problem, and international evidence shows that even marginal differences in the tax take do help coax people back to
work. British poverty is a cause with no glamour or pop stars, but it’s time to get worried. I believe in making poverty history - and think that Rochdale is an excellent place to
start.
UPDATE: A friend from Glasgow emails the below:
Went to the local BP/M&S garage late last night to pick up newspapers. Asked as to the whereabouts of Frances who works behind the counter there but I hand't seen for a while. She's a late 40's, working class mother. Answer? "She's left. It wasn't worth her while working. What with having to pay a full rent and everything."
Previous
strapworld
October 10th, 2010 3:25pm Report this commentMr Nelson. You've written about immigration! goodness me.
Perhaps you may wish to read this blog for further evidence how mass immigration has enhanced our electoral procedures.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/10/banana-republic-britain.html
PuppetMaster
October 10th, 2010 3:47pm Report this commentYou cannot do anything about Rochdale and places like them, without understanding why they are like they are.
On the one hand we have the corruption of our elite, where large corporations bribe European legislators to enact reams of regulation to prevent competition, thus limiting new company formation and reducing jobs. Then, on the other hand, we have the complete victory of cultural marxism in our universities, which heavily influences the outlook of the students they churn out.
The conservatives have already passed more power to Europe, attacked entrepreneurialism and they voted to destroy our economy by supporting Ed Milibands mad green taxes (700 pounds a year per family).I want to see a patriotic people, who look after themselves, living in a traditional family. The family is the bedrock of society, without understanding why Labour has sought to destroy it, you can't do anything.
libertarian
October 10th, 2010 3:49pm Report this commentFraser,
Thank you for this, a well written critique of the problem. This is my area of professional expertise ( jobs, careers and enterprise) I have been saying and writing about this for a couple of years now and have done a couple of BBC interviews about this. There are 480,000 unfilled job vacancies in the UK currently, the majority of them paying vastly more than minimum wage ( currently £5.93). Until we make work pay much better than benefits we will have to continue to import workers. We need an immediate end to payroll taxes, a flat tax and the first £12k of income at zero rate. That is all the impetus that the economy needs in order to start it growing again. If work and business doesn't pay then who can be surprised when people wont take jobs or create new businesses
old fogey
October 10th, 2010 4:06pm Report this commentOne element about this debate that never gets mentioned is the role of employment agencies in job fixing; most commercial, private sector vacancies are now advertised from agency sources, even job centre plus advertisements mostly send one to the likes of Pertemps, etc. These establishments naturally have an effect of reducing wage levels ( they must have their cut), but also serve to exclude older job seekers and are inclined to favour East European workers. Firstly they do not have to do the background checks that they have to perform on UK nationals ( no references to chase, and they dont bother with a criminal record search) and they can send them in large groupings to the employers--much more convenient to hire 10 or so Poles in one go, rather than individually scrutinise 10 UK nationals. Also many employment agencies use Polish workers on their own staff; no doubt this will help contacts between east european job seekers and employers to enable any future vacancies to be filled quickly and cheaply by outsourcing. Of course it is only fair to point out that younger east europeans are more conscientious and less frivolous than their British counterparts, who often come to work for the day in search of the next 'wind up', or seek other ways of alleviating the tedium.
charles hercock
October 10th, 2010 4:38pm Report this commentHas the time come for a National Service programme for the able bodied in lieu of welfare?
Given your comments I cannot see that whatever George and IDS will dream up will fix it ,even if they have the will to see it through,which is debatable
Bloody Bill Brock
October 10th, 2010 4:43pm Report this commentMany of us believe that the cost to the British nation of installing a few million extra Labour votes (immigrants)is a serious matter. The political party which exploited the importation of human beings into Britain, for its own political ends should be shown up for what it is and answer to the people. Only the tribalism and lack of interest by the "white working class" has saved Labour so far. The fact that some traditional Labourites are begining to question Labours policies/motives now, should be a signal to the Tories to expose dishonest shysters like Balls.
Dave B
October 10th, 2010 4:55pm Report this commentThe coalition plan is to raise the personal tax allowance to £10k, so surely they already intend a tax cut for low wage earners.
Woody
October 10th, 2010 6:11pm Report this commentStop fessing about Balls. If he knows where the graves are, or even dug them, then it's up to the government to expose 'his' weakness.
I won't hold my breath.
Edward Sutherland
October 10th, 2010 7:30pm Report this commentSorry, Mr Nelson, but in view of your recent history on the subject of immigration you, in the eyes of many Coffee Housers, lack all credibility on this subject, as does the rest of the Westminster village, of which you so definitely form a part. If I want thoughtful articles on the effects of mass immigration, I'll look to Sir Andrew Green, who is more attuned to the wishes of the British people, but no doubt you and your Westminster friends would call these wishes prejudices- and the people that express them bigots.
Victor Southern
October 10th, 2010 7:34pm Report this commentSurely having a recent Labour minister griping about excess immigration is a bit rich?
However, I don't mind it at all. If his aggressiveness brings this "which cannot be mentioned" into open debate then all well and good.
We hear that Therea May is powerless to stop the granting of permanent residence to some huge number of failed asylum seekers because of some matter of lapse of time.
One can sense a seething anger in the public work places over this shoulder shrug from successive governments.
Cameron, Clegg and Brown kept well away from this hot potato during the election run-up except for the promised "cap" on immigration and Brown's waffle about his points system. Sorry, Clegg wanted an amnesty for all of them - Spain did that and now has the highest percentage immigrant population in Europe.
Then there are the employer federations who want lots of people queuing up for any jobs that come along.
That is a whole lot of different points of view so debate is essential.
Noa Zrk
October 10th, 2010 9:13pm Report this commentFraser.
No doubt Mrs Duffy will be extremely grateful for the solutions to her immigration concerns that the coalition and the Spectator propose, together with that de facto amnesty sleeper 'Postman Pat' introduced.
Why not have a chat with her to reassure her that's so. Oh and why not invite Gordon.
Paul Owen
October 10th, 2010 9:49pm Report this commentI've been saying this for years. but you don't even have to do it by cutting tax immediately for all of the low paid, although clearly this is desirable in the medium term and is the aim of the coalition. Just give people who have been unemployed for a few months a tax holiday for a year or so. It wouldn't cost that much and would be a real incentive. If they find work in the last few months of the tax year with a large part of their allowance to use up they get this anyway until April arrives. So just make that official policy. It wouldn't cost much and would make work much more attractive, especially as we head towards Christmas.
Edward McLaughlin
October 10th, 2010 9:55pm Report this commentThis is all welcome Fraser, but the welfare problem has been here a lot of years, and the massive influx of foreign workers too. How come you have only just come round to this?
'British Economic Dysfunction'? 'BED'
TrevorsDen
October 10th, 2010 10:06pm Report this commentWhatever sense you may talk Mr Nelson you totally undermine it when you say that your are 'a fan of freedom of movement'.
Poland for instance is not some remote part of our sovereign territory - its a different country for gods sake.
If we NEED a skill then we should import it and if other countries want to tempt our skilled workers then good luck to them.
But to allow unskilled workers from poorer countries into the UK is suicide for our social infrastructure.
The notion that Balls can exploit this is risible. He is responsible for the shambles. Labours pathetic education and benefits policies have destroyed Britain and I grow tired of all this talking up of Balls' smartarse political abilities.
TGF UKIP
October 10th, 2010 11:21pm Report this commentold fogey encapsulates a damn site more wisdom and knowledge on this issue than you or any other of the London gang, Fraser.
Employers aren't daft when they choose to prefer eager young Poles for jobs as opposed to unemployed, and frequently unemployable young (or old) Brits. You either put a full stop to immigration or you face the consequences. The lumpen proletariat deprived of their benefits and unable to compete for jobs with the East Europeans will either riot or turn to crime - starting it is to be hoped in Richmond on Thames.
And as for "It's time for an emergency tax cut on the low-paid (which) could be partly paid for by putting the DFID budget back to where it was in 2006." At last I see what a Scottish sense of humour is supposed to be.
One of these days, though I don't hold out much hope, it's going to dawn on you that Labour's secret weapon for the last five years is he whom you dare not write about - The Mekon.
LibDemKitty
October 10th, 2010 11:31pm Report this commentThere has already been an emergency tax cut for the low-paid, by raising the income tax threshold and aiming to continue doing so up to £10'000, a core Lib Dem policy
LibDemKitty
October 10th, 2010 11:58pm Report this commentBut since you want to cut foreign aid, do you not agree there is a connection between foreign aid and the level of immigration and asylum claims?
Dimoto
October 11th, 2010 12:20am Report this commentWe have been fed two easy (and unprovable) lines:
1) that all job growth over the past ten years has been filled by beastly immigrants.
2) that all job growth over the past ten years has been in the public sector (with net job losses from the private sector).
Unless our public service is rapidly filling up with poles, these can't both be true. I don't believe either simplistic nostrum, the job market is very complex.
And it takes a very quaint new kind of political correctness, to refuse to face the bald truth - that the ethics and culture of a very large part of the British population are now non-existant.
No pride or interest in their work, heads full of selfish trivia, quite happy to feed off the state.
Clear Memories
October 11th, 2010 1:05am Report this commentThis approach is too simplistic and addresses only the jobs issue. The immigration permitted under Labour has far more pernicious effects.
The biggest problem is the refusal of many immigrants, mainly Muslims (who are not a race) and particularly 2nd+ generations, to integrate. Six white youths arrested in Gateshead for allegedly burning a Koran but no arrests of Muslims carrying signs calling for murder and beheadings. The Biased Bollox Corporation and the Dead Tree Media collude by failing to report these matters. There was much on Stephen Fry and his ‘acceptable’ objections to the Pope’s visit (after all, he’s a luvvie) but not a word or picture about the Muslim protests calling for the death of the Pope. Similar piss-poor levels of reporting are applied to the annual thug-fest in Notting Hill.
This lack of integration in turn, through the immigrant choice of ghettoisation , leads to an apparent, selective overwhelming of the education, social and medical services, in turn perceived and reported sensationally as swamping – look at Slough, Luton, Bradford et al. The Afro-Caribbean gang savagery that is an obscenity across our big cities results from this self-selected isolation.
Finally, we have the self-inflicted problems where, for simplicity and greed, big business simply inflicts an alien food choice upon the host population without warning, labelling or justification;where the translation of everything LA’s churn out make the English speaker feel out of place.
Thus, Labour have created a sense of unfairness across society, a massive, simmering civil unrest, adding to the huge growing unrest right across the EU, evidenced by the inexorable rise of the extreme right, even in the super-tolerant Scandic nations. There is a growing feeling of dispossession, of disregard for the feelings of the host nations, a genuine sense of unfairness.
The numbers within the UK have to be cut. A cap is not good enough and will not be believed anyway after 13 years of Labours consistent lies.
The first step must be, as with the US, Australia, the Gulf States, India, Japan, Korea (the rest of the world really!) a true British jobs for British workers policy. Unless there is nobody who can actually do the job in the UK, no immigrants. Secondly, remove all those EU citizens who have no job – this is legitimate under the EU treaties. Thirdly, remove all the convicted foreign criminals and their dependants – they can have their right to a family life, but not in the UK.
Finally, apply the law harshly against Islam – get rid of their overtly political activities. No public praying, no call to prayer, no employment latitudes for Ramadan, ban the oppressive female garments (they’re nothing to do with Islam anyway), close the madrasas and ban Halal slaughter. If needs be, prescribe Islam as a terrorist cult – surely the religion of peace should be that, peaceful, calm and inoffensive? Reintroduce notionally Christian school assemblies for all, prosecute those who withdraw their offspring, (see deportation of criminals above). Islam is not a religion, it is a political movement with the avowed intent of ruling the world under its 7th Century beliefs. It poses the greatest threat to the western world – far more than the invented bogie-man of Global Warming. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a fool.
The UK acts as a magnet because we not only tolerate activities and unlawfulness at levels that would see them prosecuted in their original homelands (be that Pakistan, Africa or Jamaica), we give many of them cash to live amongst us. Surely, a Governments primary role is the defence of the nation? If it cannot or will not, only anarchy can possibly succeed.
biggestaspidistra
October 11th, 2010 9:27am Report this commentI think Central and Falinge Ward in Rochdale were identified as the areas of high benefits yet both of these areas have high Asian populations, (not Poles). Everything I read suggests it is the British working class who are benefitting but I'm not sure that this is correct. I wonder if there is an ethnic breakdown of the figures. I assume there is because to join my public library I have to identify every aspect of my ethnicity,
David Bouvier
October 11th, 2010 10:00am Report this commentDimoto - absurd comment, only true if no-one else has moved jobs in the last decade.
Roughly 20% of workers - millions in other words - will have retired in the last decade, and 20% will have started work for the first time.
A shift in the balance between public and private, uk-born and foreign-born, can happen any which way.
A few hundred thousand more Poles etc joined the private sector than left it. A net few hundred thousand more people left the private sector ovall. Millions and millions of people changed jobs, retired or started work.
Try questioning your own assumptions sometime.
Edward McLaughlin
October 11th, 2010 10:27am Report this commentLibDemKitty
What is the connection between overseas aid and the level of immigration and asylum claims?
Dimoto
October 11th, 2010 12:11pm Report this commentDavid Bouvier:
You are basically just elaborating on my comment - that the job market is complex and cannot be described by simple (and jingoistic) nostrums.
As I said, not only is this daft, but the assumption that our population comprises "salt of the earth working class victims with great Protestant work ethic" is crass (though a necessary fiction for politicians).
It's like the fashion for "blaming the bankers", where the irresponsible borrowers and debtors are all presumed to be innocent victims.
And (hobby-horse time !) we have BBC programmes like "Moneybox", which, contrary to it's title, is not a programme to inform and encourage people to save, but instead a programme where people are shown ways to resile from their legal obligations, and to appeal to various bodies who might pressure banks and other institutions to return fees.
The UK has become as tricksey as any Latin American republic.
mairT
October 11th, 2010 12:12pm Report this comment@Clear Memories.
Thank You
Mike Thomas
October 11th, 2010 12:59pm Report this commentI agree with Libertarian's excellent analysis @10/10/10 3:49pm.
Flat tax designed to be as neutral as possible but to make work pay to lower earners coupled with swingeing welfare reforms.
Frances
October 14th, 2010 7:38pm Report this commentSorry Fraser but you are wrong to think that the economic dysfunction can be fixed through a reduction in tax for low wage earners. Nor will increased training, or even IDS's suggestions work. Why? Because for every unemployed Briton there are numerous unemployed europeans, all of whom have the right to set up camp in the UK and demand "equal treatment" to locals. The problem is the presence of these people end of.
hannah
October 16th, 2010 10:34am Report this commentThe most accurate assessment of the state of the working class in Britain today. What Labour has done is beyond cruel. We have huge sympathy about poverty in other countries, but we don't care our "chavs" have a lower life expentancy than other countries. People are only just waking up to this latest issue to affect the working class in this country. Yet another lost generation caused by incompetent, arrogant politicians. Shame on Labour as they were supposed to represent these people
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