Join The Spectator's debate on immigration

telemachus'

Thank God for immigration which keeps us sharp, infuses talent, improves the gene pool and in short has led to the renaissance of our declining fortunes since empire in a way that Margaret Thatcher could only dream

telemachus'

contd

Remember we became great after successive invasions of Romans, Angles, Saxons,Jutes, Normans, and Hanoverians

telemachus'

Our empire was based on the interactive mix of the dynamic intermingled internal populace with the wider world we civilised while imbibing the enhancing characteristics

So it will be again provided the little englanders do not get their way

Austin Barry

“..because immigration is a crucial ingredient for growth..”

Yeah, growth of crime, terrorism, human trafficking, ghettoes, riots, honour killings, benefits fraud, election rigging, street begging, infrastructure overloading and endless wheedling homilies and pieties by our incompetent, corrupt elites.

Enough, more than enough, already.

Jeremy

telemachus:

"Our empire was based on the interactive mix of the dynamic intermingled internal populace with the wider world we civilised while imbibing the enhancing characteristics..."

It sounds to me like you're the one who's been imbibing...

Frank P

I note that the tele-troll has three putts and still misses the hole by a yard. Putz! Austin otoh holes in one - perfect! No contest!

Jez

I wish i could go to this debate but alas i was thrown onto the shit-pile of jobless British a week before Christmas as my company was bought out by an International one and closed down.... i have set up my own company and business is rather slow at the moment with us just managing to pay the mortgage, feed the kids run the motor etc etc, ever since.

May i for the moment just ask this;

'NET' Immigration.

Does that mean if 500,000 come in from all over the place, mainly Muslim countries, Indian Sub-Continent and 'Afreeeka-kaaah-kaaah' and say 400,000 leave going to mainly first world countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc (we know who'll be leaving btw) then does that mean the figures will show Net immigration at 100,000 only?

If so then why have the debate and lets just pack up and f*ck off now?

The Duke

What Austin Barry said (x 1000)

Jez

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7737134.stm

Just dug up this from the compost heap of political history. It's 'funny as you need it'- actually it's about as funny as having this debate in the first place with the likes of David Aaronovitch and the rest of the utter f*cktards STILL trying to make a fast buck on the back on redundant thinking.

Here's some gems;

" Net immigration to the UK increased to 237,000 in 2007, according to the Office for National Statistics.

That is 46,000 more than in 2006 - as a result of emigration falling faster than immigration.

But asylum applications were up 12% between July and October this year - the fifth consecutive increase.

The figures mean that the population has grown by 1.8 million because of immigration since Labour came to power in 1997.

Immigration minister Phil Woolas - who sparked controversy last month by suggesting the UK population could be limited to 70 million (*WTF- who by?!*)- said the latest figures painted a "complicated" picture but he was "pleased with the overall trend". He predicted net immigration would fall below 200,000 in next year's figures. (*er, what a lying c*nt?*)

...'Fantasy' claim

He said that "people worried about an increase in the population can be reassured when you look into these figures" and he claimed the government's new points-based migration system, which comes into effect on 27 November, would mean the UK population would not soar in the way previously predicted.

"With the points based system we can control the increase and the 70 million figure will become a fantasy," said Mr Woolas. (*again, er- what a lying c*nt maybe?*)

Rhoda Klapp

Don't frame it in terms of net. Don't accept meaningless 'growth' while everything gets juuuuuust a little worse as being incontestably a good thing. It is however, OK to frame it in such a way that the indigenous are presumed to have some rights over and above the immigrants, and the people to have some rights over and above bodies corporate. Otherwise this looks like starting out on one side of the playing field already. THe point is, nobody asked us. If they think we would have said yes, why didn't they ask? Because we would not, of course.

Jez

Again from the submitted BBC article;

"With the points based system we can control the increase and the 70 million figure will become a fantasy," said Mr Woolas. (*again, er- what a lying c*nt maybe?*)

But Danny Sriskandarajah of the Institute for Public Policy Research said many critics were missing the point by focusing on 2007's figures.

"The real story is that there are already signs that immigration is starting to slow in 2008," said Dr Sriskandarajah.

"Scaremongerers who spread panic about immigration fuelling population growth to 70 million fall into the trap of thinking that the next decade will look just like the last.

"Migration ebbs and flows over time. Immigration boomed when the economy was booming and is likely to slow naturally as the economy slows. If previous recessions are anything to go by, we may end up losing more people than we gain." (*this 'Sriskandarajah'- yet another with his finger firmly on the pulse?*)

According to the ONS figures, emigration was down sharply from 2006 when 400,000 people left the country, mostly to live in Australia, New Zealand, Spain or France.

An estimated 340,000 people of all backgrounds left the UK for twelve months or more in 2007.

The estimated number of people arriving to live in the UK for twelve months or more was 577,000 in 2007, compared with 591,000 in 2006. (*is this that brain drain we are on about all the time?*)

And here comes the bullsh*t punchline;

"Polish citizens made up the largest single national group of immigrants, with 96,000 coming to the UK in 2007."

Woo! At least they're like us......

but- 96,000 minus 577,000 = leaves 481,000 that come to Briatin in 2007 that are NOT like us and the majority come from the third world- and then take into consideration the 340,000 British that left the UK in the same time period, with the premise that the vast majority of these would be White or assimilated UK citizens.

We are truly blessed!

At least at Peterloo they had the common decency of being up front with their utter contempt of the British working class then.

So anyway, I can't be at the debate but please feel free to use this.

toco

Watch Channel 4 this evening at 9.00pm-apparently of 111 people tested in Bradford only eleven passed the rudimentary 'British' test initiated by the previous Labour misgovernment.Not sure how these folk can possibly add value-clearly mastership of English and sufficient skills to ensure there is no reliance on the taxpayer should be paramount in deciding whether to permit an individual to enter this country on a permanent basis.

Wilhelm 1

1 Immigrant in the country = it's a novelty and it's exotic.

10 Immigrants in the country = Uh oh, looks like trouble.

100 immigrants in the country = There goes the neighbourhood.

1000 immigrants in the country = Head for the Hills

10,000 immigrants in the country = Man the lifeboats, abandon ship.

100,000 immigrants in the country = White Flight.

1 Million immigrants in the country = The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Mark, Edinburgh

Seems to me this policy debate should be about legal immigration rather than inability to enforce current rules properly.

The vast bulk of the non EU/family immigration comes via the student sector. Making colleges more self financing has had the consequence that the academic industry now need these overseas students if it is not to downsize.

The Labour Government tacitly allowed the academic industry to sell a UK residence option in order to compete internationally for these students. The UK universities own shop steward has just admitted 20% of their overseas students fall into this category.

Unfortunately I suspect there will be little Government stomach for taking on another middle class vested interest sector which has strong Lib Dem and media support.

Wilhelm 1

The Spectator wont post the link, type into google

'' Morality and Abstract Thinking How the African may differ from the Westerner ''

A very revealing article, it's by Gedaliah Braun

telemachus'

Wilhelm 1
March 1st, 2012 2:51pm
Yes Wilhelm but look what replaced it.
Do you not want that chance again?
See first 3 posts.

Jez

toco.

Most probably get ready to watch some mainstream 'guilt porn'- made to make you feel sick to the stomach at being a white b*stard who heretically dares to question the wisdom of replacing one settled culture with many others from all over the globe- many of them hostile to us.

The whites will be portrayed as angry, maybe racist, definately some of them backward, definately some 'seemingly educated'- but thick, there maybe even an 'everyman' who falls in love with a Pakistani family and converts to 'Diversitani', there could be your token xenophobic bigot that wouldn't know his or her arse from their elbows and then (i predict / maybe) they'll be some heart wrenching sob story that will make any decent law abiding citizen want to scrub off his ethnicicity and jump into the melting pot of multicultural Britain head first naked.

The editors of this programme are really going to produce something that a. relays the truth and b. completely proves wrong the overall trending thought direction of the media class. Not.

Let me know if i'm right tomorrow.

I'll be watching South Park!

telemachus'

Frank P
March 1st, 2012 1:59pm
Yes Frank but clearly you need to talk of cross fertilisation of the Welsh and the Danes
No one can without prejudice point to a balanced argument against letting us benefit from the skills and wit of the world

john gerard

"the government's new points-based migration system,"

by this I presume is meant the following:

long beard - 200 points
burkha - 1000 points
niqab - 500 points (not so valuable)
bloke in a dress - 800 points
intention to open a fried chicken shop - 600 points
copy of well thumbed 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' - 1000 points
interested in benign, liberal democracy - 0 points

Wilhelm 1

In the 1930s the nazi government persecuted the Jews and many Jews fled abroad.

Today it's exactly reverse, our government is persecuting the indigenous whites and many whites are fleeing abroad. The Labour Party, the discredited, pro Stalin, red socialist organisation have turned our country into an ethnic African zoo !!

Axstane

So telemachus, true to the Labour line as always, maintains that immigration is great and improves the gene pool. Our gene pool was very wide before 1951.

In reality the opposite is true. The prison population contains people of new immigrant stock in a ratio of 3 times that of what we might once have called British.

The Bangladeshi and Pakistani fancy for cousin marriage accounts for a third of children born here with serious birth defects - although they are only about 4 or 5% of the total population.

Diseases which had disappeared from England at least are now reappearing and they include TB and small-pox which was thought to be extinct.

But, as Tony Blair used to say - we must celebrate our diversity. That was absolute claptrap since Finns, Icelandics and Japanese are perfectly happy all by themselves, genetically as are Hasidic Jews and Brahmins who have no desire to become genetically "diverse".

Nicholas

telemachus to test your theory to destruction, answer me this.

If you were in a lift on the tenth floor of a building that had a sign saying "max 10 persons" and when the doors opened 50 people of various ethnicities and persuasions proceeded to cram themselves in, would you welcome them all on the grounds that your short, rapid and final journey to the ground would be improved by their dynamism, skills and wit?

Wilhelm 1

A lying red-socialist Black Narraser Gordon has tried to pull out the 'sympathy for Blacks card' by falsely claiming that eight of her relatives were killed by others in the ' Black Colony UK.'

The vibrant but mendacious Black cheat is a 'promising' activist for the New Labour Party.

Duped 'whiteys' including Tessa Jowell (red socialist MP) and Yvette Cooper (red socialist MP) got to their feet to comport themselves shamelessly with Africa's answer to Pinocchio when the Black falsely told how armed thugs had killed eight of her nearest and dearest.

The African liar who is a member of the Bristol West Labour Party, yesterday expressed her "regret" after being exposed as a liar by the BBC, and admitted that may she "may have used words which could be seen as misleading. In other words Lying to the eurocommunist self-hating red-socialist political farce comprising of a meeting of the Labour Party '' elite ''currently under the control of one of Israel's lost tribal members, "Ed" Milliband

Instead of working for a living in Africa, the Black tours the UK's ethnic zoo , quote, "campaigning against gun and knife crime " and "lecturing" ( gullible white folk and the victim communities of African welfare tourists ) on the subject of her race's shameful and disgraceful contribution to criminality in Europe and the knife death toll that arises from from Blacks social dysfunction and its gang 'culture'.

The exposed black liar is currently working on a money-seeking campaign calling on the Government to give more of the taxpaying whitey's money to "community activists" (eg this gross and disgusting mendacious version of Pinnochio from Africa) "who tackle gun and knife crime".

It is a sad indictment of the UK Race Industry that enterprising Africans can tour the UK by capitalising on a marriage between the twin evils of white gullibility and black dysfunction.

Wilhelm 1

Part 2

t is a sad indictment of the UK Race Industry that enterprising Africans can tour the UK by capitalising on a marriage between the twin evils of white gullibility and black dysfunction.

Another unwanted African-origin retard making a living in Europe out of being a fulltime 'victim'(of her own dysfunctional race)

Case Study: How the Labour Party has sunk into the 'adoration of the gormless.'

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4157826/Labour-activists-regret-over-speech-deaths-boast.html

Haldane

I thought now may be an opportune time to remind CHs of a previous post:

"Fraser Nelson
November 1st, 2009 4:31pm Report this comment

okay, I will blog on neather if you really want me to. And explain why I am not that excited about it all."

Who knows,perhaps he may be moved to say a few words at the debate?

telemachus'

Shooting down rational thought on immigration is classic Bulverism as explained by C. S. Lewis:

Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is “wishful thinking.”

telemachus'

You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time.

telemachus'

If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant – but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself.

telemachus'

You must find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.

telemachus'

In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became to be so silly.

In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it “Bulverism.” Some day I am going the write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father – who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third – “Oh, you say that because you are a man.” “At that moment,” E. Bulver assures us, “there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.” That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.

So dont bulverise support immigration

Augustus

Having a debate about immigration, even while the Western world phases out freedom and capitalism, is like deciding which carpet to select, or which colour to paint the living room, while the house is on fire.
To socialists immigration mostly means immediate citizenship for people expected to vote for more socialism and redistributive welfare.

Why not make Britain a free country again,
balance our budget, restrain most of the spending, and then talk about attracting the best kinds of immigrants, not ones who want something for nothing? Unfortunately, fear and moral cowardice kill the best within the human spirit. They kill great societies too.

Wilhelm 1

If we are going to have mass immigration ( colonisation ) wouldn't it be better to have immigrants like German rocket scientists instead of Nigerian scam emailers, Somalian pirates and Witch doctors from the Congo ?

Talking of which, from todays Daily Mail

''The torture chamber flat where a Black from the Congo 15-year-old boy was beaten, stabbed and drowned because evil couple accused him of being a witch

Kristy Bamu's sister Magalie, 29, and her partner Eric Bikubi spent three days torturing youngster

Police found knives, sticks, metal bars and a hammer and chisel in squalid east London flat where Kristy died on Christmas Day 2010. He was accused by the pair of taking part in kindoki - or African voodoo

Scotland Yard has investigated 83 ritualistic or witchcraft abuse cases in the last 10 years.

The victim suffered 140 injuries.''

Wilhelm 1

Part 2

Why are they so cruel, sadistic and depraved ? Read Gedaliah Braun's article and you will find out.

'' Morality and Abstract Thinking, How Africans may differ from Westerners.''

Dave

Telemachus, you are a hoot!God how I love some of the cooments on here

Herr Kartoffelkopf

telemachus'

"Shooting down rational thought on immigration...", by implication are you suggesting that anyone challenging the UK's approach to immigration is being irrational? Seems like you're displaying traits of Bulvarism too...

M12

@ Telemachus'

GAWD !..... Have you swallowed a dictionary or what? Do you really think I'll fall down and faint at your euridition? Sounds like a an old intro to "The Good Old Days" ... pass the sick bag.
Perhaps you could restrict your comments to the here and now, stop breakfasting on the OED and leave what happened a thousand years ago alone.

Nicholas

"In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong."

Apart from the convoluted logic (show vs explain?) do you do this in your many posts where you tell others how and what they should think? Of course not, because you are telemachus. The name I have coined for that is arrogant, left-wing bullshit.

Robin Reliant

Some stats from Radio 4's "Analysis" prog, 2-jan 2012:

- Between 1997 and 2010 5.4 MILLION foreign people came to Britain and stayed for more than a year.

- Between 1997 and 2010 1.6 MILLION foreign people came to Britain and were granted PERMANENT RESIDENCE (this allows them to vote and to stand for public office in the United Kingdom whilst living here).

- in 2008 24% of ALL new births were to mothers who were born outside the UK.

How much diversity do you want?

Andy Carpark

'psychological causes of the error'

In his customarily plodding way, telemachus' has expounded something akin to the reasons/causes distinction in Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty', the context of which is erroneous assertions of fact. It has at best highly dubious applicability to debates about value, as the immigration debate predominantly is. So it's back to the drawing board for you, telemachus! Tell you what. Try drawing a nice rocket - a sort of U-shape with a T inscribed in the closed end. That's you, that is!

Liz

As a woman, I am quite worried about what looks like a multicultural boys' club developing, that is leaving women out in the cold. New forms of cultural sexism, some really malign, are coming into the country, but are being ignored or even accepted by our male bosses and company boards and representatives. It's great that men are hyper-aware of racial discrimination against other men, and are all making friends and bending over backwards to understand each other, but where does that leave sex discrimination and women?

telemachus'

Clear as mud Nicholas

Hepworth

Wake up to the terrible truth people. You may debate but It's patently and obviously too late. Those in charge have no intention of a curb. Those of us who are in a position to flee must do so, those who aren't must look to their family and friends... Protect your own and extend your lifespan, (slightly). Pesimistic? Sensationalist? Mad?... No realistic.

Jon Stack

Nothing wrong with immigration if it's controlled, and access only granted when clearly in the UK's interests to do so. The problem has been the last government's lack of immigration controls, and inability to act in the UK's interests,

Axstane

teletubby copied the whole series of posts from C.S. Lewis.

I will reply with another, more useful, of his pearls of wisdom "Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil".

I might also refer thingummybob to Lewis' essay "Willing Slaves of the Welfare State". There he will learn something that might truly educate him.

rosie

You must understand, Liz, that race always trumps sex, just as homosexual rights always trump religious rights. There is a hierarchy in political correctness we can do nothing but kow tow to.

rosie

Telemachus, the arrivals in the distant past from neighbouring countries like Norway and Denmark, and later Normandy, were accompanied by bloodshed, rape, and pillage, despite the similarities in culture. Land and everything else was fought over, with the indigenous people coming off worst. Before that the Roman legions came. It all took centuries to recover from.

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rosie

Moreover, Telemachus, there has been a great deal of emigration since those early invasions, which is rarely mentioned. This was because the land was finite but the population was growing, and there wasn't room for everyone to prosper here. So people left for other continents. They still are. Far from being a country of immigration for hundreds of years, as the pro mass immigrationists of the 20th and 21st centuries try to make out, this was traditionally a country of emigration.

Wilhelm 1

Hepworth

I would flee abroad in an instant, but I have no money. I now know how the persecuted Jews felt in nazi Germany. Whitey is being hunted down by the Race industry ( a sham and a racket )

Colin Cumner

I fear it is all a bit late to enter into any constructive debate on immigration into the UK. Gradual, controlled immigration into any country can produce a more diverse and interesting mix in the population. However, it is the uncontrolled frantic influx of migrants that occurred under the Labour administration that has swamped the social and economic infranstructure to the point of crisis. Jobs, housing, medical services, transport, schools, etc. are now under greater strain than at any previous point in British history. That is the shameful legacy Labour bestowed upon the nation and why it is to be hoped they will never again get to govern the country.

daniel maris

My comments:

1. The cost of entry to this "debate" is way beyond the means of most people really affected by mass immigration. Says it all really.

2. You really can't trust anything said about immigration statistics by the government. Trust only Migration Watch. Don't trust the Spectator, IPPR or other smooth-talkers.

3. The political elite has finally waved goodbye to the people. There is a deep divide between the fantasy world of the London polimedia folk and the rest of us living with the consequences of mass immigration.

4. Yes, Labour benefit from mass immigration, but so too do capitalists and they fund the Tory Party - and thus prevent it following a patriotic policy in line with the instincts of its individual members.

Mike

Some of the reports the last government decided not to publish on the effects of immigration. I wonder why ?

www.communities.gov.uk/statements/corperate/legacyresearchimmigration

Roy

The debate on immigration will go on until we are not allowed to speak of it any longer. As we waited for Herr Hitler to come round to a mind in the late 1930's for a reasonable peace. The British political platform of arrogance have a lot of similarities to the ones of those days. With a few voices in the wilderness, which this time round, could be the wailing of the damned.

telemachus'

rosie
Our emigration is like immigration a device to populate the world with those who will enhance the benefit of the British epithet.

telemachus'

rosie contd
Why is the City the centre of world finance and our language the internationa IT language?

C. WHITE

When assessing the economic impact the ONLY thing that matters is GDP PER HEAD. In 2004-2008 GDP PER HEAD FELL despite high proportion of immigration being SINGLE DEPENDENT-LESS E Europeans.

Austin Barry

We already have Operation Trident to deal with gun crime in the black community, perhaps we now need to appoint a Witchfinder General.

The vibrancy, the vibrancy…

Publius

Daniel Maris writes:
"4. Yes, Labour benefit from mass immigration, but so too do capitalists and they fund the Tory Party - and thus prevent it following a patriotic policy in line with the instincts of its individual members."

An excellent point, Daniel. Capitalism renders everything fungible. In other words, every human is reduced to a work unit, and every human value is reduced to a monetary value. Both are then represented in graphs and spreadsheets. And this fantasy world thus created is mistaken for what is real.

The one-world globalised tyranny is in the interests of capital. Liberty is not. Or rather, in the distorted scale of value that capitalism fosters, liberty too has its price, and when it gets in the way of the aims of capital, then liberty too must be swept aside. It is no coincidence that China is so successful at capitalism.

Halcyondaze

We now have a police division in charge witchcraft. It beggars belief. Just one of the benefits of the "vibrant diversity" we feel forced upon us on a daily basis.

This situation is now out of control. The demographics are already in place for complete and total cultural displacement within a couple of generations. There will be terrible violence along the way. You can already feel the threat in our cities.

The traitors who forced this upon us will disappear when the full impact starts to threaten their familes and children. Only the working and middle classes will be left behind to suffer daily the threat, trauma and humiliation of being a minority in their own land, their culture and values completely trampled.

Mark my words: there is no way this can end happily UNLESS it is with the capitulation and retreat of the indigenous population. The likes of telemachus would like that very much - and they make me sick.

Swiss Bob

It's a bit late now isn't it, surely the debate should have been had before ten million immigrants were allowed in?

Austin Barry

Since there is no effective control on immigrants – witness the Indians kipping under a West London flyover – and that the UK will always be a tempting destination for the seething Third World, there will inevitably come a time when the country is, to use the immigration pejorative detested by our elites, swamped.

At some time, and we can already see the signs, there will likely be some form of civil war. It seems inevitable.

pottsy

Is telemachus Fat Bloke in disguise?

rosie

Telemachus: the city is the financial centre at the moment, but not necessarily for the future, because a thousand years of increasing homogeneity based on Christian ethics, and in its latter stages the protestant variety in particular, coupled with the security of being an island which had not been invaded for all of that time, had led the rest of the world to trust the political and social stability here and the Englishman's "My word is my bond". The city has now become an international jungle morality wise, and will probably be displaced by Singapore.

English is spoken in the USA (though that will probably change with the demographics) and therefore spread throughout the world via Hollywoood, along with Coca cola, baseball caps, sneakers, and much else.

rosie

Our emigration is like our immigration, Telemachus: the sum of many individual calculations based on self interest and preservation.

daniel maris

C. White has it right. We have to look at per capita wealth.

We are importing about 0.5% people every year, which means we have to grow AT LEAST 0.5% before we add any per capita wealth at all. Why do all these clever writers on the Spectator and presenters on the BBC and Sky ignore this very obvious point?

We need a mortatorium on immigration and
a Royal Commission, preferably headed up by Sir Andrew Green, to examine forensically the claim about net economic benefit.

peejay

I just wish someone would answer a simple question -- rationally.

If immigration is so good for our economy, how did Britain manage to become one of the wealthiest nations on earth before 1998, when Labour allowed mass immigration to start?

rosie

Daniel, I thought the House of Lords had already formally exposed the folly of believing that an increased population in a finite land leads to greater individual prosperity. Why we needed the House of Lords to point that out, or why Sir Andrew Green had to keep on asserting it in the first place, I can't think. Charles Dodgeson would have appreciated the nonsense that pertained before.

rosie

"If immigration is so good for our economy, how did Britain manage to become one of the wealthiest nations on earth before 1998, when Labour allowed mass immigration to start?" - or before the 1950s when Macmillan started to import cheap labour with no thought for the social harmony of the future.

rosie

After the Black Death living standards rose all over Europe. Why? Because the population fell. Look at San Marino and compare it to Naples.

James Edwards

Please please please .... no more immigration. There will be civil uprisings if this continues unchecked. We are heavily over populated as it is.

Mr Danger 1

Can Wilhelm be banned? Its bad enough that xenophobic loons dominate any immigration topic at the Spectator (and insist on bringing immigration into every single other topic as well) but Wilhelm is an outright Nazi.

daniel maris

Well I find Wilhelm's racism, with its peculiar focus on Africans, disgusting and he probably is an out and out Nazi but who elected Mr Danger 1 to censor posts?

I think free debate is the way you protect and nourish a free society. Part of the problem in the UK is that we haven't had free debate on immigration. No one has been allowed to talk about the downside of mass immigration, the culture clashes, the crime associated with some communities, the introduction of totalitarian ideologies etc.

Immigration involves a number of issues to do with numbers, resources, culture and race. We need free debate on those. If the price of free debate is having Wilhelm wittering on about wace, then so be it.

I think the Spectator might introduce a maximum number of posts per day to control people like Wilhelm who refuse to debate but try to win the argument through swamp-posting.

rosie

Mr Danger, the person who appears on this blog as Wilhelm may or may not be a practising national socialist in real life. Other names may conceal all sorts of varieties of socialists and nationalists. Some may even belong to practising liberals, and, God forbid, closet onservatives. Let's not ban them all. Let's just engage with their points if we think they are worth it.

As for what subjects they consider urgent enough to bring into other discussions, can't the same principle apply?

Mr Danger

I don't think free speech means the right to someone else's platform. Wilhelm can start his own blog and preach racial hatred from there. He adds nothing to the debate we always run the risk of guilt by association if we don't constantly confront his every odious statement. And that's exactly what trolls like him want - to get attention. So its lose-lose.