Subscribe to The Spectator
Home > Essays > All

Sunday 27 May 2012

Latest issue

Buy the current issue

Jobs at Telegraph

Rod Liddle Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late

01 July 2009

Rod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP

Even if Gordon Brown were to unpick that legislation, he would be left with a crisis of economic migrants and asylum seekers arriving here with no homes to live in, except in the choked privately rented sector. So he would then have to unpick the Europe-wide human rights legislation which insists that people who arrive from ghastly countries — and almost all asylum seekers arrive from ghastly countries — must not be deported. He would also have to unpick the EU legislation on free movement for economic migrants within the Eurozone — otherwise, on both counts, he would have thousand upon thousand of people camping out in the streets. So it’s just words; he can’t actually do it, because the laws he has created, and those created in Brussels, will not let him.

The rather sinister and strangely named Grant Shapps, the opposition housing spokesman, had it right when he said that by using the word ‘local’ the government was simply attempting to tell us that they understand the frustrations of ordinary people — but they have missed the point. Enabling local councils to give homes, as a priority, to local people requires nothing short of a revolution — a tearing up of the ideology which has governed this country for a quarter of a century and which governs us from Brussels today.

On a related issue — the BNP’s election to the European parliament was greeted with enormous chattering-class dismay and the fear that they might actually gain a Westminster MP next time around. It seems to me more likely that they will suffer the fate of the Green party, which shocked us all by gaining such a large proportion of the popular vote (about 17 per cent) at the 1989 Euro-elections — coincidentally, also a time when the government of the day was seen as being on its last legs. The Greens came nowhere near gaining Westminster representation next time around, but they did find some of their more amorphous policies co-opted by the three main parties as a consequence. Or maybe not policies, just rather vague aspirations. The same thing is happening right now to the British National Party.

More articles from: Rod Liddle | this section

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments Post comment

david

July 2nd, 2009 6:50am Report this comment

Rod the BNP is growing at the expence of Labour the British National party has over the last few years been targeting the white working class male, they haven't started on the middle classes yet and they will. Seats at westminster is not behond possibitity.

Chris

July 2nd, 2009 8:02am Report this comment

This is rubbish on so many levels. Look - please tell your grotty little BNP voting friends that if they want a house the trick is to get a job, save a bit and then get a mortgage. Alternatively houses are available to rent.

Do not sit on your bone idle backside expecting me and the rest of society to give you a heavily subsidised place to live just because you've decided (for no comprehensible reason) that wanting to live near your Mother makes you "local" and therefore deserving.

There is no excuse for voting BNP.

Barry

July 2nd, 2009 8:28am Report this comment

Chris - does this brilliant solution of yours apply to everyone or just the white working class?

And where, exactly, does saving a "bit" get you onto the housing ladder?

Jez

July 2nd, 2009 10:02am Report this comment

Hi Chris,

chill man.

The issue is this maybe;

As the third/undeveloped world becomes less inhabitable due to man made; greed/exploitation/massive incompetance/endemic corruption/miss-management etc, then so more people are goin to try and come to Europe.

More to the point they will want to come to the UK.

This is because the far-left/liberal-left engineers that have made up large decision making percentages in schools, media and most public sectors have (now mainstream common knowledge) piled driven their vision of a de-constructed socialist, equality sought type nightmare on the rest of the nation.

This favours the stranger to the host because the host needs to be taken out of the equation.

Unfortunately they didn’t take Islam into consideration or the 20,000 years of human behavior called tribalism.

So you hard earned tax cash is getting thrown into the bottomless furnaces of trying to get that to work, even 0.01%.

Sarah

July 2nd, 2009 10:40am Report this comment

Well quite, Rod.

It's not just too little too late. It is simply window dressing to pretend the Labour Party cares about the white working class they so bitterly despise.

Anyone with any experience of social housing will know that always at the top of the list is anyone with children.

That's why so many migrants bring their kids over or make themselves pregnant as soon as they can. It's the reason why so many people in social housing breed like rabbits. 'Aha, I had one child and they gave me a flat, have six and I'll have a council house like her down the road' (and we all know how much some of those cost).

The Labour Party knows the kiddy criteria will trump any 'priority for local people'. Smoke and mirrors - it's what they do, remember?

Bill Corr

July 2nd, 2009 10:43am Report this comment

The Westminster electoral system is weighted against the BNP and all other third and fourth parties; otherwise a party with 10% or 15% of the vote would have 64 or parliamentary seats [and so on] but Rod is right in saying that even thoroughly decent Brits hate seeing what Oldhamistan and Blackburnistan have become and all shudder to hear the appalling Shahid Malik M.P. predict a Muslim in Number 10 within thirty years.

McBroon is an uncharismatic Scotsman clutching desperately at straws, hoping this last populist gimmick will salvage the Labour vote. It won't; and the smarter sections of the chattering Left know it. The websites *Harry's Place* and *Socialist Unity* are jammed with "What can be done about the BNP?" weeping and wailing; the suspiciously-well-funded anti-BNP forces are now in overdrive; McBroon was photographed in front of a 'Hope not Hate' bus just before the EuroElection and even the suave Cameron has allied himself with Unite Against Fascism, while opportunistically praising 'Muslim values.' We assume he didn't mean cross-cousin marriage, honour killings and what Yvette Rodley calls 'martyrdom operations' on public transport.

Bill Corr

July 2nd, 2009 11:27am Report this comment

ERRATUM EST:
10% of parliamentary seats is 64 seats, 15% is 96 seats.

One effect of the EuroElections, held on a slight variation on the dHondt PR system, is that our masters / mistresses at Westmisters will detest PR even more tha ever.

Martin

July 2nd, 2009 11:55am Report this comment

Rod - don't stress. No sentient person believes a word Gordon Brown says anymore. Euro referendum, "British jobs for British workers", 10p tax, no cuts in public spending. We all know it's a load of cobblers.

peter

July 2nd, 2009 12:34pm Report this comment

Rod an excellent article , but one wonders how they let you publish this in the Spectator. We all know that there is a co-ordinated anti BNP campaign running in every British newspaper and magazine . What I would really like to know is who organises this and how is the pressure maintained to keep the campaign going?
As for people like your commentator Chris they really seem to live in another world. At present a 10 % deposit is required to purchase a house plus solicitors fees and stamp duty. I wonder how your average worker on take home pay of 16 k p.a is going to afford this deposit/fees of approx 18k ? There is always going to be a need for social housing. Chris sounds rather like Marie Antoinette!
As for the BNP going away, demographics showing the exponential rise in the Muslim population in the UK will indicate that the BNP will actaully grow.

Snowman

July 2nd, 2009 1:01pm Report this comment

You hit the nail spot on, Rod. If only the pseudo-liberal left, drowning in principles that feel good, noble, and admirable, and but are as removed from reality as was the recently deceased black singer whose name escapes me, did abit of thinking, they would welcome a sprinkling of BNP MPs. Their presence would dampen the heat of the boiling anger that has built up over the last few decades, but would do bugger all to the societal engineering projects the deluded left’s so keen on. The impotence of the despised common man would remain, but it would have a voice. I fear that’s not going to happen, and the grand project, inimical to common sense and human nature, and in parts resembling the societal dream of the former communist states, will carry on. At some point, not unlike the Marx inspired polities, it will burst, and the implosion will hurt, I fear.

Mr Green

July 2nd, 2009 1:06pm Report this comment

Rod,

Are you suggesting that Gordon Brown, our glorious leader, actually lied; actually made promises he had no intention of keeping?

Are you suggesting that this man of principle would say anything, if he thought it would win him votes?

I won't hear of it.

Mr Green

July 2nd, 2009 1:17pm Report this comment

My kids have already decided that they are never leaving home and so have no need to worry themselves about the issues of housing - social or otherwise.
Two of them have also decided that their careers will require a degree - paid for by the bank of dad!
Worryingly the one currently taking A'level economics still thinks money grows on trees :o(

KB

July 2nd, 2009 1:43pm Report this comment

I wonder: do they get free housing because they come from ghastly countries, or do they come from ghastly countries because they get free housing?

Sarah

July 2nd, 2009 2:11pm Report this comment

Leo McKinstry gives more reasons why this policy could never be effected:

"This move would be unlawful under a raft of leg islation imposed by the Labour Government, such as the 1998 human Rights Act or the 2000 Race Discrimination Act, which statutorily enshrine the social ists’ contempt for the indige nous population of Britain.

"Moreover, Harriet Harman’s new “equality” Bill requires public bodies to practise overt discrimination in favour of ethnic minorities to overcome “social disadvantage.” The idea that any council or housing association is suddenly about to start favouring locals over migrants is absurd...

"Labour and politically correct officials use all sorts of other devices to deceive the British public over the true nature oftheir treachery. So they are fond of telling us that asylumseekers are “not eligible” for council housing but that state ment is just semantics.

"In truth asylum seekers are given tax payer funded accommodation by the National Asylum Sup port Service (NASS) and the moment their claim is accepted they are entitled to the full raft of state benefits.

"Another favourite trick is to put emphasis on the supposedly limited rights of foreign nationals to state accommodation.

"But, again, this ignores the fact that, in its obsession with promoting multicultural diversity, the Labour Government now dishes out British passports like confetti."

What a little box of tricks they've conjured to make sure they never have to keep to their word!

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/111431/British-houses-for-British-people-More-Labour-lies

Rupert Fotherington-Smythe

July 2nd, 2009 2:15pm Report this comment

Excellent article.

David Short

July 2nd, 2009 3:21pm Report this comment

Don't badmouth Marie-Antoinette. She supposedly said: 'Let them eat cake!'.

If there was no bread, cake (brioche) had to be sold at the same price as bread.

Now, I wonder what would happen if there was no bread and no brioche?

Perhaps a revolution.

david Lovibond

July 2nd, 2009 5:27pm Report this comment

It is never less than astonishing to witness the enthusiasm with which those with avowedly Liberal attitudes try to denigrate or suppress the voices of those who disagree with them.

The BNP may be the voice of despair but it is also the only rational political choice for anyone who objects to fatal impact of mass immigration. This country (which is to say England) is ceasing to exist, other than as a geographical entity, as a result of unprecedented demographic change - effected not least by a burgeoning ‘ethnic minority’ birth rate. We are almost certainly beyond the tipping point at which the English are no longer a national people but merely ‘a section of the white community’. In these circumstances it might be expected that students would protest at the looming fate of an ancient people as vigorously as they once did at the plight of black South Africans or Australian Aborigines. But how much easier to ignore the degraded lives of those sneeringly referred to as the ‘white working class’ who find themselves marooned in towns and cities increasingly colonised by alien cultures? How much softer to despise their own country and her native people, to treat with contempt the traditions, shared history and venerable customs which shaped England and made the English one of the great peoples of the world?

And when, in the face of so much terrible change, the smallest voice of dissent is raised, all these brave and rigorous defenders of the underdog fall upon the BNP and its leadership like wolves on the fold.

England is worth fighting for. If the most gifted and favoured among us will not speak out in defence of all that the English are, it is not to be wondered at that the BNP continues to prosper.

rhory fraser

July 2nd, 2009 5:31pm Report this comment

Of course Gord's got no intention of doing anything to halt or even slow down his deliberate gerrymandering of our electoral system. Immigrants vote Labour, so let's have more of them please, particularly in Barking and Dagenham.

And thankfully, more and more of the electorate are waking up to this. The BNP will get at least one MP in the next election - probably two or three. What we are seeing is the death of old class-based politics and its replacement by race-based politics.

david

July 2nd, 2009 6:24pm Report this comment

Rod like your good self i was also a member of the S.W.P always thought of myself as left-wing, always found it hard to sell the newspaper no one was interested, working class people aren't very interested in Marx,far to busy making ends meet and bringing up the kids.But!!you talk too them about immigration and Islam and the story is very different these two topics have had a massive impact on their lives both very negative will the BNP keep growing you bet it will it's gaining the active support of hard working class people what the party should be doing now is to start to take over all the working class trade union branches they have the numbers that would help the party finances no end. Labour will never win back the white working class vote that's gone forever the BNP if they play the game right they can become a true mass political party politics are becoming very interesting PS JOINED THE BNP LAST YEAR!!

Jez

July 2nd, 2009 9:53pm Report this comment

rhory fraser;

It may actually be culture/religion-ish/tribal based politics like Northern Ireland/ex-Yugoslavia/USSR etc but compacted into a smaller area in comparing the UK to the latter two examples.

If you look at Bradford/Keighley/Halifax;

Two cultures that are completely alien to each other, with different internal runnings but geographically there only a street or two dividing each other.

And that's right now btw.

chrush

July 3rd, 2009 12:36am Report this comment

Delighful to see these clever spinners and weavers of lies finding themselves hemmed in and tied up in knots at every turn They can do nothing but smile and wave as they hope to get us to stick with the pirate ship they took from good labour people of old.
The BNP are more popular than Labour in parts of the North now and when those knuckle scrapers are allowed to flourish under Labour then they really have no right to block the beds any longer.
Harman and the like are due a generation out of office-and they must not be allowed to use their leisure time ennobling themselves and counting their expenses.Air France to the Hague asap!

Julian Fruppapoipepauppioioip

July 3rd, 2009 1:45am Report this comment

When Derek Beackon won, I think, a Council seat in East Ham (east London) in 1993, I, a "Guardian" reader at the time, was outraged, because, well..., but also because there were reports of white working-class skinheads intimidating Asian women outside the ballot box, which, even though I am no longer a "Guardian" reader, I still think is plausible. Derek Beackon won the seat, or election or whatever it was, by seven votes. At the time I was ranting to my white working-class friend - recently sadly deceased due to drink - (I am middle class) - that they should re-eun the election, on the basis that when you shaky TV footage of XXX country's TV tonight there's violence and vote-rigging and if this is a fair country and voyers were intimitated and the margin of victory was seven....

My friend (who worked for Tower Hamlets Council) said I didn't understand, that when a white couple have a family they have one kid but when as Asian couple do so they have SIX.

There's nothing wrong with apportioning services on the basis of need, but it did start me thinking, "Is this indirect discrimination?" I rememebr cica 1976, when the Sex Discrimination Act came to pass, that job ads would appear saying something like "Person wanted to serve in bar/restaurant. Must wear skirt." This was laughed down as an obvious ploy to circumvent the law. So, by the same logic, the locals are right to be miffed.

Totally unrelated point: is the "Dr Macrombie" who sometimes posts here the same one that used to send bizarre messages to the "Oldie" Soapbox, among them "CHEESECAKE!" and "# Which way you goin' Billy~?"

Jeremy Australia

July 3rd, 2009 6:52am Report this comment

The other side of the immigration equation is the push side. Most third world countries are set up to run on a fairly Darwinian basis where too many children are borne for the food supply and population stability is maintained through disease, starvation or war. When the well intenioned West cures the disease and feeds the hungry without altering the culture to provide other population control measures, there is a huge increase of people without a sensible prospect of maintaining themselves through their own efforts. Naturally they look for other places where they can maintain themselves. In this way, the benevolent west is creating a huge source of desparate immigrants at the same time as they force their own populations to accept desparate immigrants no matter what. The inevitable result will be the disappearance either of benevolence or of the west. It is not possible for this rate of societal self-replacement to continue much longer. The west must become more selfish to survive.

John

July 3rd, 2009 9:53am Report this comment

Anyone who receives a state income (benefits or salary inc. the BBC and quangoes) should, as a matter of principle, put their housing into the social housing pot. They should then welcome the 'needs based decison' of the council, move into their charming residence, while continuing to pay rent/mortgage at the previous monthly/weekly rate.

Perry

July 3rd, 2009 10:02am Report this comment

Does logic not dictate that the issue is tackled at source, ie plug the demand for social housing by immigrants by cracking down on immigration, legal or otherwise. This should include fetch marriages which enrich our nation with ignorant medievalists from rural Pakistan.

There are many, including me, who are totally de-sensitized to the plight of "asylum seekers". Send them home.

I know that this makes me a bad person but I really don't care.

Ed

July 3rd, 2009 12:35pm Report this comment

Establishment lies once again . Tottenham [ N.London] was giving Jamaican immigrant maximum points for council housing 40 years ago !! Us [ working as opposed to non-working class] whites had to slum it mate .Insulted by this and tormented by 'race -relations' legislation acts is why we're bitter. To parephrase Lenin it's the left who are fleas on the back of the working people.

CharlieRay15

July 3rd, 2009 1:25pm Report this comment

@ Snowman

Since when was Michael Jackson black? Not since the early 90s at least!

Ben

July 3rd, 2009 1:35pm Report this comment

I can understand why asylum seekers need housing urgently, but why should an economic migrant get housing before a british born person, surely if one comes to a foreign country for monetary gain they make the necessary peovisions to pay for housing and expenses themselves, I know I did.

paulgilboy

July 3rd, 2009 7:48pm Report this comment

Rod if these people are fleeing intolerable conditions, surely they won't be parky about going into private rented accomodation. and if they are the conditions they are fleeing can't be that bad.

Dai

July 3rd, 2009 7:51pm Report this comment

Why bother with 'representatives' that in no way represent us - I mean MP's and councillors. Given the state of current (information) technology, why not go for some form of direct democracy.

We'll end up with an ultimately efficient government because it is responsive to the will of the people - i.e. it will be of the people.

The current various messes simply would not have happened.

Why not just do it?

Jon Livesey

July 3rd, 2009 9:13pm Report this comment

I think people are being a bit simplistic when it comes to the current panic over the BNP.

If you think about it, the "success" of the BNP is on a scale that is no more than mildly embarrassing. For the BNP to become a real force in politics would require a very large number of people who currently very vocally despise them to be converted to their views. Is that likely? Hardly.

So what's all the fuss about really? The fuss over the BNP is being fanned like billy-oh to keep attention away from the success of the UKIP. The UKIP is a threat to the political consensus on a scale that the BNP will never be, so we must be distracted from it. Hence the BNP panic.

Jez

July 3rd, 2009 11:59pm Report this comment

Just been watching Big Brother, due to the missus liking it only.... (honest!)

Tonight they (BB) tried stitching that Marcus guy up in a similar way Jade Goody was- but he nipped it straight in the bud.

To be honest even the utterly out of touch celeb-land liberal voice-over girl lost her direction when she was told by this Marcus chappy to stop it right there.

The rapidly diminishing influence of the liberal-left seems to be the equivilant of a quickly evaporating pond.

Hopefully.

Alicia Monckton

July 4th, 2009 3:37am Report this comment

"everyone knows the truth: that for reasons which are, when you examine them, perfectly logical, incomers get social housing ahead of the indigenous population" ,...can you show the academics behind your "common sense"? How about this lot?

http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/1138584

http://www.policypress.org.uk/page.php?name=simpson

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queue-jumping-immigrants-are-a-myth-says-study-1724453.html

peter

July 4th, 2009 9:38am Report this comment

So Jon believes that UKIP a party with no activists which appears every Euro election as if by magic is a threat! They are a media creation and act as a safety valve for the establishment. I assure you we will not hear from them in the next five years until the next Euro elections.
As for dear Alicia, her sense of feeling for what anyone earning minimum wage is I feel lacking. Migrants get priority often because they have large families and thus score high up the list.

Brian Taylor

July 4th, 2009 4:24pm Report this comment

According to a friend who works in immigration, the first word a lot of newly-arrived immigrants utter as they pass through the entry points is 'house?'

logdon

July 4th, 2009 4:31pm Report this comment

Read The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class by Michael Collins for a bit of honesty here.

He describes a village in Mirpoor in Bangladesh called Little London because of the domination of quite lavish homes built by absentee's living in Tower Hamlets.

Call me old fashioned, but isn't the main criteria of access to council property the financial inability to buy a home?

So in reality those people are using up British public housing stock to subsidise a second property back home in Bangladesh.

If a white working class council house tenant was discovered to own a second home what then? That's the disparity.

The book dwells on this housing anomoly at some length, as does The New East End by Michael Young.

The phenomena of 'white flight' whereby many old working class whites have, not entirely voluntarily, departed to Essex explains why, say Barking is a hotbed of BNP nationalism.

Whole communities, whose roots stretch back for decades, broken up to be replaced by a massive influx, many from the same areas of Pakistan or Bangladesh.

In other words importing replacement ready made population units from outside Britain and because of 'need', ie hordes of children, they easily trump the locals for subsidised housing.

It is quite disgraceful. What other nation would abandon its core population in favour of a dodgy concept called multiculturalism?

OK, Sweden has it's Rossengard suburb of Malmo and Paris the Banleu's but for examples of utter European social failure they top the league.

Crime ridden ghetto's where police cars have to double up to prevent them being torched when officers leave them. Fire engines and ambulances needing police protection. Virtual no go zones like mini caliphates, and it's happening here also.

Visit Bradford, Burnley, Blackburn, Oldham or Aston for an insight.

Between now and ten years down the line a breaking point will erupt. Then what?

And the sorrow of it all is that by a little imagination and forethought it was all so easily avoidable.

Suki

July 5th, 2009 12:48am Report this comment

To the poster who calls themselves 'Alicia Monckton', the government itself has just said it will no longer prioritise incomers is an admission that this is exactly what they have been doing.

As others have set out here - and which you have failed to rebut - it is a policy they will be able to carry on with.

Andrew

July 5th, 2009 2:05pm Report this comment

There is little point appeasing this whingeing lot who will believe what they want to believe, regardless of the truth, as can be seen in links provided by Alicia Monckton.

The fact is, the "non-natives"are the easiest group to concentrate on when the going gets a little rough for those who have little education and prospect no matter the colour of the country they are in. Needless to say this mindless bigotry is not the sole preserve of the dregs and has been creeping up into social conciousness of the middle-class which in turn legitimises what has taken decades for this society to overcome.

Jez

July 5th, 2009 9:10pm Report this comment

Andrew;

"Needless to say this mindless bigotry is not the sole preserve of the dregs and has been creeping up into social conciousness of the middle-class...."

Are we dregs because;

a. our class is lower than yours?

b. we have a different perspective due to the different geography/social situations than yours?

Please elaborate.

I find your blanket prejudice toward one section of the UK population rather interesting to say the least.

You also mention;

"which in turn legitimises what has taken decades for this society to overcome"

Bit of a false flag that one (if you think about it).

The nation exhausted itself through fighting to the death a racist and belligerent Axis until August 1945. Post war there was a need for cheap labour and the commonwealth was seen as a prime resource for this. No planning, just quick a fix. The problem was that the industries that *wanted* this cheap foreign labour were all in terminal decline. Then (and you can almost see the fault line in any historical documentation of the last 70 years), we went global the back end of the 50’s;

Aeronautical development was pulled, the first tentative steps were taken to do a runner from our African responsibilities and we stated to look toward Europe instead of any real home grown investment toward established Industries that had built, sustained and made us able to win two world wars.

This could be because of the Suez debacle- but was more probably because we owed the US so much money.

We then deconstructed everything. Society, Industry, City Centres, built *New Towns* and (as current figures go) imported approximately 7 to 10 million new faces from across the globe from (once it got going) 1950 to 2009- without asking anyone.

Absolutely loads of these have contributed, helped, worked hard and have/are doing us (and them) a great service.

Recently though (Summer 2001 onward) cracks have begun to appear and these have been due to an underlying issue that there has been a massive underestimation in the importance of assimilation – or to be exact, the lack of assimilation.

This has been due to a realisation by most new comers to this country that they do not need to assimilate because they are told our culture is inherently racist/xenophobic/out of touch and needs to change to way of the stranger because their culture’s are superior to ours- by people like you Andrew.

Not only they have been told this, *we* have been told this- and UK society has had to swallow this, on the whole- or you could go to prison.

The first ones to *overcome* this are the ‘dregs’ as you put it. This is because the dregs are the ones who have been in direct contact and are the first ones to want to get out of these multi-cultural urban utopia’s.

It is now creeping ‘up’ (from the dregs) to you in the middle class because of the exploding demographics now pushing out this situations to suburbia.

And that’s an opinion from a ‘dreg’.

Sarah

July 6th, 2009 11:52am Report this comment

Andrew, you say: "regardless of the truth, as can be seen in links provided by Alicia Monckton" - what truth? It is all spin as is now even conceded by the Government.

Why else has it promised not to prioritise immigrants any more is that is not what is has been doing?

The fact that some local government outfit was spinning the government's previous line doesn't make it a 'truth'. Thus is what local government is full of these days: busybody Marxists.

Jez

July 6th, 2009 1:04pm Report this comment

Nail hit squarely;

"Thus is what local government is full of these days: busybody Marxists."

Local government; the last refuge of the uselessly over-educated.

As an opinion only! :))

Andrew

July 6th, 2009 4:30pm Report this comment

Sarah,

Sadly this is a desperate action of a government trying to undo the lies that has for years been spread by the right. They have to "spin" things for a problem that does not exist.

Jez,

My heart bleeds for you, but integration, which many immigrants have done, is quite different from saying new arrivals jump the housing queue, which is itself a falsehood.

Luddite

July 7th, 2009 6:35am Report this comment

The reason people are flocking to the BNP is because they represent what people feel and want.You have in the past used the word "odious" to describe the BNP. Well you could apply that to the crooks and liars from the other parties as well. The people can see for themselves which party will try to right the wrongs raining down on their heads at the moment and have chosen to vote BNP dispite the the vile propoganda. Give us credit. What other choice do we have Green "hippies" Respect "Red Fascist" The Main Stream "Lying spive" SNP/Plaid "dreamworld" The BNP are as one with the true feeling of the British people. Labour is hopelessly out of touch and in terminal decline.Labour may now try to addressed some of the issues housing job opportunities all to little and to late the growing "patriotic vote" will get larger and larger and when the tories fail to deliver sky's the limit!!

Sarah

July 7th, 2009 11:13am Report this comment

Yes, I thought you'd lost the plot, Andrew. Thanks for confirming.

Andrew

July 7th, 2009 11:35am Report this comment

Sarah:

Sorry you can't get the free house you feel you deserve. Try getting a job.

Jez

July 7th, 2009 2:41pm Report this comment

Hi Andrew,

Many immigrants *have* integrated into 21st Century Britain... maybe more some small sectors of the white community.

But Andrew, there is a point where you got to say; that's enough now, thankyou very much.

The whole place is starting to creak under the sheer weight of this influx of people.

Have you ever worked in social housing? Big inner city tower blocks? Urban centres, things like that?

I have. And the local authority money that fund these places are usually a one way transactions.

The Left (you) can't keep a grip of this anymore. The snowball rolling down the side of the mountain- it has gathered such a momentum that it is completely out of control.

You say your heart bleeds for me?

All due respect; same back on you, Andrew.

You have not got a clue mate.

Jez

July 7th, 2009 2:59pm Report this comment

Andrew;

here is a latest news report from China, of all places;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6656359.ece

That bloody thing call Tribalsim *again*.

It get's in the way of this Marxist dogma doesn't it?

Now ask yourself;

After 6o years of one of the most extremely brutal, authoritarian and un-democtratic socialist regimes in modern history, that one group still strongly identifies itself seperate from another?

Same in USSR, Yugoslavia, Ukraine etc.

If you can't destroy national/ethnic religous Identity after all that- then how the hell are you going to assimilate/settle all the people that have come here this past several decades?

You need to *stop immigration* and make the best with what's here now.

Like or lump it Andrew.

McLeod

July 7th, 2009 10:14pm Report this comment

This article is far stronger on opinion than fact.

Most Councils try to balance lettings to 'locals' who've been waiting with those to people in priority; most priority housing cases are families on hard times (of all sorts and for all sorts of reasons). If we want to help families, children need houses. And most rehoused families are 'utterly homeless' locals.

The lack of social housing available (which is what drives the interracial anger about housing) is a complex thing and though migration has an impact, lots of other things do too.

There has been some terrible public policy in immigration and housing, but this does not get near them because Rod doesn't know what he's talking about.

McLeod

July 9th, 2009 8:27am Report this comment

This article is poorly researched. The differences between the experiences of asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants is significant and glossed over here.

There are plenty of people who are both 'local' and 'utterly homeless'. The majority of priority rehousing cases are not 'incomers'.

Councils have for years tried to balance their lettings policies so a proportion of lettings go to people on their general waiting lists.

This sort of opinion piece does little to show where the - substantial - policy failures have been in these areas.

Mototom

August 10th, 2009 12:31am Report this comment

Further to my earlier post I have discovered that in July 09, RL wrote an article for the Spectator about Housing, and the Government's then recent announcement about making it easier for local people to be housed by councils. (A real petit-bourgeois, reactionary, ill-informed article it is too.)In it he wites about the current rules in the following terms: "Second, the policy goes against the government’s own equal rights legislation which insists that local authorities must give priority to the utterly homeless — i.e., people who have just arrived here from a foreign country, rather than those indigenous people who have a place to live already, albeit somewhere which is cramped and unsuitable." Under the Housing Act 1996, Parts vi and vii (this is the legislation that deals with the allocation of housing and duties to the homeless respectively - Conservative legislation at that!), asylum seekers are explicitly excluded from assistance (see section 185).Pots and kettles, pots and kettles

Archie

August 16th, 2009 8:14am Report this comment

Well said, Mr. Liddle! Judging by the later responses here, you rally seem to have rattled a few leftie cages! Well done.

Post comment

Back to top

Cartoons

sponsored links

Spectator recommends

Spectator classifieds

THE PRESENT FINDER

1,700 Unusual Christmas Presents Request Catalogue 01935 815 195 Quote SPEC10 for 10% discount www.presentfinder.co.uk

OLIVE BRANCH FLORISTS

Pimilco based Florist with online ordering Web: www.olivebranch.net Tel: 020 7630 1868 Fax: 020 7233 8844

RUFFS Bespoke Signet rings

62 Shore Road, Warsash, Southampton, SO31 9FT Telephone: 01489 578867 Web site: www.ruffs.co.uk