Dave’s wrong choice of words on immigration

I have been mulling over Dave’s Newsnight performance, which was mostly very impressive. I think, however, that his choice of words on immigration was a mistake. The problem with suggesting that there is an acceptable quantum of immigrants, however politely that proposition is expressed, is that it chimes with all that is worst in the party’s history of coping with this thorniest of issues. From the extreme of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” ,via Margaret Thatcher’s use of the word “swamped” and William Hague’s “foreign land” speech, to Michael Howard getting tied in knots at the last election saying that Parliament should set a ceiling on the number of immigrants, this approach pins the Tory Party to the idea that immigration is toxic if taken in too high a dose. This, in turn, revives people’s suspicions that the party is inherently, ineradicably xenophobic: an unfair suspicion, no doubt, but a deeply damaging one nonetheless. 

I don’t think Cameron has a bigoted cell in his body – indeed, no Tory leader has done more to raise the profile of ethnic minorities in his party and to embrace the reality of our modern, diverse country.