Archive for category Immigration

Immigration Minister Goes ‘Bononkers’ on the Today Programme

Last October, Andrew Neather, a former speechwriter to several government ministers, claimed in a newspaper article that, in 2000, the present government deliberately sought to increase foreign immigration, partly out of a belief that it would have beneficial economic consequences, and partly to neutralise Conservative concerns about the adverse negative impact foreign immigration was having on social cohesion and national identity.

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Who Might Well Have Good Reason to Want to Put Back the Hands of Time

According to statistics published by the DCSF last week, the group of 11 year olds  doing least well at school in England are white boys of British heritage from low-income homes that render them eligible for free school-meals.  In 2009, while nearly three quarters of 11 year olds met target levels of attainment in English and maths, a figure which includes over half of ‘Black’ boys eligible for free school meals, fewer than half of their white British counterparts did. Moreover, whereas the attainment level of ‘Black’ boys eligible for free school meals increased, that of their white British counterparts fell.

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It is Not Just Family Unity or Income that Determines Childhood Well-Being

Far be it from me to say a bad word about the institution of marriage or the benefits of the two-parent family. However, anyone tempted to hold the vast recent increase of family break-down and single parent families in Britain responsible for the country’s very low place in the European rankings for youth well-being should think again.

Many European countries with appreciably much higher rates of out-of-wedlock births than Britain come much higher than it in those rankings. One other European country, with a much lower rate of out-of-wedlock births than Britain (Lithuania), comes even lower than it does in the rankings.

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It’s time to shelve the Equality Bill

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), an organisation armed to the teeth with legal powers to protect groups that claim to be victims of oppression, recently expressed fears that the recession will not only harm ethnic minorities but also some white people.
“It is clear,” he said, “that what defines disadvantage won’t be black or brown, it will be white. And we will have to take positive action to help some white groups”.
Was he saying that we should help people when they need assistance, regardless of their colour? If so, he was spot on.
Continue at the Daily Telegraph Blog.

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Making Hay While the Sun Didn’t Shine

This year’s annual Hay-on-Wye Festival has just ended. In his column in last week’s Sunday Times, Jeremy Clarkson wrote this about the annual twelve-day jamboree:
‘You might imagine that Hay is a lovely day out for all the family, a chance for children to meet all the authors they love… Of course, it’s no such thing. Mainly it’s a chance for ramblers and hippies to gather in a field and convince themselves everyone thinks the same way that they do.’
continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.

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Rivers of blood – 40 years on

Yesterday, on the anniversary of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech, Trevor Phillips urged us to hold a calm and measured debate about immigration. Despite his good intentions he still managed to malign the British people. On ‘the right’ he said that the issue became taboo because conservatives feared being branded racist. And ‘the left’ thought that a free and open debate would stir up reactionary sentiment among their working-class voters.
Public debate was suppressed, it seems, for purely self-serving political reasons. My recollection of the period since the 1960s is different. The bond that unites British people has never been based on race. It has long been an allegiance rooted in support for shared beliefs and institutions. It is a civic allegiance, symbolised by the Crown, and one of the core beliefs is moral equality. Everyone is not only equal under the law, but also entitled to fair play in any face-to-face dealings.

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