SubJeff on 30/4/2010 at 00:10
MAYBE IN NEW ZEALAND
Zygoptera on 30/4/2010 at 02:08
ANTI NZ BIGOTRY!!!
:mad::mad::mad:
Muzman on 30/4/2010 at 06:24
I ran into the sentiment a few times when I was over there. Even had a few people saying; the Caribbeans the Subcontinentals, they're alright, y'know they worked and now they've fit in but these days there's wave after wave of human trash washing up in Kent and they come from these crazy countries that are in ruins and they've still got that national pride. They don't want to fit in, they're just using us for new place to put it. Much scarier than all the others.
Uh huh.
It does slightly blow my mind how dumb and lacking in perspective anti-immigration positions tend to be. And in the UK the numbers are high enough to make a case against it based on that alone. But it's almost never what drives it.
(Don't get me started on Australian anti-immigration, aye yie yie. Mostly the same story though; Italians are Greeks are mostly ok now, even the Vietnamese aren't interesting to hate on anymore. But the Lebanese and anyone arriving in a leaky boat? -who amount of no more than one percent of our over all immigrant intake, btw- Trouble. They're not like them others. No sir).
As an aside, it was notable, when I popped in a few year back, that the Asian(of any sort) shopkeeper stereotype was pretty much gone. Go into a petrol station, corner shop or other generic late night eating establishment and you'll get served by somone from Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and so on more often than not. Quite interesting.
Chimpy Chompy on 30/4/2010 at 08:36
Missed the last debate but apparently Clegg spoke of rebuilding industry: ""We have to rediscover our passion for innovation, for building things, not just placing bets on the money markets." Which got my attention! Speaking as a mechanical engineer I'd love to see this country actually do more rather than relying so heavily on a small patch of London for its income.
Matthew on 30/4/2010 at 10:02
Missed it too unfortunately, but apparently Call Me Dave came out looking very well, with Nick Clegg in close second?
Fingernail on 30/4/2010 at 10:21
Still don't like Cameron but he did do better. Clegg was still good although he stumbled in places, seemed to repeat himself (I noticed this especially on housing - and Dimbleby seemed to pick up on it, telling him "you now have a chance to respond, not just repeat yourself..." on the next question) which looked like a result of not being able to think of any other points to make - reminded me very much of making a memory slip whilst playing a piece of music, and for a few seconds you cast around trying to remember what comes next, and then trying to decide what you should do to cover it. Still, it didn't look great. And his suggested amnesty for illegal immigrants will not have played that well with the average voter, even though I think it makes sense.
Brown is Brown, he always seems angry, frustrated and a little awkward - and I noticed he less often referred to the questioners by name as Clegg and Cameron are always so careful to do, just calling them "the questioner". As has also been noted, he didn't look into the camera as much either (although I wonder if that has anything to do with his impaired vision - not being sure exactly where to look).
SD on 30/4/2010 at 13:52
Quote Posted by Fingernail
And his suggested amnesty for illegal immigrants will not have played that well with the average voter, even though I think it makes sense.
Not only does it make sense, but we
already have an amnesty for anyone who can prove they've been here for 14 years or more. Clegg is just proposing to lower that threshold to 10 years. It's not even close to the radical change that his (our) opponents claim it is.
Fingernail on 30/4/2010 at 14:38
That's exactly the kind of clarifying point that he really should have made. I'm also not sure he was clear enough about it being a one-time amnesty. There are times when I feel as if politicians sometimes miss great opportunities to explain these issues, perhaps because they assume that everyone watching already knows more of the details than they do.
Of course you know it, I know it, but a lot of people will just hear "wants to allow illegal immigrants to stay" and leave with that opinion because he didn't go quite far enough in making it absolutely black and white (if you'll excuse the term).
R Soul on 30/4/2010 at 16:17
Quote Posted by SD
but we
already have an amnesty for anyone who can prove they've been here for 14 years or more.
I must admit, I didn't know about that, but it seems clear that an amnesty, whether it's for 10 or 14 years, is going to encourage more illegal immigration. And if someone has managed to live here illegally for 10 or 14 years they may have figured out a way of exploiting the system.
If Clegg were to actually say it was a one off, people wouldn't believe him. They'd wonder what would happen if subsequent immigration controls didn't work. Would there be another amnesty? Would he go all right wing and start deporting people? However it was nice of Clegg to point out that 80% of current immigration is beyond our control. Cameron didn't have an answer for that.
SD on 30/4/2010 at 16:39
Quote Posted by R Soul
it seems clear that an amnesty, whether it's for 10 or 14 years, is going to encourage more illegal immigration.
I don't believe it would. I can't see any reason why it would.
Aren't people who speak English and are willing to work the kind of people we want here anyway? And I'm sure I don't need to explain what hundreds of thousands of extra taxpayers would do for our finances.
Quote Posted by R Soul
And if someone has managed to live here illegally for 10 or 14 years they may have figured out a way of exploiting the system.
They live outside the system, that's the problem. Hundreds of thousands of people who have been here for a decade, living in squalor, not paying any tax and fuelling organised crime. Oh, and even if we wanted to deport them, we don't know where they are.
Quote Posted by R Soul
If Clegg were to actually say it was a one off, people wouldn't believe him.
If Nick Clegg says something, they should believe he is sincere.
I also understand that the focus groups, perhaps surprisingly, didn't like it when Cameron attacked Clegg on immigration.
Quote Posted by R Soul
They'd wonder what would happen if subsequent immigration controls didn't work.
We can start by reinstituting the exit controls that Labour and the Tories abolished. It is ridiculous that we know when people come into the country, but not whether they have left or not.
