A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.
Whichever poll Rich is waiting for is a long time coming. Like the other two polls at the weekend, ComRes in today's Independent shows the Tories, not Labour, going down in popularity:
posted by Luke Akehurst at 9:48 am
Labour MP for North Durham since 2024. Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012 and since 2020. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Dad. Unite and GMB union member. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.
46 Comments:
You can always depend on the Tories to shoot themselves in the foot just when it was looking so good with Labour getting all the bad news. That slimeball MP Derek Conway should be arrested for theft from the public purse.
10:24 am, January 29, 2008
Yes but look at the detail, a massive 60% of people think Brown isn't doing a good job.
As for Conway, the guy is a crook and should be strung up. But at least he's had the whip removed....which means he's no longer an MP for any political party.
11:35 am, January 29, 2008
Perhaps Gordon brown can learn how to make speeches such as this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Cj1b-rp1E
Or this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22878539
Then perhaps people might actually understand what the hell he'e mumbling about. All I hear is about his vision....what vision....is this his vision for a united britain.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7215081.stm
Do you realise that a poll of American people showed that 90% of Americans think British cities are unsafe....thanks Labour.
12:24 pm, January 29, 2008
I would've thought you'd have been pleased about that, given your views on immigration. Or isn't it American immigrants you're worried about?
12:47 pm, January 29, 2008
The complaint against Conway was brought by Michael Barnbrook, a retired policeman who stood against him as a candidate for the UK Independence Party, and is now a member of the British National Party.
12:49 pm, January 29, 2008
I'm not against immigration at all, it just needs to be controlled. Having a borderless europe is not what I would call controlled.
12:50 pm, January 29, 2008
Having a borderless Europe is inevitable if you have a common market, otherwise how can workers go where the jobs are.
When I was PPC for Castle Point it was extraordinary how many anti-European and anti-immigration voters told me proudly they either already had a second home in Spain or were "moving to Spain to get away from all these foreigners".
Does anyone really think we could go back to the days when citizens of EU countries did not have a right to live in whichever part of the EU they want to?
1:08 pm, January 29, 2008
Luke...Yes. You will be the first to moan when you too have to compete with cheap labout from abroad or your kids won't be able to afford a house because land prices go through the roof.
Don't believe the lies, Europe is there for big business and bigger profits.
Perhaps we can get politicians cheaper from abroad.
Open Europe is a text book theory that can not work, proof is in the figures.
1:28 pm, January 29, 2008
But Luke all the Brits moving to Spain or France will be putting money into the economies of those countries. I bet most leaving are retired people who do not take jobs and are buying new homes over there using local business to do so.
A far cry from the dregs we get coming into the UK economy. We end up feeding, clothing and putting them at the top of the housing lists to the detriment British people and then what about the fact many of these immigrants come with disabilities and disease that are underfunded NHS cannot cope with (the recent rise in AIDS cases is solely beacuse of immigration from sub-saharan Africa)
Immigration must be controlled and it is nor racist to say so.
1:51 pm, January 29, 2008
"Immigration must be controlled and it is nor racist to say so."
Your second paragraph would suggest otherwise.
Or maybe it's just unbelievably ill-informed. Difficult to tell the difference sometimes.
2:05 pm, January 29, 2008
Jackson Jeffrey Jackson, it is you that is badly informed.
Have you not seen the latest crime figures that shows a over one third of crime is being committed by immigrants. Have you not read the report from Mike Fuller who says his force is struggling to cope with an immigrant crime wave.
The lastest girl who was left paralysed after being stabbed 30 times by an EU immigrant. Maybe Gordon would like to explain to the father why this man was allowed into the country.
The truth is we don't vet these people.
We have a slave trade that supplies the sex industry and criminal gangs that relies on immigrants. Again we have no border control.
TB is on the increase for the first time since the 1980s and doctors are blaming immigration. Again we don't medically screen people coming to the UK, because it's an open door policy.
This is all happening under Labour.
3:00 pm, January 29, 2008
Rich, you really do sound like a dribbling alcoholic nutter who shouts about foreigners and immigrants at anyone in the pub who comes near him.
Good luck with finding someone on this blog who has more patience and a higher tolerance of urine-soaked pub bores than I do.
3:13 pm, January 29, 2008
Ah, so all those Polish plumbers and hotel staff are actually criminals and scroungers with AIDS.
Thanks for telling us, Rich, you snivelling little BNP tosser.
3:24 pm, January 29, 2008
"Having a borderless Europe is inevitable if you have a common market, otherwise how can workers go where the jobs are."
Surely the point of a free market is more that the jobs go where the workers are?
It's closed economies which are likely to move out of step, and therefore have a fluctuation in the demand for workers which differs from that of their neighbours.
What you probably can't have is open borders and significantly different welfare states.
4:12 pm, January 29, 2008
'A far cry from the dregs we get coming into the UK economy.'
Actually immigrants ot the UK are more likely to have University degrees than natives.
4:14 pm, January 29, 2008
We are free to travel across to any part of the EU, settle and work there. If my children (when I have them) can't find work here there will be nothing to stop them travelling across europe to work.
Talk to anyone out there, the question of immigration does rise. More often than not they are misinformed as to what is the true scale of the problem. They believe the terror stories of AIDS infected paedophilles coming over here to steal all our jobs and women (or men!).
As the last poster has said immigrants are more likely to have skills our economy needs rather than hangers on. So let us get this debate in proportion and not drag up stories where immigrants are seen to be the scourge of our society. The vast majority are law abiding and hard working.
5:29 pm, January 29, 2008
the polls are all over the post - the tories seem to be more interested in PR prattle than policy platforms, and probably explains why Cameron, albeit a good debater - some have said he engages in mass debates with his etonian chums - does not connect with the majority of the public.
7:53 pm, January 29, 2008
"moving to Spain to get away from all these foreigners".
I admit it. I laughed.
8:32 pm, January 29, 2008
I'm not going to get into the race issue, the point I raised was in response to Mr Jackson. The information I used are hard facts and some of the information has come directly from Mike Fuller, a black Chief Inspector..
The reality is these people are not being vetted, they can't be vetted. We simply don't have the information on these people coming in. Some of the countries these people are coming from don't have records.
If you were to apply to go and live in Australia, you would be vetted. You are required to take a medical and they will investigate your social economic and criminal background.
Did I once say all immigrants are criminals, have I ever said they are scum. What I said was that immigration is pushing up our crime figures and costing us a lot of money. My reply revealed the facts.
Today the BBC has yet another story of maternity wards struggling to cope with immigration / health care tourism.
If the best argument you can come up with is throwing racist accusations around then that is very poor indeed Mike. You can acuse me of being a Nationalist but not a racist, I seek only to protect this country.
What British people want is the right to be represented on Europe and it's borders...we want a referendum and we want it soon. If people vote in favour than that is something I'm willing to accept...but I want the choice and the majority want that choice also.
As for Derek Conway, well he's a crook. It amazes me that someone on benefits can be prosecuted for diddling a few quid yet scum like that get away with it. I think it's fraud...that's my opinion.
12:02 am, January 30, 2008
Well, you're not getting a referendum - and your brand of nationalism is essentially fascism, which is why you peddle the BNP line.
12:43 am, January 30, 2008
So you deny people democracy..a referendum was promised. To deny democracy is true fascism.
That referendum is coming, maybe not under Labour but it's coming. The conservatives are clearly pushing Cameron in that direction and so are the electorate.
1:36 am, January 30, 2008
Rich said ... "The reality is these people are not being vetted, they can't be vetted. We simply don't have the information on these people coming in. Some of the countries these people are coming from don't have records."
What sort of records? There are loads of crooks walking the streets who were born and bred in this country who don't have records either (they've never been caught and prosecuted). Yet there are people who have committed crimes, paid the price and are now contributing positively to society ... yet they DO have records. Rich, it really does sound like you are singing from the BNP songsheet!
"If you were to apply to go and live in Australia, you would be vetted. You are required to take a medical and they will investigate your social economic and criminal background."
Err, Rich, let's assume for one moment that you would pass the "social, economic and criminal background" checks . . . if we all have a whip round, can we pay for a ticket for you to go to Australia (one-way)?
2:20 am, January 30, 2008
3 out of 4 babies born in some parts of London are to foreign mothers, in Slough it is every other baby. The NHS says it needs migrant workers to deal with this unprecedented demand on it's services by immigration. Utter madness!
Solution - Control immigration to sensible levels and the NHS will not need these migrant workers to deal with the boom in migrant births.
Labour must stop supporting the millions of able bodies spongers up north who refuse to work and force them to get back to work and then we wouldn't need record levels of immigration.
9:23 am, January 30, 2008
"I admit it. I laughed."
You think that's funny? I used to work for a bloke who said he goes on holiday to Thailand because the resorts in Spain are too full of Asians these days.
This blog really does seem to bring them out of the woodwork. Filth.
9:41 am, January 30, 2008
Jackson Jeffrey Jackson you public school twit. Why don't you go back to your country pile and count the money your ancestors made out of the slave trade
10:51 am, January 30, 2008
Fantastically bizarre. Keep it coming!
11:05 am, January 30, 2008
Here comes the news, just listen to the BBC. This is a national disgrace.
You should all be very ashamed for supporting this government on this issue.
The government has admitted that they only expected 13,000 immigrants per year...here we are in 2008 with over 600,000 per year.
12:53 pm, January 30, 2008
Good, lets have more immigrants, the more the merrier.
More to the point, though, I Rich going to tell us which firm of his is illegally barring EU applicants from working there?
3:10 pm, January 30, 2008
Immigrants are fantastic value per person - even given the limits of capitalist nation states and their parliamentry front groups.
Work done at the min wage and below essential for the economy and the provision of goods and services - immigrants.
Those who keep the NHS running - immigrants.
Rising house prices - capitalist speculation , usury, extension and overextension of credit etc. 1m plus houses lie idle.
Most council houses, around 90% + go to non immigrants. Occasional 'injustices' wailed about in the press more substanitally the fault of the selling off and failure to renew/replace council housing stock? Why? Becuase of ideological commitments to provide it privately and for profit.
So called 'immigrant crimewave' - the lowest and highest layers of society are responsible for most 'crime' one is the inversion of the other. At one end, capitalists and their lackeys like the labour party, corporate crime, crimes against truth, the environment, the workers etc. At the other end the bottom layer of society, poor and alienated. This is a likely posistion to be inhabited by relatively new immigrants until they can 'move up'. Drugs and crime exist because of the market for drugs combined with their prohibition and the existance of poverty conditioned by the capitalist economy built around expanding portions of money - not human opportunity and wealth.
The reactionary rising in many parts of the country is conditioned in part by the fact that no-one puts these arguments forward. None of the bourgeois parties can, their nature prevents them from more than piecemeal reform, combined with the various posistion of national economies in the world market. Reformism breads Reaction.
3:22 pm, January 30, 2008
"3 out of 4 babies born in some parts of London are to foreign mothers, in Slough it is every other baby."
Sheps, you're an idiot. Most of these aren't new migrants. Many of these mothers have been here for 30 years or more. They're labelled foreign because they were born overseas but have lived here most of their lives.
Many of them are married to British men. What do you want, to deport people who've been here for 30 years and split up families?
Recently I met a man in Lindholme who was due to be deported for one incident of petty theft in Liverpool, as he was judged a foreign criminal. He was a grandparent who had been here for 35 years, worked and paid his taxes. He was from Iran. In the last ten years he had been to Iran once, to collect an inheritance. He was so unaware of Iranian culture that he tried to go outside in t-shirt and shorts. The hotel staff stopped him, telling him if caught he would receive a beating at the hands of the state.
That's the reality of where mass hysteria against immigration gets us.
9:32 pm, January 30, 2008
Tim F
If he's not British and he's committed a crime then no matter how petty he needs deporting. No second chances.
In Iran, they would of chopped his hands off.
Immigration is a huge problem and it worries about 50% of people. So to dismiss it is simply playing the fool. A £350 million maternity bill for immigrants I would say is an important issue.
Perhaps I should stop paying tax if the government fails to listen. Last year I paid over £47,000 in income tax..for it to be wasted. Next time round I might not even bother doing a return and pay a fine of just £3000.00.
10:41 pm, January 30, 2008
maybe gordon is going to pay for it with increase in stealth taxes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VsNTk59exI
There is an £8 billion shortfall as I understand
11:04 pm, January 30, 2008
Rich, I'm less than 35 years old. This particular immigrant therefore spent longer in the UK than me. He spoke with a thick Liverpool accent and was culturally more British than many people I know who have been born here.
People should be treated the same no matter the colour of their skin. If you commit a crime you serve the penalty. If that means prison, it means prison. But to then deport someone after that is punishing them twice.
btw, if as you suggest you don't pay your tax, and then refuse to pay a fine, you'll be thrown in prison. If an immigrant did that they'd be deported at the end of their sentence.
11:07 pm, January 30, 2008
Tim
Why the hell didn't he apply for status having lived here that long? I think in that case common sense should prevail and he should be allowed to stay. But without knowing the full details it's hard to comment.
No one is suggesting that people legally here should be forced to leave. Only dictator would suggest that. What I'm saying is that the open door policy is very damaging and it needs to stop.
This isn't about people, it's about policy and control.
You can't start throwing people out once they are here so that's why it's important to make sure you get the numbers right now. We have to set limits even for people in the EU, otherwise all our services that we all treasure will be under threat.
11:40 pm, January 30, 2008
Kick em out he's Iranian not British simple!
More tax rises on the Horizon 2p in every pound to make up for Darling's Northern Cock up. Under estimate of Olympic Cost and £20 million for a Scotish gaelic TV channel!!! Only 20,000 have some sort of gaelic proficiency
8:50 am, January 31, 2008
There isn't an open door policy. If there were then why would anybody be an illegal immigrant?
12:42 pm, January 31, 2008
Office for National Statistics (ONS)
Live births: Country of origin of of mother
Total outside UK
1996: 83,123
2006 146,956
2:15 pm, January 31, 2008
Is Rich actually British? Judged on his standard of written English one could easily assume he'd only just come off the boat himself!
2:33 pm, January 31, 2008
There is an open door policy within the EU and this is clearly the problem.
Britain is a very unique country in the EU. We have very few laws protecting our workers and our min wage is one of the poorest. So unless we are willing to significantly increase workers rights and wages, then millions more will come to the UK legally in search of work.
Brown has built a very weak economy based on debt and cheap products. Inflation has actually been kept low because we can still get workers to work for the min wage & we now import from countries which use slave labour. The reality is that we are being kept rich by the poorest in society.
I have nothing against people coming to the UK in search of a better life. The blame lies with Labour, they have failed to protect those that are void of power and influence. The people at the bottom of the tree.
It's not just our hospitals that are at risk, it's our schools, our councils and our pockets.
2:42 pm, January 31, 2008
Rich, let me try an argument that might appeal to people of your ilk.
If we withdrew from the EU end chose to regulate which EU citizens could come in and out, and had to negotiate bilateral deals with every country in the EU with variable tariffs and therefore monitor the flow of goods and services between these countries - wouldn't all this result in a massive expansion of bureaucracy stifling small businesses and adding to government costs?
3:11 pm, January 31, 2008
You can't control goods and services in the EU, but to control people should be easy.
They apply for a working visa...simple.
We've exhausted the immigration debate, either you want controls or you don't. You clearly don't.
3:31 pm, January 31, 2008
Look at how Norway is flourishing despite not being in the EU. We could adopt their involvement in the single market via the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement. They also welcome immigrants who now comprise 8.9% of their total population. But the difference with the UK is that Norway has controlled borders. They have high taxes but also a very high standard of living and so only let in certain immigrants not the free for all we operate where people and sex trafficing is rife
4:25 pm, January 31, 2008
All of Rich's last points I completly agree with.
We have one of the worst workers rights in the EU (anti TU laws) and our economy is based on debt and cheap good shipped in from abroad to keep inflation down.
On immigration I don't think you can seriously control the number of EU citizenry coming here to work (in fact in my home town of Aberdeen they ship GPs from Poland to work as mobile docs at night who then return home at the end of their shift). We do need new blood in this country we are an aging nation.
4:32 pm, January 31, 2008
Maybe then the government should seriously think about signing up to the social aspects of our membership to the EU. At the moment Britain has an opt out.
4:55 pm, January 31, 2008
Again I agree with Rich's statement.
Anon has mentioned Norway, which I think is one of the most perfect examples of what a democratic socialist society should be like. His/her observation that the high taxes are paid by norweigians and immigrants alike, so you could say that ideal model in Norway is being propped up by the immigrant workers to that country.
We will all have to rely on tax paying immigrants to keep ourselves warm when we reach pensionable age, so let them work and pay their way.
5:38 pm, January 31, 2008
We do a lot of Geothermal Engineering and installation of ground source heat pumps which is widely accepted as the norm in Norway and Sweden. Most of our engineers are trained in Norway, Germany and Sweden.
The difference with Norway is because they control their borders they have a choice of who the let in. It's very selfish but necessary.
8:55 pm, January 31, 2008
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