03/30/2013
The Open-Borders nation-haters at The Economist have come out with one of their strangest pieces yet.
Titled "A bad day for foreign scroungers," it reports on how Britain’s political class is being dragged towardsimmigration restriction, very much against its will, by ? ugh! ? voters.
The subtitle of the piece is: But a worse one for David Cameron, as the prime minister panders to the xenophobes.
The piece goes downhill from there.
Who are "the xenophobes"? The Economist huffs:
For Phil [one of the constituents of Ben Gummer, a Conservative Member of Parliament], his neighbours and almost every resident of the four Ipswich streets Mr Gummer was canvassing, that is part of the problem. Immigrants, they said, were taking their jobs, their benefits and their children’s future.
So … pretty much everyone, then.
In a poll by YouGov, 69 percent of respondents said they would reduce net immigration to zero.
I suppose some portion of the other 31 percent would like to see immigration much reduced. So, yes, pretty much everyone in Britain is a xenophobe by Economist standards.
This is all very painful for Mr Gummer, The Economist tells us. He was "raised in multi-ethnic London," you see, so "he knows perfectly well that hard-working immigrants are culturally enriching and a necessary boon to Britain’s economy."
That’s like saying that Al Gore was "raised in multi-ethnic Washington, D.C." Gummer was actually raised in the tony suburb of Ealing, west London, in the late 1970s-early 1980s.
As I happens, I too lived in Ealing at that time and knew the place well. Vibrant? Not exactly. Gummer’s father is an old political warhorse, a member of the Margaret Thatcher and John Major cabinets. He is now in the House of Lords.
As for immigrants being "a necessary boon to Britain’s economy," here’s where that economy is after decades of uncontrolled immigration:
More than 1,400 desperate job hunters have applied for just 14 jobs at a cash-strapped police forcehighlighting the chronic employment crisis sweeping Britain.
Staffordshire Police have been deluged with prospective candidates after they announced they were recruiting 14 officers for the first time in three years.
Staff have sent out a staggering 1,466 application packs to people who replied to the force’s advert for roles.
[1,400 desperate job seekers apply for just 14 police officer roles, Daily Mail, March 29, 2013.]
What about that Economist subtitle, though? Why was this a "bad day" for Prime Minister David Cameron?
Well, because über-elitist Cameron is being forced by what The Economist winces at as "narrow electoral calculus" to pretend he has a clue what’s going on in the minds of those 69 percent of the electorate. What on earth is the matter with them? Don’t they KNOW how "culturally enriching" mass immigration is?
Dave "delivered a populist speech on immigration," The Economist tells us, but "it was a wooden performance by Mr Cameron’s actorly standards."
Of course it was. Cameron’s heart wasn’t in it. To the primped, pampered, sheltered elites of Britain’s political class, the lives of ordinary citizens might as well be happening in the Andaman Islands. He was delivering his speech in a foreign language he does not know well.
Meanwhile, in a different town …
… a crowd of UKIP [the United Kingdom Independence Party] supporters had gathered to hear the party’s jackanapes leader, Nigel Farage. "We’re in politics because we believe something has gone fundamentally wrong with our country!" he declared, to raucous applause, before describing immigration’s lead part in that. He is wrong and perhaps dangerous. Yet no other British politician can make his case half so well.
[Ukip urges Brits to withdraw their money from Spanish banks, by Robert Watts, Telegraph, 23 Match 2013. My emphasis.]
Perhaps because the other British politicians don’t have a case half so good?
Note that sly insertion of "perhaps dangerous." Nigel Farage might seem like a nice enough chap, but inside those bespoke Lobb loafers are a pair of cloven hooves. Elect him, and pretty soon there'll be mobs in the streets looting and burning. Oh, wait …
You really have to read the Economist piece all through to get the full flavor of it. I have rarely seen elite contempt for hoi polloi so brazenly expressed.
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