BBC biased on immigration

I have just watched the BBC 10 o'clock news, and it discussed immigration, and specifically how much was immigration from the EU and how much was from outside of the EU.

They then picked 2008, when the economy was beginning to suffer and based there report on that.

That was disingenuous in the extreme. The fact is that between 1997 and 2007 three quarters of of net inward migration has been from outside of the EU, not, as the BBC said from inside. The BBC simply cherry picked the year.

Burning our money has this.

Gordon Brown calls Labour voter a bigot!

Gordon Brown called Labour voter Gillian Duffy a bigot after a very smiley type of conversation, because one of the subjects she raised was immigration.

What gets me about this is that he did not disagree with her on camera but insulted her behind her back.

You can see the original video here, her response here, and Gordon's apology here, though what I suspect he is apologising for is not calling her a bigot but being caught.

A lot of people are worried about immigration, and whilst Labour talk tough on immigration they clearly think people who are concerned about it are bigots. It is not bigoted to be concerned about immigration.

Iain Dale has this.

Less UK born people in work now than in 1997?

It is, it has to be said quite some claim. That is that there are less British born people in work in the private sector now than there were in 1997.

All those jobs that were created went to foreign born workers apparently.

Fraser Nelson of the Spectator has this preliminary article and this one with more detail.

The implications are of course staggering. I have always thought that the Brown boom was built on hideous amounts of debt and immigration. What is more of a concern is that worklessness amongst those born in the UK has stayed at around 5 million and is now set to climb. We simply have not addressed that issue for over 12 years.

Now we need to.

Michael Savage and the banned list

Apparently Jacqui Smith, the alleged Home Secretary has published a list of people who are banned from coming to this country, including Michael Savage, the American "shock jock".

It has to be said that under the provisions of the 1971 Immigration act as originally passed into law does allow the Home Secretary to ban people from this country (though it makes no comment on one so hopeless as Jacqui Smith) on the basis that the Home Secretary feels their presence is not conducive to the public good.

So all's well then?

No.

Firstly its a publicity stunt by the government because it can't get hold of the news agenda, though to be fair it has backfired in spectacular fashion.

Secondly, we have never before felt the need to ban people from coming here who do not appear to have any current plans to come here.

Thirdly, this is not exactly an exhaustive list is it? It does not include, by way of glaring example, Osama Bin Laden, nor Sheik Hassan Nassralla. Nor indeed Avigdor Lieberman.

In short, it is a pointless publicity stunt by the person who wishes she could be Home Secretary, but alas is not now, nor ever was up to the job, Jacqui Smith.

The BBC has this and this on Michael Savage suing.

Labour's Immigration case destroyed?

Todays papers carry news of a report due to be published later today from the Lords Economic Affairs Committee, which seems to attack Labour's case for the mass immigration we have had in the last 11 years.

Needless to say the Guardian has an article which is more positive for immigration than the article in the Daily Mail, whilst the Times seems to find some kind of middle ground.

The bullet points are these:

• The £6 billion a year to the economy measure is irrelevant.
• People already here who are low earners are under pressure.
  
• Those who benefit are employers, immigrants and the higher paid.

They recommend a limit on non EU immigration to reduce net immigration.

The thing is I can't see that this tells us anything new. Still it does make it harder for Labour to ignore

4 out of 5 of new jobs go to migrants?

That is the headline on the front of this mornings Daily Mail.

This harks back to the scandal in October when the Tan, Peter Hain also incidentally Secretary of State at the Department of Work and Pensions claimed that of the 2.1 million jobs he claimed had been created since 1997 only 800,000 had gone to migrants. This figure was found to be wrong and went up to 1.1 million and then 1.5 million whilst in turn the number of jobs claimed seems to have dropped to 1.7 million. Even the alleged Home Secretary Jacqui Smith managed to get embroiled in the scandal with her own dodgy figures.

David Davies has said this makes a mockery of "British jobs for British workers" as clearly this has not been the case, as well as being highly illegal.

Frank Field has called for eastern Europeans to be banned from working here. That is understandable, but wrong. You can't remove rights like that once given. However we do need to be much more careful in future.

The political issue here is this though. People will vote on the pound in their pocket at the next election, not the pound in someone else's. That is how they will decide how the economy looks. For all the claims of how the mass immigration of the last 10 years has helped the economy it has done little to make the average man or indeed woman in the street feel better off. Their wages are under more pressure whilst all their costs are rising, including council tax and the cost of housing.

Home Office in even bigger fiasco Shocker!

Its hard to believe it but the Home office is drifting into an even bigger fiasco.

After weeks of discovering that the government had not got a clue about how many immigrants were working in the UK, and had to keep revising their figures, it then emerge that a government agency had cleared up to 5,000 illegal immigrants to work in "security". Well, many of these worked in Whitehall, and what is more damaging is that the Home Office new in August, as did alleged Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, but they were hoping no one else would notice.

Well, The Daily Mail has, and has this story here.

Immigrants: Over here and stealing our Jobs? According to the FT

There is an interesting article in todays FT here, showing that the number of British workers in jobs has fallen by 270,000 whilst the same number of jobs have been created.

This has to be of great concern to politicians, as bluntly put, people vote, and for that, it is people who have the vote, on the money they have in their pocket. Immigrants don't have the vote and those that do are finding life a lot tougher.

Immigration, has government finally notices that there may be a problem?

It seems the government has set up a "commission" called the "Commission on Integration and Cohesion" to look into, well community cohesion and seems to have noticed that the number of migrants coming to a particular area may cause problems.

How nice of them to notice the exceedingly predictable.

If you have 10 people turn up somewhere in a town of 10,000 no one is really going to notice, or care. If you have 100, the same, but if you have new arrivals in the thousands it does cause problems, like housing shortages, strain on public service and a feeling that a community is being taken over. All of these lead to tensions.

The issue with immigration is not that it happens, it is how many and how quickly. This government has presided over record net immigration, and it is causing, or contributing to problems.

The BBC has this.

Margaret Hodge under fire over immigration

It appears that Margaret Hodge is under attack from romantic trots in the Labour and Liberal Democrat party over her remarks on social housing and immigrants.

Firstly when Margaret (and indeed I) are talking about immigrants we are talking about recent arrivals not people who have either been here for years or generations.

Now we have these comments from an article in the Guardian (bastion of romantic Trotskyism) today.

But the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell, who tried to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership last week, said: "This is a deeply reactionary and dangerous statement to make. The issue, however, is not the allocation of housing, but the chancellor's failure to allow affordable house building over the last 10 years - resulting in the present housing crisis."

Well, John does rightly identify the fact that this government has built less social housing than the Conservative government before it. However there are many causes of the current housing crisis and one of those is the increase in number of households, a situation exacerbated by immigration.

Jon Cruddas, MP for Mrs Hodge's neighbour seat of Dagenham, and a deputy leadership candidate, said: "We're in danger of racialising arguments over housing allocation rather than concentrating on the need for greater social housing provision."

The problem here is Jon Cruddas can't see the wood for the trees. This is not a question of race. Poor Jewish families who have been here for generations along with black, Pakistani as well as white are facing similar problems. They can't get housing yet someone who has just arrived in the country can. Race does not play a part in this debate unless someone is trying to close it down.

The Liberal Democrat local government spokesman, Andrew Stunell, said: "There are one-and-a-half million families on the council housing waiting list and the Labour government keeps selling houses off. The first thing to do is start building social housing again, not to blame immigrants for the catastrophic government failure to tackle the issue."

I see. Blame it all on the right to buy. One of the policies which many in Labour including Roy Hattersley now regret ever opposing because they can see the very positive benefits on the ground. The right to buy has transformed many council housing estates and brought hope to them as well as aspiration. It makes me laugh that it is the romantic trots in the Liberal Democrats
have not caught up with the reality that Labour for the most part has.

They do also blame the lack of building social housing under this government which is lower than under the previous Conservative one.

On the bright side from this BBC report, it is clear that Simon Hughes listens to his constituents and despite being a Liberal Democrat is not so much of a romantic old trot that he can't see what is going on. He says:

Lib Dem president, Simon Hughes, whose south-east London constituency recognised that housing allocation was among the biggest causes of racism.

"The worst cause of racial strife and antagonism is when new property is built, social property, and when people who appear to have no link with the community move into it, when other people who may be desperately needing to move, can't get a move",

I have to say I agree. His comments echo mine, and apply equally to some one coming from another part of the country as well as another part of the world. Local people do expect to be higher up the pecking order.

Incedently Hazel Blears also recognises the problem, as you will see from this article in the Times today.

Margaret Hodge on immigration

Margaret Hodge MP for Barking and Industry Minister has a problem, and that is the BNP.

The problem is that people in a community have needs for things like housing. They feel, rightly or wrongly that they end up on the bottom of the list in favour of either asylum seekers or immigrants. This feeling is not without some justification either. For example the housing office in Slough is dealing with Eastern European migrants who are both children and pregnant.

Margaret Hodge's intervention in today's Observer calls for local people to be given priority. I could not agree more.

Firstly if a person wishes to immigrate here it must be on the basis that they will contribute before getting the benefits of living here. That means they must factor in the cost of private housing and schooling if they intend to bring a family. (Where there are reciprocal inter EU arrangements that should not apply). They should not be able to arrive and work on the basis that they can have subsidised housing that allows them to undercut the wages of people already here.

However what I find a little odd about this intervention is that in many places that is how it works already. You can't get on my local authorities housing list unless you have a local connection, as in family. It seems to work differently in Barking which is a gift to the BNP.

Without going off the deep end we do need to take a careful and critical look at immigration. It is not good just looking at the upsides of it, there are downsides as well and those need to be considered when making policy. It is not a completely win win deal.

Labour finally notice impact of immigration on the poor

Liam Byrne, immigration minister at the home office has noticed that large scale mass immigration adversly affects the poor.

How nice of him to notice and indeed say so. It is something that has been observed for a long while by those of us on the right though. Immigration is fine. The problem comes of course when it is too large in scale. The reason for this is the sudden impact it has on a lot of peoples lives. If you work to settle people, get the cooperation and acceptance of host communities and ensure that services are there for all there tends to be less of a problem.

Thing is that has not been done since 1997. Asylum seekers have been "dispersed" and for that you should read dumped, all over the place in some of the poorest parts of the country making existing problems worse whilst adding racial tension as a whole new problem. For what ever reason the resource to deal with the problems has not turned up on the ground.

However economics is frequently used as an argument for immigration. As an argument for bringing in some people with skills, yes I agree, but mass immigration to keep wages down in certain sectors just keeps the poor poor. It also tends to prop up uneconomic businesses that can't pay the staff a living wage. So instead of dealing with those issues so that they can pay a living wage, they just get in cheap Labour from elsewhere to prop them selves up. I can't see the point.

Quite a lot of the immigrants who come here are quite highly qualified, but many still end up doing menial jobs because they pay much better than what ever they did at home. Ultimately this just prices people already hear out of the market place. Particularly those who are entitled to benefits.

The Times has this.

For more on immigration see here.

The Dirt on the Dome

There has been much speculation about the Dome, owned by one Philip Anschutz, and whether or not it would get a licence to operate as a Super Casino. That is not what this is about. In fact it isn't really about Philip Anschutz, or his company AEG which now owns the Dome site.

It is about who is building in the Dome, and should they be?

There is currently much construction going on in the Dome. In fact it is a building site. There are now clear rules about who can and can't work on a building site, for health and safety reasons. All construction staff have to have a Construction Safety skills Certificate, or CSSC, which in theory means that you know that building sites work on 110 Volts not 240, about slip hazards and other safety matters.

These cards have a 7 digit number. When you want to work on a site, you fill in 3 forms giving the 3 digit number, and that is it.

Well, in the Dome, they don't check whether the number is valid or not. You could and many do, just make up a 7 digit number. As long as you use the same number on all the forms, you won't be found out.

This makes the scheme pointless. What is worse is that most construction sites in London seem to work the same way. So the labour in the construction industry could well be untrained and unskilled, but worse still dangerous.

not all building companies work this way, some do check the numbers given, and obviously reject those without the valid paper work. The problem is of course that then they have to pay more for their workforce, as they can't rely on cheap foreign workers with no paper work.

It seems that there are a lot of Eastern Europeans working in construction in London at the moment and they are pricing many of the local workforce out of a job. Fine as far as it goes, but they are not just from the EU. They are also from places like Russia or Albania and clearly have no intrinsic right to work here. They can get away with it because no one bothers to check their paper work.

Update 20:50

I now understand that there are frequent raids by immigration officers at Greenwich station, in fact on average twice a month once every two months! (sorry for the original inaccuracy)

I wonder if it has ever occurred to the immigration officers to wonder where these people are going, after all there are not that many new and large employers in the area.

The plot thickens. I wonder if any one has told Philip Anschutz yet? I know his people know!

Immigration, Reid promises more action

Regrettably not of it sensible. The bullet points of the announcement are these (from the BBC here):

• 'Watch list' of people not entitled to public services
• Enforcement teams to track down bosses employing illegal workers
• Compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals
• Text alerts for people overstaying visas
• Possible £20,000 fines for landlords housing illegal immigrants
• Pilot schemes to use ID card data to ensure migrants pay for NHS care

Dealing with those in turn, the watch list assumes you know who these people are and that there is a record of them. In which case can we have the number of illegal immigrants who we know about? In practice we don't know who they all are.

Enforcement teams to track down bosses who employ illegal workers? Nice idea, though asking sure the DWP doesn't hand out National Insurance numbers with cornflakes would help. That said, clearly the IND does not have a combination of the right resource or leadership to do the job.

Compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals? Fantastic! So if they have no ID card does that mean they are not a foreign national? How is anyone supposed to tell?

Text alerts for people overstaying visas. You do have to laugh. That said I could not put it better than Damian Green the shadow immigration minister who said: "The idea that you are texting someone, saying that we are on your trail is just a joke. Do they have the mobile numbers of more than half a million illegal immigrants? No of course they don't." The thing is though, if someone comes here legally on a visa, and it runs out in 6 months, and you have their mobile phone number, how are you going to know they have not left the country on time? The borders are not watched, we don't know who has left the country. So we could end up sending harassing text messages to someone who has done nothing wrong!

Possible £20,000 fines for landlords housing illegal immigrants. I see. So when the police catch an illegal immigrant they can let them go, because the Immigration and Nationality Directorate can't deal with them, but private landlords have to become unpaid members of the IND. Brilliant! (See here and here)

Pilot schemes to use ID card data to ensure migrants pay for NHS care? I see. So we stop health tourism? Fine as far as it goes, but only if you have a clue who has a right to be here and who hasn't.

No matter what your view of immigration is, whether you think there is too much or too little, whether you think we should have the free movement of labour or not illegal immigration is bad. It undermines public confidence in the system and brings the law into disrepute. Not only that but it makes life much more difficult for legal immigrants.

The fact is that we do not need any new laws, nor do we need draconian measures. We just need to deal with the illegal immigrants the police already catch on a regular basis. This is nothing other than cheap headline grabbing rhetoric, and as Nick Clegg said: "If tough rhetoric and gimmicks were enough to sort out our immigration system, we would have the best in the world."

For more on immigration see here.

Illegal Immigration, Police not interested

It seems that is the view of NCP, the UK's largest provider of traffic wardens, giving evidence to MP's.

You can read the BBC report here.

This won't be news to long time readers of this blog, as I posted this article back in October of last year.

The real problem is not that the police are not interested, they are, but they are almost always told to release illegal immigrants by immigration staff who do not seem to have the staff to deal with them. So they are released on bail, even if they have previously absconded.

It also appears that their are parts of some cities in which illegal immigrants congregate and find easy access to false documents. Now there is a surprise!

NCP executive Gordon McLardy then goes on to sing the praises of biometric ID to solve the problem of illegal working. Is he a Labour donor? You do have to ask!

There is no great problem for scrupulous employers to identify illegal immigrants and there are clear guidelines set out which show what documents to look for. It would help though if the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) didn't hand out national Insurance Numbers to people it knew were illegal immigrants as this would provide a great help. (They were shown to have handed out 3,300 in 2004/ to people THEY knew were illegal immigrants, see here.)

McLardy also laughably suggests some sort of database to solve the problem. It won't.

The fact is that illegal immigrants get work because there are unscrupulous employers about, some of them illegal themselves who are not interested in the law. Burdening scrupulous employers with more red tape won't help when the Immigration and Nationality directorate appear uninterested in doing anything about illegal immigrants who have already been caught.

I will have more on illegal working in the Dome later.

Fisking the Queen's Speech

The full text of the Queen's speech can be found on the BBC's website here.

"My lords and members of the House of Commons, my government will pursue policies aimed at meeting the challenges which the United Kingdom faces at home and abroad."

Fair enough.

"A stable economy is the foundation of a fair and prosperous society. My government will continue to maintain low inflation, sound public finances and high employment."

You jest surely? Inflation is on the up or rather the RPI is, the governments fiddle figures are a little down but higher than target, Gordon Brown is borrowing hand over fist and ahead of projections, whilst we have had continuous growth since 1992, and whilst employment may be high, unemployment continues to rise which begs the question, who is getting all the jobs? On top of this interest rates are up, which is not going to reduce unemployment.

"At the heart of my government's programme will be further action to provide strong, secure and stable communities, and to address the threat of terrorism.

My government will put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, support the police and all those responsible for the public's safety, and proceed with the development of ID cards."

Victims at the heart of the Criminal Justice system? We heard similar in the 2002 Queen's Speech, so you would hope that was job done, no? But what have ID cards got to do with public safety? Are they going to be bullet proof?

"A bill will be brought forward for the next stage of reform of the criminal justice system, giving the police and probation services new powers to protect the public from violent offenders and anti-social behaviour."

How nice. 63 Acts on the subject in 9 years and we need more? You just cannot be serious? What have you done with the rest of them? We get more legislation on this subject in 1 year with this lot than in the previous 50. Quite a lot goes unenforced, gets repealed or is unworkable. How about "My government will tidy up the laws it has already passed and enforce some of them?

"Legislation will be introduced to improve the way that offenders are managed and supervised."

You need legislation to tell your civil servants what to do? Priceless.

"Measures will be brought forward to give law enforcement agencies new powers to combat serious and organised crime."

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 no good then? I have to agree that the lot that passed that bill were useless so you may be right. Oh no! Hang on a minute, that was from the 2004 Queen's speech. You can't accuse this Government for not doing it's bit for recycling.

"A bill will be introduced to provide the immigration service with further powers to police the country's borders, tackle immigration crime, and to make it easier to deport those who break the law."

They don't need any more powers, they need the resource to enforce the ones they have. As for deporting criminals, the Home Secretary has the power under the 1971 Immigration Act can exclude any foreign national on the grounds of the public good. In short there are powers a plenty. It is a resource issue.

"A bill will be introduced to provide for trials without a jury in serious fraud cases."

The Americans can try the Enron case, one of the most costly and complex frauds with a jury in a timely fashion, but you want to rid us of basic constitutional protection because you can't organise a court case? Brilliant!

"Legislation will be brought forward to improve the administration of justice by reforming the tribunal system, the qualifications for judicial appointment and the enforcement of judgments."

Hmm.. We have seen this sort of thing before, for example in the Access to Justice Act 1999. I will have to wait to see what exactly it is that they propose.

"My government will publish a bill on climate change as part of its policy to protect the environment, consistent with the need to secure long-term energy supplies."

Jolly good. Shame about the record. It is after all worse than the previous Conservative Government. Let us see how it pans out.

"My government will continue its investment in, and reforms of, the public services in order to improve further their effectiveness and to help the most vulnerable members of society."

Don't mention the hospital closures, I did, but I think I got away with it. Or indeed the lay offs, IT fiasco's, golly gosh there is so much to say on how money has just been tipped down the drain it is not true.

"My government will take forward legislation to reform the welfare system, and to reduce poverty."

Any chance of getting tax credits working properly so I don't get letters like this? Or indeed two contradictory letters in the same day?

"A bill will be introduced to improve the system of child support."

Yet another attempt to fix the CSA?

"A bill will be introduced providing for long-term reform of pensions."

Can't argue with that level of detail.

"Legislation will provide for free off-peak local bus travel for pensioners and disabled people."

Don't they already get this?

"My government's programme of educational reform will continue to raise standards in schools to help all children achieve their full potential."

Will it now? University lecturers and employers remain to be convinced that school leavers can read or write properly, which is understandable, especially when you hear stories like this or this.

"A bill will be introduced to reform the further education system so that it can better equip people with the skills that they and the economy need."

Is that an end to media studies then? See above. Lets start with being able to read and write like everyone else.

"My government will carry through the modernisation of healthcare based on the founding principles of the National Health Service."

Principles? Tony Blair? Now that would be new. Any chance West Sussex can keep its last remaining major hospital?

"A bill will be introduced to provide a better framework for treating people with mental disorders."

I see. So what happened to similar proposals in the 2004 and 2005 Queen's Speeches then?

"Draft proposals will be published to reform the regulation of human embryology.

A draft bill will be published to tackle road congestion and to improve public transport.

My government will publish proposals to reform the planning system."

Difficult to argue with this level of detail. Of course John "two jags" Prescot did have a ten year plan on transport and congestion reduction has featured in the 1999 and 1998 Queen's speech.

I wonder what they think is wrong with the HFEA or the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, but no doubt we will find out.

I suspect the planning system reform will be controversial in some quarters as it is already the case that a Councilor who has a published view or indeed was elected upon some position on a planning issue can't vote on it. I suspect the reform means make it easier to concrete over land and objectors.

"Legislation will provide for improved arrangements for consumer advocacy and for the regulation of estate agents."

Fair enough. We will see what they come up with. After all Home Information Packs have gone down a storm. Right Move were particularly impressed.

"My government will also continue its programme of reform to provide institutions that better serve a modern democracy. It will work to build a consensus on reform of the House of Lords and will bring forward proposals."

Cash for Peerages anyone?

"Bills will provide for reform of local government and enhanced powers for the Mayor and Assembly for London.

Legislation will be introduced to create an independent board to enhance confidence in government statistics."

We will have to see on that.

"Members of the House of Commons. Estimates for the public services will be laid before you."

If they are as good as Gordon Brown's long term borrowing predictions don't bother. I'll get a mates telephone number, multiply it by my own double it then add a random number.

"My lords and members of the House of Commons. My government will work closely with the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales."

That's going to be fun after next May's elections!

"My government will work towards the restoration of devolution in Northern Ireland, including by bringing forward legislation."

Good luck. Give my regards to Dr. No!

"The Duke of Edinburgh and I look forward to our State Visit to the United States of America in May 2007 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement.

We also look forward to receiving the President of Ghana and Mrs Kufuor."

Can't argue with that.

"My government remains committed to peace in the Middle East. It will continue
to work to find a lasting settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, to support the new Iraqi government in its efforts to build an enduring constitutional settlement, and to assist the government of Afghanistan."

Would have been nice to have a plan for peace in Iraq. Would have stopped Iraq becoming such a mess.

"My government will work with the United Nations and European Union partners to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including addressing international concerns over North Korea and Iran, and to promote good governance.

My government will continue to work to build an effective and globally competitive European Union and will also work to strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

My government will contribute to a modern and inclusive United Nations and will work to take forward the World Trade Organisation Doha talks.

My government will continue its focus on Africa, including by seeking a resolution to the crisis in Darfur. I look forward to visiting Kampala next year for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

My government will work to foster a strong partnership between Europe and the United States of America in order to meet these objectives."

Sounds 'nice'.

"Other measures will be laid before you."

I have no doubt.

"My Lords and Members of the House of Commons: I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels."

With this lot in charge I pray as well.

That Queen's speech in full

My Government will bring forth more hair brained schemes and laws which make Ghengis Khan look like a liberal.

My government will try to hood wink the population into voting for them by passing more laws on things like immigration when they clearly can't be arsed to enforce the ones we have got. Any questioning of their position will be lambasted as "soft on crime" despite the said laws being a combination of over authoritarian, unworkable, and in many case will be shortly be repealed when no one is looking.

You can read the BBC's article here, and the text here.

We need tougher immigration laws! Apparently

I have just heard John Reid talking rubbish on Channel 4 news tonight. He seemed to be saying that the problems with immigration and asylum is that the law is not tough enough.

What?

Does this pratt not know that the law is regularly not enforced (unless there is a headline in it so the government can look tough) as it is, so we don't need new laws, we just need the current ones enforced. I wrote an article on how the police regularly let illegal immigrants go because the IND can't or wont deal with them here.

What worries me most is that through incompetence this bunch keep passing ever more draconian laws which are not enforced unless its news worthy to do so. What happens when some one uses these laws to their full extent.

Of course the reason for passing laws that are "tough" is to look good in the media. It also makes reasonable politicians look bad when they point out how bad some of these laws are. It also keeps parliament busy. After all if they were not passing useless laws they may be scrutinising the executive in a more rigorous way.

The scandal of illegal immigration

The scandal of illegal immigration is not so much what the law is, which is much tougher than it was in 1997, but the acuality.

For example, if a policeman arrests someone (now all offences are arrestable, formerly only those attracting a prison sentence of 2 years or more were), and has reason to believe they are an illegal immigrant there is nothing they can do.

They used to informally check identity against the National Insurance database, now wrongly denied them under the data protection act, (though government now wants to be as profligate with our data as it feels like) from which they could establish a fair case that some one was or was not an illegal immigrant but they can't hold them for more than 24 hours. They may also be in possession of obviously forged identity papers such as an Italian or Spanish driving license.

However this is all irrelevant because unless they can get an expert (currently a 6 month waiting list at the IND) or the aledged country of origins embassy to say it is a forgery there is insufficient evidence.

However even if they have an illegal immigrant, bang to rights, the IND just are not able to take the case on, and the Police have to release them within 24 hours, even if they have absconded from bail before.

And yet the law is so much tougher now, however it is only used now to get good newspaper headlines, and as such is applied in an arbitrary, and fundamentally un British way.

No matter what your view of immigration is, you can't allow illegal immigration. Even if you are in favor of an open door policy, you would not want people here on false papers who may be escaping justice in another liberal democracy.

We have been asked to swallow the most heinous assaults on our constitutional rights because this government would rather look tough by passing more illiberal legislation to solve problems, that they could have solved with the legislation they inherited. The problem can only be dealt with by executive action, not parliamentary action. If ministers can't get a grip with the laws we have they need to resign.

We are being led by idiots. I have said it before, and I have no doubt I will have to say it again.