Blimey. He's got a beard

[EternalOptimist]

Tony Benn has a beard. I thought it was G.Galloway at first







Get well soon beardy

[Gittins Gal]

Never agreed with a word he said but I respect him as a man of conviction.

Not many of them in politics these days.

We also have him to thank for Concorde.

Innerestingly, he and Enoch Powell were the best of friends.

Who've thunk it?

Talking about chalk and cheese

[vetran]

Interestingly, he and Enoch Powell were the best of friends.

Who've thunk it?

Talking about chalk and cheese

you ever read the 'Tiber' speech?

he cared passionately about the poor and foresaw much of what has come to pass. Much like Tony Benn did.

Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech - Telegraph

In 15 or 20 years, on present trends, there will be in this country three and a half million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants. That is not my figure. That is the official figure given to parliament by the spokesman of the Registrar General's Office.
There is no comparable official figure for the year 2000, but it must be in the region of five to seven million, approximately one-tenth of the whole population, and approaching that of Greater London. Of course, it will not be evenly distributed from Margate to Aberystwyth and from Penzance to Aberdeen. Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population.

Remember this was at a time when the reality we are now used to was not even started so forgive his use of what would now be considered 'racist terms' they were in common use.

And Then There Were None - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

British editions continued to use the work's original title until the 1980s and the first British edition to use the alternative title And Then There Were None appeared in 1985 with a reprint of the 1963 Fontana Paperback

The dislike of renting rooms to non English was common and legal : no dogs,Irish or Blacks was a common sign.

and the term used was an appropriate classical reference

A Don


Whilst I don't agree with some of his views on discrimination which did reflect less enlightened times his view on the dangers of near uncontrolled immigration were spot on.

The natural and rational first question with a nation confronted by such a prospect is to ask: "How can its dimensions be reduced?" Granted it be not wholly preventable, can it be limited, bearing in mind that numbers are of the essence: the significance and consequences of an alien element introduced into a country or population are profoundly different according to whether that element is 1 per cent or 10 per cent.
The answers to the simple and rational question are equally simple and rational: by stopping, or virtually stopping, further inflow, and by promoting the maximum outflow. Both answers are part of the official policy of the Conservative Party.

this is the question most governments have dodged for decades, it still needs an answer before the infighting becomes endemic as it did in Rome when the Tiber (singular) foamed with the blood of both sides.

Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.

He was arguing against the race relations act bringing positive discrimination and ghetto-isation which would lead to open conflict in our streets something Trevor Phillips observed 40 years latter.

Help the white working class or risk surge in far-Right extremists, says equalities chief Trevor Phillips | Mail Online

so should we call that his 'It's dangerous and it's divisive, Poor Honky speech?

do feel free to point out how I'm wrong.

[Gittins Gal]

Some inneresting stuff that I don't have time to read now but will do later

-

I've never bought the leftist view that Enoch Powell was a frothing at the mouth racist.

And yes, I have read the speech in full.

I actually have a signed letter from him thanking my mother for getting so many local signatories to the petition that her local Conservative Club had put together in opposition to the Commonwealth Immigration Act (?).

May as well have a signed letter from Adolf Hitler as far as some of my leftist acquaintances would be concerned.

[Mich the Tester]

you ever .....
do feel free to point out how I'm wrong.

Not so much how you are wrong, but how policy has had unintended effects. In the last 40 years, increasingly in the last 10 years, the UK and the EU have attempted to reduce immigration, for all the reasons you've named. However, it's failing and one reason is that tightening up entry criteria makes circular migration nearly impossible. For example, in NL since the war there have been many Turkish people who came here to work, but in the 1970s it was made much more difficult for them to come; the result was that none of the people who had come here intending to stay temporarily went 'home' afterwards, and they stayed here, then used our largely humane laws to bring their wives and children here (I don't really think you can begrudge people a genuine family reunion).

Now you see, in many societies, particularly in 2nd an 3rd world countries, circular migration (moving somewhere long enough to do a job and make some money and then returning home, in a space of weeks, months or sometimes years) is a normal and culturally accepted phenomemon. Many of those societies have adapted to that and people don't necessarily have a desire to migrate permanently, so imagine if we were to 'open the gates'; perhaps what would happen is more temporary migration and less permanent migration. We can't be sure, but what is quite obvious is that if you make it damned near impossible to get into a wealthy country legally, two things will happen; one, people will find illegal ways in or legal loopholes to get in, and two, people already here won't leave for fear of never being able to come back.

Many of the problems you point to can be traced back to the panic reactions that started in the late 60s and 70s and continue now, where governments responded to public concern with measures that seemed logical but actually were disastrous because they had a 'lock in' effect. Enoch Powell's role was simply warning of potential consequences; I don't think he had a role in the subsequent policy failures; I think he would have been intelligent enough to listen to god scientific arguments even if they contradicted his own instincts.

[vetran]

Many of the problems you point to can be traced back to the panic reactions that started in the late 60s and 70s and continue now, where governments responded to public concern with measures that seemed logical but actually were disastrous because they had a 'lock in' effect. Enoch Powell's role was simply warning of potential consequences; I don't think he had a role in the subsequent policy failures; I think he would have been intelligent enough to listen to god scientific arguments even if they contradicted his own instincts.

totally agree, my opinion of the man, he was trying to get some sensible debate but over stepped the mark and they lynched him for it.

Good & interesting comments. I see what you mean by circular migration and the effects it might have. Not something I think will work where there is a gross disparity of earnings between countries unless the bottom of the population is protected. This is illustrated by the Polish waitresses with BSC's and high grade experience they can earn 5-7 times as much for a much lower grade job.

It is human nature to protect what you have and be afraid of the new, currently this seems to be respected less than cheap labour or supplanting skills training with pre trained people from abroad.

[Flashman]

Not someone I agree with on a lot of things. But a true believer in Parliamentary democracy.

"This huge Commission building in Brussels, in the shape of a cross, is absolutely un-British. I felt as if I were going as a slave to Rome; the whole relationship was wrong. Here was I, an elected man who could be removed, doing a job, and here were these people with more power than I had and no accountability to anybody...My visit confirmed in a practical way all my suspicions that this would be the decapitation of British democracy without any countervailing advantage, and the British people, quite rightly, wouldn't accept it. There is no real benefit for Britain." Diary entry (18 June 1974), quoted from Against the Tide. Diaries 1973-1976


"Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation and the end of our democratically elected Parliament as the supreme law making body in the United Kingdom". Letter to Bristol constituents

"Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no end"
On not attending an EEC meeting in order to attend a Labour rally (12 December, 1975).

It is wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name , as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his,

True aswell really

[BrilloPad]

He was a far finer man than the turncoat traitor Grocer Heath.

Because of Heath we got Thatcher.

The only good thing about DC is who will replace him.

Really sorry to hear about TB - great guy.

[Mich the Tester]

totally agree, my opinion of the man, he was trying to get some sensible debate but over stepped the mark and they lynched him for it.

Good & interesting comments. I see what you mean by circular migration and the effects it might have. Not something I think will work where there is a gross disparity of earnings between countries unless the bottom of the population is protected. This is illustrated by the Polish waitresses with BSC's and high grade experience they can earn 5-7 times as much for a much lower grade job.

It is human nature to protect what you have and be afraid of the new, currently this seems to be respected less than cheap labour or supplanting skills training with pre trained people from abroad.

Indeed, but circular migration only really happens when there's a big disparity in potential earnings (or other things related to quality of life). But you're right; the bottom end of the western labour market looks more and more grim.

But one other advantage of legitimizing circular migration is this; at the moment, many African countries (I know more about Africa than other parts of the turd world so I'll stick to what I know) are experiencing, at the same time, foreign aid to feed people in the country, and rapid economic growth in the cities (10 percent p.a. or more in some places). A lot of the growth is funded by remittances from migrants overseas, largely in the west but also in China and Latin America; indeed, remittances now total over 400 billion dollars per year, and the great thing with them is they form bottom up aid, instead of the top down aid that's failed so dismally in many cases (but aid organisations are learning as they go). Remittances often end up in the hands of the 'matriarch' of a family who will typically use them for sensible stuff like educating the kids, buying a little van and a market stall and so on whereas the men would get plastered on the cheap heineken clones sold all over Africa. So businesses grow and then some even go international, trading with China and Brazil etc. Africans are pretty damned good at trade once they're up and running. After a while our development budgets can be gradually reduced because migrants are slowly taking over the job.

Trouble is, at the moment, the west isn't getting much benefit from this, except for selling humongous amounts of cheap beer in southern Africa, and most of the consumer or business goods people buy with remitted money come from China (we can't hope to sell fridges for 20 quid, new motorbikes for 100 quid or vans for 2000 quid), and of course the businesses are owned locally. Now imagine if you legitimize circular migration, suddenly all sorts of new policy ideas become possible; think for example of conditional tax breaks for sending money back home to your poor family if you also invest an equal sum in education for yourself or in a business here in the west. Obviously, this isn't a fully worked out policy, but an idea as to how western countries can harness immigration to buy into a part of that huge economic growth and potential in the third world. I'm sure there are many other ideas that become possible if only western countries would recognize migration as something quite natural and legitimate which (this is where I agree with you) needs managing, but provides risks AND opportunities. I'd like to see policy that recognizes and deals with the downside while also helping to make the best of the upside; too much of the migration debate is one sided in that respect.