Tabloid-speak on immigration

A national newspaper is calling for Britain to "keep the floodgates closed", which apparently is tabloid-speak for not letting any more people come here from eastern Europe.

It states:  All mainstream political parties now admit that immigration throughout the early years of this century has been too high.  Much too high.

Really?  I have just checked the websites of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, and the Liberal Democrats, and I have not come across a corresponding statement on any one of them.  Can anyone provide links?

All I can find are platitudes.

As for keeping the floodgates closed, the floodgates have been open for decades.  Anyone who votes Labour or Conservative or Liberal Democrat is voting to keep those floodgates open. If you want to close them, then join a party which offers more than just platitudes.

Do we really need foreign nurses?

The NHS is thinking of recruiting nurses from Portugal.  This is not the first time that Britain has stolen talent from other countries.

I say stolen with good reason.  Many people in Poland struggle to find a builder, because so many Polish builders have gone to live in western Europe. Teachers and nurses who come to Britain from abroad leave vacancies for teachers and nurses in their home countries which are not always easily filled.

Being a nurse is not a hugely difficult job.  On the one hand you might need to administer an injection, but that is only one part of the job.  Nursing work in a hospital often amounts to such things as changing bed linen, helping patients to wash, handing out meal and then clearing away afterwards, and so on.  Is that so difficult?

Florence Nightingale did not have anything like the qualifications expected of nurses today, but she saved the lives of huge numbers of people.

Meanwhile, many young people in Britain go to college to study for degrees which will be of very little use to them, while many older people languish on the dole queues.  Maybe NHS hospitals should recruit our own unemployed as assistant nurses, and let them carry out basic tasks like making beds.  Then over time they could be trained in how to carry out clinical procedures like injecting.

Surely it makes more sense than recruiting nurses from abroad ... or have I missed something?

A reasoned approach to war

I do not habitually reply to comments, but I feel that a lengthy comment concerning British involvement in illegal wars deserves a detailed reply.  The original comment is in purple text, with my responses in black text.

You should explain exactly why you believe Britain entered the war illegally.
No country should ever go to war except defensively.  Britain was not attacked when Germany invaded Belgium, and so entered the war as an aggressor.

It seems to be nonsense both legally and morally to me.

You are welcome to disagree with me, but your own point of view does not bear scrutiny.

Britain had longstanding mutual defence treaties with both Belgium and France when the German army invaded them, depriving them of their liberty and freedom. Quite rightly the British upheld their end of the treaties and responded to the German threat.

Britain had no business having mutual defence treaties with any other countries.  Has it ever occurred to you that treaties are fundamentally undemocratic?  I repeat that Britain was not attacked when Germany invaded Belgium, and so entered the war as an aggressor.  Trying to use treaties to justify an illegal act of aggression is utterly wrong.

The Germans acted illegally, and with arrogance in invading France, and Britain (and Russia) responded rightfully, luckily for the world.

You start by saying that I should explain why I believe Britain entered the war illegally, and yet you regard the German invasion of Belgium as illegal.  Where is your logic?  Germany was wrong to invade Belgium and France, and Britain was wrong to get involved.

The ensuing war cost the lives of an estimated seventeen or maybe eighteen million people either dead or missing, to which can be added more than twenty million people wounded – and yet you dismiss this carnage with the words “luckily for the world”.

The reason Britain is not at war with Syria is because the British are tired of war which doesn't directly involve or require them.

It is a shame that the British were not tired of war which did not directly involve or require them in the summer of 1914.

Furthermore, recent wars have been interferences in civil wars (Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq), which frankly, you can't win. Even if they were involved in a war in Syria, would it be a war WITH Syria?

Evil politicians in this country and the USA would have us believe that we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and bombed Libya (all of which is true), but that we were somehow not actually at war with those countries.

It is easily arguable that not helping the oppressed Syrian people is shameful. Personally I say stay out of it, but the cost of that is massacres, chemical weapons use, torture and civil war for decades.

You want Britain to not to go to war against Syria because you personally say stay out of it.  I too want Britain to stay out of it.  The difference is that my opposition to war against Syria is part of a considered and humane approach to the subject of war which is free from hypocrisy.

This post and its comments are also relevant.

The betrayal of the low paid

A national newspaper is calling for tax cuts aimed at the middle classes.  While I am sure that a lot of middle class people would appreciate a tax cut, it is fair to point out that cutting income tax would make very little difference to the genuinely poor.

At the present time, a working person in this country typically enjoys a personal allowance for income tax of £9,440.  That is roughly the income you would derive from working thirty hours each week at the minimum wage.

Anyone earning less than £9,440 each year has nothing to gain from either an increase in the personal allowance or a cut in the basic rate of income tax.  Likewise, anyone earning less than £12,000 per year has very little to gain from either an increase in the personal allowance or a cut in the basic rate of income tax.

Things that would really benefit people on low incomes would include lower council tax bills and increased tax credit payments.

Ask yourselves two questions.  First, what was the total net income including tax credits of a single person with no dependant children working thirty-five hours each week for the minimum wage in the tax year 2010/2011?  (This was the last tax year in which the present government did not set the rules for taxation.)

Second, what will be the total net income including tax credits of a single person with no dependant children working thirty-five hours each week for the minimum wage in the tax year 2013/2014?

Someone working thirty-five hours each week for the minimum wage in the tax year 2010/2011 received tax credits of nearly forty pounds per week, but in the current tax year they receive less than ten pounds each week.

This shortfall is not made up for by income tax cuts, nor could it be.  It could be made up for by cuts to council tax, but this has not happened.

If you have a Conservative or Liberal Democrat MP, then you might like to ask him (or her) to explain why this reduction in tax credits should not be seen as evidence of a government not caring about working people.

An Indian nationalist speaks out

The David Lean film A Passage To India contains a scene in which an Indian nationalist asks an English college lecturer on what basis England (meaning the United Kingdom) is justified in governing India.

The Englishman, Fielding, replies "Personally I'm out here because I need a job."

The Indian nationalist quite reasonably points out that "Qualified Indians also need a job."

Fielding then replies "I got in first", which is clearly not true.

If I've got it right, the Indian men in this scene are all Urdu speaking Muslims, and therefore might - and I stress might - be descended from people who migrated into India from central Asia in the sixteenth century.  Therefore Fielding's response could have been along the lines of "Then go back to central Asia, and let a real Indian have your job".

Today there are many Indians living in Britain, along with many more from Pakistan and Bangladesh, both of which were once part of India.  Many of them occupy jobs while many native British people are unemployed.

If I were to question an Indian man working in this country about his moral entitlement to be working here, then I suppose I might get a polite reply in the manner of Fielding - or I might get called a racist.

I am aware that many British people live and work overseas.  Whether or not that is acceptable is not for me to decide.  What I am clear about is that I do not object in principle to any citizen of a foreign country speaking out against British people taking their jobs.

Unlike communists, I do actually value free speech.

The story of King Ed

Once upon a time long long ago in a faraway land there lived a king called Ed.  King Ed cared deeply about the people of his country, but he was upset.  He knew that the people loved to eat apples, but they were so expensive.  They commonly sold in supermarkets for between 30p and 50p each, and in independent greengrocers for between 40p and 60p each.

So King Ed took action.  He issued a decree that no one could sell an apple for more than 20p.  He argued that this would allow all of his people, including the very poorest, to eat apples every day.

This is not what happened though.  Independent greengrocers immediately stopped selling apples because they could not afford to lose money by selling them at only 20p. Meanwhile the supermarkets started selling only the very cheapest apples they could find, and even so they could make no profit selling them at only 20p.  Also, a lot of people did not like the cheapest apples, and so did not buy apples at all.

Then people started growing apples in secret, and a black market soon came into being.  The people who sold these apples had to charge more than 20p for each apple in order to cover their costs, but they knew they were breaking the law by doing so.  As a result, they tended to charge a lot more than 20p for each apple, but many people were willing to pay a lot more for apples because they loved eating apples so much.  In fact apples sold on the black market often sold for as much as a pound each, but of course only the better off people could afford to pay a pound each for apples, and so poor people had to go without.

Eventually King Ed realised that he was wrong to cap the price of apples, and he allowed people to charge whatever they wanted for apples.  All of a sudden, the shops were full of apples once again, and the people were overjoyed.  Not one of them ever had to pay as much as a pound for an apple ever again.

Meanwhile in the real world, maybe Ed Miliband might like to rethink his plans to freeze energy prices, and look into the reasons why energy prices are as high as they are.  Maybe instead he would like to pledge to stop throwing public money at wind turbines.  They are very expensive, and produce very little electricity.

Energy sector fat cats

So once again I find myself writing about fat cats.  Today it is reported that Centrica is run by fat cats. Centrica is in the energy industry.

Many people will be wondering why energy company bosses should have big salaries when millions of people are struggling to pay their gas and electric bills.  I have previously written about fat cats, but the energy sector is perhaps worthy of further comment.

I believe that company directors have a duty - and ought to have a legal duty - to ensure that employees and suppliers are paid in good time, that laws are complied with, that the company remains solvent, and that shareholders receive appropriate dividends.  Ordinarily I would be happy for any company which met all of these requirements to pay its directors large salaries.

The energy sector is different, however.  Energy is something which almost all of us consume, and many of us have little control over how much we use.  In cold weather the heating tends to go on.  In theory the existence of a competitive market should help us all to get the lowest prices, but not everyone is good at working out which supplier is the cheapest.  Matters are not helped by the fact that some suppliers seem to derive sadistic pleasure from not being clear about tariffs.

Surely it would make sense for companies in the energy sector to be required by law not to pay large salaries to their directors unless they cut prices at the same time.  Can anyone think of a reason why not?