Del Boy Blair peddles immigration myths
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Del Boy Blair peddles immigration myths
Panda Mon 26 Nov - 9:51
Del Boy Blair peddles immigration myths
Big business support for his new pro-Europe campaign is nothing but naked self-interest, argues Jeff Randall.
Tony Blair: leaving Europe would be a 'disaster' for Britain Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Jeff Randall
6:34AM GMT 26 Nov 2012
372 Comments
Brilliant news for Eurosceptics: Tony Blair will this week wade into the debate over Britain’s membership of the European Union, claiming that our place at the “top table” has never been more important. At a speech in London, he will seek to rally business leaders behind his campaign for a “grand plan” to bolster the EU’s wobbling edifice.
For those hoping that the United Kingdom will cut its losses and wave goodbye to Brussels, it’s hard to think of an intervention more likely to help their cause. Mr Blair still has traction with some foreign bankers, daft enough to pay for his advice, but as far as domestic voters are concerned, he’s the political equivalent of the merchandise in Del Boy’s suitcase. The goods are not just damaged, they are damaged fakes.
For the purpose of brevity, let’s set aside judgment on the former prime minister’s illegal war in Iraq and focus on his clammy desire to dilute British sovereignty. Had Mr Blair got his way, sterling would have been scrapped and Britain rammed into the eurozone. Undeterred by the euro crisis, he is still urging ministers to keep open the option of joining, describing the possibility of our future participation as an “interesting choice”.
Then there is his record on EU immigration. It was Mr Blair who opened the door in 2004 to workers from accession states, insisting that the impact on our jobs market and social infrastructure would be minimal. Those who challenged this orthodoxy were condemned as racists and bigots.
As John Denham, Labour’s former business secretary, later admitted, we were told to expect 15,000 migrants a year from the new EU states, and “15,000 came to Southampton alone”. In the event, more than 700,000 East Europeans arrived in Britain and the vast majority have stayed.
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The myth peddled by Blair’s acolytes – that high levels of immigration generated significant economic benefits for the existing UK population – was demolished in 2008 by a House of Lords select committee. It concluded: “We do not support the general claims that net immigration is indispensable to fill labour and skills shortages. Such claims are analytically weak and provide insufficient reason for promoting net immigration.” Reinforcing this point, the government’s Migration Advisory Committee recently confirmed that immigrants do “displace” some British workers – ie, take their jobs, most likely those at the bottom end of the pay ladder.
Embarrassed by indisputable evidence that Blair’s immigration wheeze (about 80 per cent of first-generation immigrants vote Labour) had “costs as well as benefits”, Ed Miliband now accepts that his party overlooked those who were being squeezed and was too quick to tell them to “like it or lump it”.
Overcoming Blair’s legacy is tougher than it seems, however, as we saw last week when a Labour council removed children from a home in Rotherham simply because the foster parents were members of Ukip. It is the mindset of Animal Farm: “All Immigration Good. All Opposition Bad”.
So what possesses Business for New Europe, the group hosting Blair this week, to align itself with such a discredited ambassador for the erosion of Britain’s independence? Is it anything more than a cynical assessment that all publicity is good publicity and that Blair guarantees headlines?
The answer is that big business has always been prepared to dress up grubby self-reward in the haute couture of national interest – and is at it again. At the CBI’s annual conference last week, its president, Sir Roger Carr, banged on about Europe being “the bedrock of our international trade” and about the need to extol “the virtues of future engagement”.
What he did not mention is that Britain’s annual net contribution to the European Union’s budget is more than £10 billion (equal to 25 per cent of our expenditure on defence). All to be in a club with which we have a monthly trading deficit of £4 billion-plus. With its sales to the UK worth £16 billion a month, why would the EU stop trading with us if we were to withdraw?
For Sir Roger and others like him, who run multinational corporations with brigades of advisers to handle Brussels directives, there are clear advantages to being part of a borderless EU, not least access to a pool of educated young people whose presence in Britain helps suppress local wage rates.
It’s a different story, however, for start-ups. The Federation of Small Business says: “Small businesses are often hampered by EU legislation. The flow of regulation on employment [and] environmental issues, as well as health and safety, can discourage businesses from expanding. It can even contribute to their closure.”
The CBI cannot have it both ways. It calls for the Government to help create a better skilled British workforce, yet there is no incentive for UK companies to invest in indigenous staff and train them properly if they have the alternative of hiring foreigners whose schooling has been funded by somebody else.
The impact of immigration on those living in Cotswolds manor houses is, clearly, not the same as it is on minimum-wage workers in Barking council flats. Tony Blair knows that, but could not care less.
'Jeff Randall Live’ is broadcast Monday-Thursday at 7pm on Sky News
Tony Blair
In Tony Blair
Tony Blair: I could cash in more than I do
Blair at the Iraq Inquiry
Iraq timeline in pictures
Tony Blair: A Journey - the cast
Thirteen years of Labour
Big business support for his new pro-Europe campaign is nothing but naked self-interest, argues Jeff Randall.
Tony Blair: leaving Europe would be a 'disaster' for Britain Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Jeff Randall
6:34AM GMT 26 Nov 2012
372 Comments Brilliant news for Eurosceptics: Tony Blair will this week wade into the debate over Britain’s membership of the European Union, claiming that our place at the “top table” has never been more important. At a speech in London, he will seek to rally business leaders behind his campaign for a “grand plan” to bolster the EU’s wobbling edifice.
For those hoping that the United Kingdom will cut its losses and wave goodbye to Brussels, it’s hard to think of an intervention more likely to help their cause. Mr Blair still has traction with some foreign bankers, daft enough to pay for his advice, but as far as domestic voters are concerned, he’s the political equivalent of the merchandise in Del Boy’s suitcase. The goods are not just damaged, they are damaged fakes.
For the purpose of brevity, let’s set aside judgment on the former prime minister’s illegal war in Iraq and focus on his clammy desire to dilute British sovereignty. Had Mr Blair got his way, sterling would have been scrapped and Britain rammed into the eurozone. Undeterred by the euro crisis, he is still urging ministers to keep open the option of joining, describing the possibility of our future participation as an “interesting choice”.
Then there is his record on EU immigration. It was Mr Blair who opened the door in 2004 to workers from accession states, insisting that the impact on our jobs market and social infrastructure would be minimal. Those who challenged this orthodoxy were condemned as racists and bigots.
As John Denham, Labour’s former business secretary, later admitted, we were told to expect 15,000 migrants a year from the new EU states, and “15,000 came to Southampton alone”. In the event, more than 700,000 East Europeans arrived in Britain and the vast majority have stayed.
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The myth peddled by Blair’s acolytes – that high levels of immigration generated significant economic benefits for the existing UK population – was demolished in 2008 by a House of Lords select committee. It concluded: “We do not support the general claims that net immigration is indispensable to fill labour and skills shortages. Such claims are analytically weak and provide insufficient reason for promoting net immigration.” Reinforcing this point, the government’s Migration Advisory Committee recently confirmed that immigrants do “displace” some British workers – ie, take their jobs, most likely those at the bottom end of the pay ladder.
Embarrassed by indisputable evidence that Blair’s immigration wheeze (about 80 per cent of first-generation immigrants vote Labour) had “costs as well as benefits”, Ed Miliband now accepts that his party overlooked those who were being squeezed and was too quick to tell them to “like it or lump it”.
Overcoming Blair’s legacy is tougher than it seems, however, as we saw last week when a Labour council removed children from a home in Rotherham simply because the foster parents were members of Ukip. It is the mindset of Animal Farm: “All Immigration Good. All Opposition Bad”.
So what possesses Business for New Europe, the group hosting Blair this week, to align itself with such a discredited ambassador for the erosion of Britain’s independence? Is it anything more than a cynical assessment that all publicity is good publicity and that Blair guarantees headlines?
The answer is that big business has always been prepared to dress up grubby self-reward in the haute couture of national interest – and is at it again. At the CBI’s annual conference last week, its president, Sir Roger Carr, banged on about Europe being “the bedrock of our international trade” and about the need to extol “the virtues of future engagement”.
What he did not mention is that Britain’s annual net contribution to the European Union’s budget is more than £10 billion (equal to 25 per cent of our expenditure on defence). All to be in a club with which we have a monthly trading deficit of £4 billion-plus. With its sales to the UK worth £16 billion a month, why would the EU stop trading with us if we were to withdraw?
For Sir Roger and others like him, who run multinational corporations with brigades of advisers to handle Brussels directives, there are clear advantages to being part of a borderless EU, not least access to a pool of educated young people whose presence in Britain helps suppress local wage rates.
It’s a different story, however, for start-ups. The Federation of Small Business says: “Small businesses are often hampered by EU legislation. The flow of regulation on employment [and] environmental issues, as well as health and safety, can discourage businesses from expanding. It can even contribute to their closure.”
The CBI cannot have it both ways. It calls for the Government to help create a better skilled British workforce, yet there is no incentive for UK companies to invest in indigenous staff and train them properly if they have the alternative of hiring foreigners whose schooling has been funded by somebody else.
The impact of immigration on those living in Cotswolds manor houses is, clearly, not the same as it is on minimum-wage workers in Barking council flats. Tony Blair knows that, but could not care less.
'Jeff Randall Live’ is broadcast Monday-Thursday at 7pm on Sky News
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Tony Blair
In Tony Blair
Tony Blair: I could cash in more than I do
Blair at the Iraq Inquiry
Iraq timeline in pictures
Tony Blair: A Journey - the cast
Thirteen years of Labour
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Panda- Platinum Poster
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Re: Del Boy Blair peddles immigration myths
tigger Mon 26 Nov - 11:37
I'll read all this later, but I think Anthony Charles Lynton Blair still has his beady eyes on the European Presidency - and what of his first 'lady'. 
http://www.notbornyesterday.org/brownblairsucc2.htm
It's interesting to go back over his career. I find the above quite a balanced account.
http://www.notbornyesterday.org/brownblairsucc2.htm
It's interesting to go back over his career. I find the above quite a balanced account.
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Re: Del Boy Blair peddles immigration myths
Panda Mon 26 Nov - 11:58
Now don't wish that on us tigger, all the more reason for Britain to leave the EU Now.!!!
Seriously now, he was interviewed a few weeks ago on the Andrew Marr show, hair completely Grey (now dark again) and was asked some searching questions , but he showed no embarassmenrt nor took any responsibility , no wonder they call him "Teflon Tony"., the man has no conscience and what has he done to calm the Middle East ?????
I doubt very much if he would be given any Senior position in the EU, a) because Britain has never been very popular in Europe and b) the EU would be aware of Blairs' Machiavellian instincts. How can you respect a Prime Minister who has a Buddy like Peter M , who twice was involved in dodgy dealings, sacked once, reinstated, got a cushy job in Europe and ended up a LORD!!!!!
Seriously now, he was interviewed a few weeks ago on the Andrew Marr show, hair completely Grey (now dark again) and was asked some searching questions , but he showed no embarassmenrt nor took any responsibility , no wonder they call him "Teflon Tony"., the man has no conscience and what has he done to calm the Middle East ?????
I doubt very much if he would be given any Senior position in the EU, a) because Britain has never been very popular in Europe and b) the EU would be aware of Blairs' Machiavellian instincts. How can you respect a Prime Minister who has a Buddy like Peter M , who twice was involved in dodgy dealings, sacked once, reinstated, got a cushy job in Europe and ended up a LORD!!!!!
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Re: Del Boy Blair peddles immigration myths
Panda Mon 26 Nov - 12:20
tigger , I have just been reading the link but it is very long so will read the rest later. Thanks, it is a real eyeopener. I loved this bit " Derry Irvine (Blair's boss in Chambers) regularly referred to him as "the star closest to Uranus".
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Not Born Yesterday - a disclaimer
Guest Mon 26 Nov - 12:23
Just to confirm that I have nothing to do with the Not Born Yesterday blogger!
This is the home page. http://www.notbornyesterday.org/
I love the description of the founder - a fully qualified b*llocks deconstructor.
This is the home page. http://www.notbornyesterday.org/
I love the description of the founder - a fully qualified b*llocks deconstructor.
Guest- Guest
Re: Del Boy Blair peddles immigration myths
Panda Tue 27 Nov - 13:32
Iv'e just finished reading the NBY blog tigger posted, it is very long and maybe ought to be read twice .
============================
============================
The David Kelly affair remains one 'conspiracy' about which even the upright, respectable and doubting majority have severe doubts.
There are very good reasons for suspicion. Here was one man about to potentially screw up the whole Iraq operation; a credible expert with impeccable credentials, the BBC (as the national broadcaster) giving credence to his claims; and a chap who seemed completely unwilling - even when outed by those close to Campbell - to shut up.
A good man to silence, then. But a bad man to kill and make it look like suicide: he had no history of depression, had nowhere near enough pills in his body, and used the most unlikely instrument (a blunt garden fork) to 'commit suicide'.
Therefore an important case to cover up: hence the slapping of a seventy-year gagging order on the case....and a refusal so far to reopen the case.
==============================
What's that saying.....judge a Man by the company he keeps. The McCanns are friendly with Tony Blair (who sent John Buck to PDL within 24 hrs) Gordon Brown who interfered in the PJ's investigation on Madeleine's disappearance, Rebekah Brooks who faces a jail sentence., Brian Kennedy , responsible for the appointment of Metodo 3 and Halligen......both more experienced in money laundering than finding missing children. Clarence Mitchell employed by the Fund from day 1, specifically to manipulate the Press and keep the McCann image squeaky clean. What does all this say about the McCanns.???
Tony Blair has no shame , even now , he still seeks the limelight . For all the money he and Cheryl have accumulated , he was such a skinflint he only donated the Royalties to the British Legion while he pocketed £12 million.
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