Richard Navabi If Baroness Ashton can survive Brussels I am sure Archie Norman can, you don't get to be CEO of one of the UK's largest supermarkets by being a soft touch. He seems far more qualified than most of the EUocracy
Baroness Ashton hasn't exactly shaken things up, has she? She's a bureaucrat, fits in perfectly, achieves nothing.
Archie Norman is certainly not a soft touch, and of course he's perfectly qualified, but that isn't the point. It's just a completely different set of skills. You need a Peter Mandelson, not an Archie Norman.
Evening all. Well I had an intriguing day. Went for a job interview which finished at 16:50, by 17:05 I was being called back for a second interview. I think that has to be some sort of record. Anything interesting happen today that I might not know? Anyway like I'm sure like Mr Eagles I shall be out most of tomorrow to celebrate the 2114th birthday of Gaius Iulius Caesar.
Oh, and my "cynicism" is also validated by the fact that senior Labourites, in a display of Bond villain style openness, admitted to what they were doing:
But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.
I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended - even if this wasn't its main purpose - to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.
How do you make the right's arguments out of date except by changing society so much that conservative views are no longer politically tenable?
Given that your posts on here suggest you favour almost zero immigration, I often wonder if you have the inconvenience of having to hire people. I want the best person for the job. I don't care where that person comes from. I have hired Brits and I have hired immigrants. But I would prefer it of the likes of yourself and Nige Farage never got the reins of power so I would be prevented from getting the best pool of talent.
RN Portillo would probably be my top choice, he is Machiavellian enough to match Mandy
Yes, although I think Mandelson was quite exceptionally good for the role - that combination of silky intrigue and sharp decision-making meant he could handle both the politics of his colleagues and the management of the permanent staff.
re Banglashis vs Poles, I put my point badly, let me rephrase it.
If immigration was designed to create Labour voters by importing grateful Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, then why have Polish people coming into the country?
These are people who are not coming here - by and large - to gain citizenship, and so you wouldn't want to bother getting them here for that reason. In fact, the existence of said Poles and Romanians - who gain no economic or otherwise advantage from becoming British - depresses the earning power of the so-called Labour clients core votes.
This EU immigration outnumbers Bangladeshi/Pakistani immigration by an order of magnitude. (If I read the statistics right, 69,000 people came to the UK from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2012, barely more than came from the 'old commonwealth', and massively less than came from the EU. See: http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn06077.pdf)
Also, you are so incredibly pessimistic about British culture and society, it genuinely scares me. I believe we are one of the finest - if not the finest - country in the world. I believe that most people who come here, the vast majority in fact, come here because they want to be part of Britain, and want to be part of what makes us great. Sure, there are nutjobs, for whom things didn't work out and who see Allah as the answer. But these people - even in the sink estates of East London - are surprisingly rare. Britain is so great, that the vast majority of people want to be just like you or me. They want their kids to go to university. They want their kids to succeed and have good jobs and wear suits, and have a mortgage and a car. Sure, they (increasingly unsuccessfully) want their kids to still observe Ramadan and not to go with their mates to the pub on a Friday night. But just with the assimilated Jews, it doesn't work in the long-term. Because British culture is awesome and seductive. The reason the Imman preaches violence and destruction is not because we're an easy target, but because he's losing his flock to Mammon and The Fox and Hounds and the Emirates.
Oh, and my "cynicism" is also validated by the fact that senior Labourites, in a display of Bond villain style openness, admitted to what they were doing:
But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.
I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended - even if this wasn't its main purpose - to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.
How do you make the right's arguments out of date except by changing society so much that conservative views are no longer politically tenable?
Given that your posts on here suggest you favour almost zero immigration, I often wonder if you have the inconvenience of having to hire people. I want the best person for the job. I don't care where that person comes from. I have hired Brits and I have hired immigrants. But I would prefer it of the likes of yourself and Nige Farage never got the reins of power so I would be prevented from getting the best pool of talent.
I do not favour zero immigration. I favour gross immigration at pre-1997 levels, which was about 250k a year, during a period of economic boom. I have also being involved in recruiting many people over the years, and have hired Brits and foreigners. Of course the employer wants to be able recruit whoever they want, but that is what is called a vested interest. A good policy maker balances that with the costs and benefits to the country overall.
Comments
Archie Norman is certainly not a soft touch, and of course he's perfectly qualified, but that isn't the point. It's just a completely different set of skills. You need a Peter Mandelson, not an Archie Norman.
http://www.highfliers.co.uk/download/GMReport12.pdf
If you're not willing to pay what an average graduate will earn in her first year, then it's not much of a shortage.
re Banglashis vs Poles, I put my point badly, let me rephrase it.
If immigration was designed to create Labour voters by importing grateful Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, then why have Polish people coming into the country?
These are people who are not coming here - by and large - to gain citizenship, and so you wouldn't want to bother getting them here for that reason. In fact, the existence of said Poles and Romanians - who gain no economic or otherwise advantage from becoming British - depresses the earning power of the so-called Labour clients core votes.
This EU immigration outnumbers Bangladeshi/Pakistani immigration by an order of magnitude. (If I read the statistics right, 69,000 people came to the UK from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2012, barely more than came from the 'old commonwealth', and massively less than came from the EU. See: http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn06077.pdf)
Also, you are so incredibly pessimistic about British culture and society, it genuinely scares me. I believe we are one of the finest - if not the finest - country in the world. I believe that most people who come here, the vast majority in fact, come here because they want to be part of Britain, and want to be part of what makes us great. Sure, there are nutjobs, for whom things didn't work out and who see Allah as the answer. But these people - even in the sink estates of East London - are surprisingly rare. Britain is so great, that the vast majority of people want to be just like you or me. They want their kids to go to university. They want their kids to succeed and have good jobs and wear suits, and have a mortgage and a car. Sure, they (increasingly unsuccessfully) want their kids to still observe Ramadan and not to go with their mates to the pub on a Friday night. But just with the assimilated Jews, it doesn't work in the long-term. Because British culture is awesome and seductive. The reason the Imman preaches violence and destruction is not because we're an easy target, but because he's losing his flock to Mammon and The Fox and Hounds and the Emirates.
Socrates Not all the jobs will be graduate jobs