the quality of ignorance is .....

[Beef Oven!]

efficient military mobilisation.

We're talking Italy, here.

[aeolium]

i do not think that the right has ever been att all concerned with rescue

and it is on the rise

fear of the foreign, the outsider, the alien is a core device of the right's political praxis .... and demonising the facts which contradict the nonsense they peddle .... the right has always been resistant to evidence .... for example the study on economic impact published yesterday .... see also

if you are asserting that there is no coherent social democratic response to the right's gains i am afraid you are correct imv ....

But I don't think the right (I am not talking about the populist, far-right European parties here) has been hostile to immigration. The whole political establishment in Europe, including business organisations - which tend to be more to the right - has been in favour of free movement of labour within Europe and still mostly is. Their attempts to cut down on non-EU immigration recently have largely been a response to the rise of this issue in significance in their own countries, and in elections.

David Edgar's article is all very well, but why has he only just noticed this phenomenon, which has been gathering pace over at least the last decade? And why doesn't he suggest any reasons for why it is happening? Simply to fulminate about a damaging development seems pointless to me, unless you try and discover what are its causes and what can be done about it. I suggest three main reasons: the increase in migration from accession countries, particularly since 2004; the economic crash and Eurozone crisis of 2008 and after; and the application of austerity economics in most European countries since 2008. The last has meant that financial pressure on public services, e.g. health and social housing, has coincided with rising numbers placing demands on those services in particular areas. The report which shows that immigrants to the UK contribute more and bring more economic benefits is compatible with other studies (such as the Oxford MigrationObservatory study quoted elsewhere) showing that the low-paid indigenous population suffer pressure on pay and competition for employment - what could be described as "a race to the bottom".

Here is a different view, one which acknowledges the myths and hysteria in much discussion about immigration but which still argues that there are serious issues to address:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...l-consequences

I would add to this an end to austerity economics which is disastrously misconceived and is intensifying all the worst aspects of these developments. And a proper Marshall-type plan for Europe to redistribute wealth from the richer European countries to the poorer, which seems a better way of bringing the economies of the EU member states closer together than simply relying on migration (plus the limited effects of the European Social Fund) to achieve that.

[jean]

...stirring your small Xmas penis-puddings...

I cannot tell you how much I wish you had not lodged that image in my brain.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Mr Mardell offers some cogent commentary

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Rawnsley presents much more interesting research on attitudes to immigration ... the link to pressure on housing, education and health is made clear ...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

a presentation on the exchequer and its sums

[Risorgimento]

What was the Implicit Bank Subsidy when Gordon Brown was Chancellor? A bloody sight more than it is now. Ah yes, Gordon Brown...Chancellor par Excellence....selling gold reserves but then telling the markets beforehand so the price plummeted.

[amateur51]

What was the Implicit Bank Subsidy when Gordon Brown was Chancellor? A bloody sight more than it is now. Ah yes, Gordon Brown...Chancellor par Excellence....selling gold reserves but then telling the markets beforehand so the price plummeted.

You must be pleased though that he kept us out of the EuroZone and that he and Alistair saved so many banks from a wetting.

What successes and failures do your career's appraisals reveal?

[ahinton]

You must be pleased though that he kept us out of the EuroZone and that he and Alistair saved so many banks from a wetting.

What successes and failures do your career's appraisals reveal?

Oi! Leave me out of this!

Oh, sorry - of couse you meant the Darling one and no one would call me that so I'll just apologise for my ineptitude and shut up forth bridge I mean forthwith...