wotiwrote

Well, the race for the mini White House has begun with the announcement that the General Election will be held on May 5th. True to form, the Tories have decided to use race as the key issue. Of course they've dressed it all up in the usual hand-me-downs of respectable prejudice, talking of the 'concerns' of 'ordinary citizens' and the usual clap-trap about protecting the unique way of life in Britain (a way of life more and more of us seek to avoid by going abroad to Europe for holidays or for good).

An article by Philip Stephens in today's FT (subscription page, unfortunately) tears mercilessly at the Tory hypocrisy. A couple of extracts:

The [Tory] campaign is calculated to mislead. One common thread running through all those leaflets is a deliberate confusion between asylum and immigration - between the numbers claiming refuge from persecution in their home countries and those readily admitted to fill jobs in the economy. Britain, like every other civilised nation, accepts genuine refugees as a matter of international obligation. That is entirely separate from discretionary decisions on migrant workers.

Honest statistics are the first casualty of election campaigns. But never more so than in the argument over immigration. Thus nowhere in the Conservative literature do we discover that the sharp rise in net immigration figures in recent years includes a large number of British nationals returning home. Nor that alongside the Indian software engineers, US investment bankers and Filipino nurses coming to work in Britain are tens of thousands of Mr Crosby's compatriots.

'Mr Crosby' is an Australian and the chief Tory election strategist. His experience comes from working for PM John Howard and using immigration to gain votes in elections in Australia. Presumably he doesn't count as an immigrant.