Reverting To Type

After the Wednesday Newsnight interview with David Cameron, the BBC and the papers have made much of his comments on immigration.

The Daily Mail and Telegraph believe that the Conservatives are reasserting their authority on issues which they have currently avoided such as immigration and crime, while the left-wingers at the BBC and Guardian have used David Cameron’s comments as an opportunity to present the Conservative party as returning to the core vote and ‘lurching to the Right’.

The reactions from Nick Assinder at the BBC and the neo-Marxist Seumas Milne in the Guardian were typical of the overall vein of the attacks launched on Mr Cameron. Yet, both miss the mark completely (and probably purposefully too) because in reality Mr Cameron has not said anything new than he hasn’t said before and thus cannot have moved to the Right.

Wednesday’s BBC Newsnight really was a first class example of how the news corporations (in this case the BBC) actually make the news and then report upon it – and in doing so, how they can both dictate and manipulate the political agenda.

Gavin Esler tried his hand at manipulation while questioning Cameron on immigration. He noticeably made great efforts to put the word ‘swamped’ into Mr Cameron’s mouth by constantly repeating it at least half a dozen times. This was most likely done so the BBC could have a headline report the next day saying that David Cameron had said ‘immigrants are swamping Britain’. As it was the Conservative leader didn’t fall into that trap.

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Controlling Immigration

David Cameron has been interviewed by BBC Newsnight on a variety of issues including green taxes, immigration and Shadow Cabinet outside interests.

However, his comments on immigration were of particular interest because, for the most part, Mr Cameron has avoided focusing on this topic in his quest to re-brand the Conservative party by approaching issues with which it is not normally associated.

Immigration to Britain is far too high as David Cameron pointed out in the interview, and has reached completely unsustainable levels during Labour’s ten year tenure, causing both widespread social friction, housing problems, and increased pressure on public services.

Opinion polls reveal that immigration is consistently among the top three most important issues that concern voters, and also show that Mr Cameron’s views reflect the majority of British opinion. Therefore it’s welcome news that Mr Cameron is at least tentatively discussing the issue, even if he is also discussing possible ‘green taxes’ too.

I think it’s also useful to contrast Mr Cameron’s Newsnight comments with an announcement on Sunday by Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman who said the problems of immigration and the ‘twilight world of illegality’ needed to be tackled by allowing the legalisation of illegal immigrants that ‘proved’ themselves.

Cameron Renews Referendum Demand

In this morning’s Sun, David Cameron renewed the Conservative’s call for Gordon Brown to fulfil Labour’s General Election manifesto pledge to hold a Referendum on the EU Constitution.

It’s also being reported by the Telegraph that as many as one hundred and twenty Labour MPs could be set to defy the whip and Gordon Brown over his failure to consult the people on this vital issue.

Practically all the leaders in Europe have admitted that the EU ‘Reform Treaty’ is practically identically and virtually indistinguishable from the Constitution which was chucked out by French and Dutch voters only two years ago.

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said, ‘the fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part’. The Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Zapatero, commented that ‘a great part of the content of the European Constitution is captured in the new treaties’, and Bertie Ahern the Irish PM said, ‘thankfully they haven’t changed the substance – 90 per cent of it is still there’ – and yet Mr Ahern is still giving the people of Ireland a referendum.

The only politicians desperately continuing with the charade that says the new Treaty is substantially different to the old Constitution are the European Governments that do not wish to let their people have a say. Britain is most definitely one of those.

In his Sun article, David Cameron’s criticisms of Gordon Brown and our Labour Government are extremely well placed. He is completely right in observing that the Labour leadership have become incredibly arrogant, to the extent they believe they always know best.

Mr Cameron is also absolutely correct in asking the Prime Minister, ‘what makes you think you can change the way our country is governed without asking the British people first?’ We’re still waiting for the answer, Mr Brown…

Free Market Football

The Fabian Society has released the results of a survey that they commissioned on what British people considered a ‘reasonable’ wage for certain professions.

The YouGov run poll of three thousand people demonstrated that the public thought footballers’ and company directors’ salaries should be radically curbed while nurses and bus drivers deserved far greater financial rewards.

I think the survey’s findings do ring true. Many people in Britain are indeed resentful of those that earn much more than them – though arguably that is only natural human behaviour. However, I do wonder how many of those questioned in the survey go to watch football matches week-in, week-out and therefore provide the demand and ticket revenue that supply the footballer’s wages? Quite a few I would imagine.

The Fabian Society’s spokesman, Tom Hampson, said ‘Progressive politics should acknowledge that the public want the unfair gap between rich and poor narrowed’. In other words, the Fabian Society believes the Government should directly intervene even further into private sector wages to curb ‘excessive’ earnings.

This is, of course, just the Left-wing socialist equality agenda of old dressed up in the new Progressive agenda clothing – the Progressive agenda being the supposedly forward-looking, always improving doctrine of modern politics rather than anyone not agreeing with that world-view who must instead be a backwards looking ‘regressive’.

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