We Have No Control Over Immigration

David Cameron has been talking about immigration quite a lot recently. He says he believes, as do I, that Britain should be accepting far less migrants than it already does.

However, one of the problems with the current debate over immigration is that the Government has absolutely no idea how many migrants are actually entering Britain each year. Similarly the Conservatives don’t have a clue either. Therefore both sides have to rely and argue over completely unreliable estimates.

Furthermore, this past week the Government has already had to readjust those unreliable estimates several times, now claiming that maybe as many as one and a half million immigrants (including British citizens born overseas) have entered this country in the past decade. I suspect in fact it is even more.

So, why is this? How can the Government have almost no accurate record of the number of people entering this country, and why does it refuse so blatantly to admit the reasons why this is the case?

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The Educational Social Experiment

The BBC reported a little while back that, according to an annual report from Ofsted, ‘the social divide in schools in England shows little sign of closing’.

You may have thought that our educational system was meant to be a place for actually educating children; instilling in them fact and intellectual rigour rather than a method of profound and radical social engineering.

Well, if you thought that modern schooling was about learning and teaching then sadly you’re mistaken. Successive British Governments have slowly shaped the educational establishment around the equality agenda and the desire to force everyone down one set path.

In real terms this has meant the gradual decline of standards over the past few decades. This has been exemplified by changes in the examination system, with exams having been purposefully made easier to such an extent that seemingly nobody can actually fail one. Furthermore, through the destruction of Grammar schools and the selective system, the brightest and best children have been thoroughly failed by being held back to further the creation of a more ‘equal’ generation of children.

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Now Where Have I Heard That Before?

David Cameron today announced that he was going to ‘make poverty history’ by pledging that a Conservative Government would remove three hundred thousand children from poverty through increases in the working tax credit.

Sam Coates over at ConservativeHome briefly expressed his unhappiness and disappointment that the media had chosen to cover the Ming Campbell resignation saga rather than this supposedly important Conservative announcement.

But really, does the media response surprise you all that much? Yes, the Ming story is about as interesting to many as watching paint dry – but then Cameron’s latest policy initiative isn’t exactly a box office blockbuster exhibiting outside the box thinking either.

What’s more, there was certainly a bizarre sense of déjà vu surrounding Cameron’s ‘Social Responsibility’ press conference. You can be forgiven for thinking that you’ve heard and seen something quite similar before - because quite probably you have. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown spent the past ten or so years making similar sounding claims.

It does all seem to be getting very crowded in that miniscule area some people refer to as the centre ground (in my opinion there is no such thing) – all the while as yet more and more people choose to abstain from voting.

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Disunited Unity

With the Conservative Conference in Blackpool now at an end and the ever fickle opinion polls claiming that the party is on a level footing with Labour, David Cameron knows that he really has to capitalise on this short-term boost.

As we know, unless the Conservative party does exceptionally well in all its target seat marginals, or is around 4-6% ahead of Labour at the time of a general election (based upon a uniform national swing) Labour will most likely still form another lacklustre Government.

Despite this, a number of interesting and perhaps slightly unexpected proposals did actually come out of Blackpool this week. For instance, William Hague announced that a Conservative Government would introduce legislation meaning that any future powers transferred to the EU (of which there are a lot already) would require a referendum.

This proposal would be very welcome news if the Conservative party did not still cling on to its ‘In Europe, not run by Europe’ mantra – thus meaning that the party is at heart still in favour of increasing EU integration, though just at a slightly slower rate (if even that).

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