To feel sick about this RE Tony Blair and Immigration, apparently it didnt interest him.

[EatenEasterChocsAlready]

I am staggered to have come across these articles this morning. Someone has written a book about him and immigration, interviewing people in office at the time, and so on.

Staggered I actually feel sick.

I expect the backlash over this, BUT I feel ill, because I live in an area that was really suffering in 2007 and I had my first child then.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3466499/Conman-betrayed-Britain-immigration-utterly-amoral-PM-led-conspiracy-let-MILLIONS-migrants-breaking-rules-deceiving-public.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3466512/The-Eastern-Europeans-shouldn-t-worry-numbers-Blair-turned-blind-eye-impending-migration-crisis.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3466485/How-Blair-cynically-let-two-million-migrants-Explosive-biography-reveals-PM-s-conspiracy-silence-immigration-debate.html

OP, if your local hospital was in that state it wasn't the fault of immigrants, it was down to poor planning and inadequate funding

I do not like the implications of that sentence, Augusta, and its inference.

I do not blame any immigrant on wanting to better their lives and come to a country that can help with that.

We have immigrants in our family, and in our family we also have members who have migrated.

I do not blame any immigrant at all.

Our Governments however are supposed to act in the best interest of their citizens.

How could the local hospitals possibly plan and fund, when Blairs government was not head counting. Its all there in the slough council memorandum to Parliament. How can you set a budget and know how many staff to employ when your not given a heads up on how many people will need to use the service!!

Its pretty clear and obvious to me.

OP, if your local hospital was in that state it wasn't the fault of immigrants, it was down to poor planning and inadequate funding

I do not like the implications of that sentence, Augusta, and its inference.

I do not blame any immigrant on wanting to better their lives and come to a country that can help with that.

We have immigrants in our family, and in our family we also have members who have migrated.

I do not blame any immigrant at all.

Our Governments however are supposed to act in the best interest of their citizens.

How could the local hospitals possibly plan and fund, when Blairs government was not head counting. Its all there in the slough council memorandum to Parliament. How can you set a budget and know how many staff to employ when your not given a heads up on how many people will need to use the service!!

Its pretty clear and obvious to me.

as if they're in a perpetual state of self denial that there might be very logical and sensible reasons for stricter border controls

Yes it is a strange sort of denial. I mean the Slough memorandum isn't even a news paper article! Its from the council to Parliament!

It could not be more clear.

Anyway, the cats out of the bag now re the book.

I think no borders = no welfare state.

Except that at the point you mention, a) the birth rate was falling and b) it's in a relative slump anyway.

If anything was to blame for your anxiety it's the DM and your ability to believe in whatever it says without the remotest hint of criticism. There are lots of reasons why maternity units might have been turning people away given in that article. Why specifically pick up on immigration.

Yep, I do find you repetitive OP

Oh dear.

Rafa the birth rate was at a high in 2007

What I can't understand is, why do socialists want to push the country to breaking point by allowing uncontrolled immigration anyway?

Are they trying to replace the existing population or something?

Peter Mandelson openly confirmed this several years ago. The sad truth is that immigration has no day to day effect on the likes of Tony Blair. They aren't the ones competing for housing, or feeling the effects of stretched services.

Hidden, why do you think socialists want that? Socialists would be less likely to want to supply big business with and endless and increasingly desperate and competitive supply of cheap labour surely?

I thought it was wealthy types who wanted uncontrolled immigration. Not saying you can't be a wealthy socialists but I mean, I don't ally any political theory with support of uncontrolled EU immigration.

So Blair didnt want to lift the quotas on immigrants and was told to by the Civil Service.

And you say that makes Blair evil?

You do know that the migration from EE was originally possible because of the Maastricht Treaty signed by John Major? And that the Labour Party opposed it at the time, stating that there would be mass immigration?

And that they were accuse of being racists, and lost the vote?
Since then no politician has dared challenge immigration for fear of being labelled racist.

Some of us were around at the time and remember these events.

Those who think that the NHS would collapse without immigrant labour - how, exactly? Do you think they would languish with 21.5% vacancies in the medium, or even short-term?

I expect they'd just have to pay higher wages.

You just couldn't make Tony Blair up.

His latest idiocy " Mr Blair announced his commission on countering violent extremism"

"The commission will try to unravel the causes behind groups such as Islamic state and appeal to Muslim youths on social media"

"Mr Blair was rebuked at its launch by an official from the US state department who said " you yourself noted that this was largely a struggle within Islam..if they are the target audience, the allies, it seems to me half the commission should be Muslims?"

"Mr Blair appeared confused and looked towards the host who said that the commission had been engineered to be as diverse as possible"

From the Times.

Clueless. What were we thinking of!

apple I dont doubt that we need foreign workers in the NHS and in many jobs across sectors, this is nothing new.

But to defened and say mass immigration is needed to fill jobs is a funny way to do recruitment

apple I dont doubt that we need foreign workers in the NHS and in many jobs across sectors, this is nothing new.

Sure, you recruit them as you do any foreign labour - with a work permit. It's just more expensive.

Rafa the birth rate was at a high in 2007

If we're talking about 2007, why link to an article about 2015 then?

And no it wasn't at a 'high' in 2007. There had been an increased birth rate between 2001, but mainly because 2001 had the lowest birth rate for 30 years and the 2nd lowest in recorded history. 2007 was roughly in line with the birth rate from the mid 80s to mid 90s, before it started to decline rapidly and people started worrying about how to fund an aging population in the future.

I'm by no means in favour of uncontrolled immigration, but you really can't blame immigrants because you've been taken for a ride by the DM.

It seems to me that if you are on the conservative end of the political spectrum, and you actually care about the working poor in the UK, then it follows that you have to care about uncontrolled immigration.

I want higher wages in the UK (and I'm willing to pay higher prices for it). Every other position I hold is reverse-engineered from this overarching principle.