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

I meant that sometimes it is hysterical reporting by the Daily Mail that causes understandable anxiety, but they haven't provided evidence that the hospital shortages are because of migration.

For example, in the 2015 article, it says: "The Royal College of Midwives has repeatedly warned that the rise in older mothers and the obese is putting extra strain on maternity units. They tend to have more complicated labours involving caesareans or other interventions and require dedicated attention from staff. Figures show the number of women giving birth in their forties has increased by 78 per cent over the past decade." It is then the Daily Mail (NOT the RCM) that adds in that

'Migrants are creating added pressure because those coming to this country tend to be young couples wanting to start large families.' but doesn't provide a source or an expert on this.

In the article about the Royal Berkshire, they have quoted a woman, who has quoted an unnamed midwife as saying the issue is caused by 'teenagers and foreigners' but, again, there is no source for this, and the woman herself acknowledges the national shortage of midwives (which is due to a lack of funding invested in their training).

I am not saying that this wasn't a terrifying experience for you, not being sure that you would be able to give birth locally, but I don't think it means there is a clear link with immigration. There was a national crisis over a lack of midwives the same year:
metro.co.uk/2007/08/31/warning-over-shortage-of-midwives-93640/
www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-204849/Midwife-shortage-causing-Caesareans.html

now the party of wealthy middle class people who like migration because it means they can pay the people below them less so they can keep more for themselves.

Is it? That's not why I vote labour.

AugustaFinkBottle

Springing, as pointed out above, the issue in this thread is maternity services

That's not what you said when you wrote:

OP, the fact that the articles said that immigration caused strain on NHS services doesn't mean it's true

In that statement you were discussing NHS, not specifically maternity services.

Maternity services do not exist in some standalone bounded section of the NHS.

GPs provide maternity services, as do Health Visitors, Practice nurses, Practice Receptionists, Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Radiographers, Phlebotomists, haematologists, just about everyone within the NHS who comes into contact with a pregnant woman provide 'maternity services' of one sort or another.

So saying that there is no extra strain on the NHS or trying to state that only a small section of the NHS is impacted is clearly nonsense.

Oh please, let's not pretend that Berkshire is straining under the effects of mass immigration.

Increased usage of existing health services by an increased number of people who have migrated to this country places no additional strain on those existing services.

That statement is utterly ludicrous.

People who repeat this mantra are deluding themselves and making themselves seem very innumerate and illogical

Also, the falling birth rate among British-born women means that are facing an aging population crisis, which means we are going to be reliant on immigration to provide carers for older people and for working age people to pay taxes for pensions, health and social care.

From The Telegraph (not known as a lefty newspaper!):
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10185342/Britain-needs-millions-more-immigrants-to-reduce-strain-of-ageing-population.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9119210/Immigration-slows-rate-of-ageing-population-official-figures-suggest.html

This doesn't consider local effects, though. Immigration happens in pockets.

In Reading in 2007? Seriously?

Springing, you are being selective. My reference to strain on services was in direct response to the OP's, which throughout this thread has referenced maternity services.

And do try getting the name right. P G Wodehouse is spinning in his grave.

I'm genuinely so glad this thread turned out like this^. After reading the first page of comments I had to double check I hadn't clicked on nethuns

Just to contribute some facts regarding the issue of pressure on maternity services and immigration...

"Births to non-UK born mothers accounted for 27.0% of all live births in 2014, compared with 26.5% in 2013. This is the highest proportion of births to mothers born outside the UK since information on parents’ country of birth was first collected at birth registration in 1969 (Figure 1). This proportion has increased every year since 1990, when it was 11.6%, with a marked rise since the turn of the century."

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/parentscountryofbirthenglandandwales/2015-08-27#live-births-to-uk-and-non-uk-born-women

Additionally, in London, the figures are 58.1% of births in 2014 were to foreign born mothers.

Tony Blair wasn't in a position to do anything to change that. It is nonsense to blame him for immigration

Tony could have done the same thing as Germany and ease us in. He chose not to do that.

"Other EU countries, including Germany, planned to delay such privileges for seven years.

Initially, Blair was wary about lifting all restrictions on migrants from the new EU states. His misgivings were addressed during a trip to Warsaw, where his hosts in the British embassy described the virtues of allowing unlimited numbers of Poles into Britain.

‘Let’s be good Europeans,’ Blair was told by the Foreign Office’s senior representative.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘We shouldn’t worry about numbers.’

In London, the Treasury’s Permanent Secretary Andrew Turnbull agreed. The Germans, he thought, were ‘crazy’ to pass up the opportunity of employing hard-working East Europeans. The only concern was public opinion. People were alarmed by what some Blair aides called ‘the immigration tinderbox’.

The solution, everyone agreed, was simple: they would just avoid mentioning numbers.

‘Is this handleable?’ Blair asked.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3466512/The-Eastern-Europeans-shouldn-t-worry-numbers-Blair-turned-blind-eye-impending-migration-crisis.html#ixzz41OFvomWH
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I'm going to repeat what an earlier poster said, for the benefit of people who don't read the whole thread:

Blair has been gone a long time now.

It has been a deliberate rhetorical policy of this current government to blame Labour for everything - cuts to public services, immigration ... Everything.

I am stunned that people are still falling for this strategy.

But 'foreign-born mothers' includes hundreds of thousands of either EU or British citizens who are contributing to that healthcare through taxes. It doesn't mean 'health tourists' or people who've moved here just to give birth. Or should only those who were born on this island be allowed to give birth here?

‘Yes,’ replied Blunkett. ‘It’s legal migration, which we can control.’ The truth, as both knew, was the opposite.

Since the IND could not even guess at the numbers intending to come after their countries’ accession, Home Office officials seized upon a report produced by Christian Dustmann, of University College London.

Dustmann’s research for the EU estimated that only 13,000 Poles would arrive in 2004.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3466512/The-Eastern-Europeans-shouldn-t-worry-numbers-Blair-turned-blind-eye-impending-migration-crisis.html#ixzz41OGXy69w
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Here here thecat! Don't look over here, look over there

sophia You don't understand.

If you have a hospital with 70 beds on Maternity, that is what you have.

If you suddenly need to increase that because your Prime Minister has opened a way for millions of People from the EU to come here, very quickly,

very quickly then you need to very quickly^ increase your capacity for beds, staff, expand the hospital and so on.

This was not possible at that time because numbers were deliberately fudged and ignored and there was no head count.

This means, many more women stated to need a service that had no extra capacity to accommodate them. This put lives at risk.

This ^ is one aspect of the mass immigration Blair put us through. A poster, rather accusingly asked me what it had to do with me.

This was one aspect that directly affected me.

Producing statistics about non-UK born mothers is highly misleading. The fact that someone wasn't born in the UK doesn't make them an immigrant. I wasn't myself, but I have always held a UK passport. We have a colonial past, we have an army with bases abroad, our citizens work abroad and travel for all sorts of reasons.

I suppose the local rag and the bbc links are also misleading!

I suppose everything that went on, was merely misleading.....

OP, you write as if every immigrant to fetch up in the UK in 2007 was about to give birth. They really weren't, you know.

Springing, as pointed out above, the issue in this thread is maternity services. and specifically the allegation that immigration was causing unprecedented strain on maternity services in 2007. The facts demonstrate that it wasn't unprecedented

In our area which is near London of course, ( not the wild moors of yorkshire) we were hit with unprecedented immigration.
Its all there in black and white!

I suppose the Slough Memorandum was just the product of some bored spoofers? Not an actual real document listing their over stretched services. Same with the BBC and local rag. all made up for a laff

This thread was not about maternity services at all.

Someone asked me a question and I answered it. I could give many more reasons but I don't want to out myself.

Augusta I am not the author of the articles I posted.

I think that what bemuses me most about this thread is that OP is getting into a state about the possible danger to her child 9 years ago. Yet that danger didn't materialise. Sure, she worried, but then we all worry to a greater or lesser extent during pregnancy. We call have to deal with the danger that we may not make it to hospital in time, or we may have to wait for a bed when we get there. That can and will be due to a number of factors. Take one of those factors away, it doesn't mean we will automatically stop worrying, or even that we will worry any less.

OP, I really suggest you move on. You had your child, he was OK.

I didn't say you were the author, OP. Where does that come from?

Whether Labour is to blame for this is really hardly the point (although I concede that OP thinks so). Tony Blair is a war criminal - adding 'sneaky immigration policies' on top of that is hardly going to change the complexion of the situation.

But 'foreign-born mothers' includes hundreds of thousands of either EU or British citizens who are contributing to that healthcare through taxes. It doesn't mean 'health tourists' or people who've moved here just to give birth. Or should only those who were born on this island be allowed to give birth here?

The number of live births in England and Wales to UK born women decreased by 1.1% compared with 2013, while live births to non-UK born women rose by 1.4%

Poland remains the most common country of birth for non-UK born mothers between 2010 and 2014, followed by Pakistan and India

Hard to know how many Pakistani/Indian women are giving birth in the UK given the opacity of that statement, but it's obviously significant.

Pakistan remains the most common country of birth for non-UK born fathers between 2008 and 2014, followed by Poland and India

As above

Newham remains the local authority with the highest percentage of births to non-UK born women (76.7%) in 2014. Torfaen has the lowest percentage (3.2%)

I find it hard to reconcile these figures with the estimation that immigration can't possibly be at least partially responsible for the current state of the NHS.

Hold on, how do you know what happened to me, or my child?

How can someones life be put at risk be bemusing, how can the tales of utter terror coming from the maternity wards of those hospitals at the time be bemusing?

I find your post repugnant.

Sure, she worried, but then we all worry to a greater or lesser extent during pregnancy

You clearly have no knowledge of birth phobia.

or we may have to wait for a bed when we get there

Have you even read the article?

Women didn;t have to wait for a bed. They were sent 50 miles away.