are you worried about immigration?

[victoriapeckham]

This is a tricky one but I ve Just seen that Channel 4 programme Immigration is a Timebomb which has left me feeling uneasy about Islamic immigrants. The Tories are really making it an election issue with their 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking' posters. Now the police are saying 200 Al Queida trained terrorists are wandering about Britain, do you think immigration has gone too far?

No. Got to go to bed RIGHT NOW so wont chunter on. Just wanted to put in my tuppence-worth.

No i don't really. I don't want to swear or offend so I won't comment on why I think the tories are making this an election issue - although the word desperate comes to mind

just typed a long sarcastic rant, but zippy has put it better: no.

Nope.

no. think that policy of dispersal was a cynical attempt by government to make immigration appear a huge issue by dumping people in appropriate places, and make immigrants more visible.

no

Only since they started that campaign has the Tories poll ratings shot up. So they must have hit a nerve across the country. And that woman who had a go at Blair about her son's special school being closed, said if we spent less of immigrants and asylum seekers there would be the resources for the likes of her son. So there is this undercurrent bubbling away.

nope

no - not at all - last weeks Channel 4 prorgramme 'let 'em all in' on the issue was very interesting.

Yeah, frantic, me.

problem is you could argue that against anything - funding for the Arts, funding for the war against Iraq, funding for SureStart schemes, foreign Aid.

it's easier to set the poor and marginalised against each other, than to significantly improve social inequality.

rofl blu

To be totally honest - dunno.
Worked with ME groups in my community work and would have catagorically said no up to a few years ago. Since then I have seen many things happeneing aroudn me and now I honestly don't know.

only that we don't have enough of it.

You are all fabulously liberal. So do you think the government has got immigration about right? or do you think immigration is out of control and they should limit the numbers coming in drastically (as tories say)

It is strange this is turning into an election issue by stealth - especially the equation immigration = terrorist threat - and no one will acknowledge it is on their mind at all.

It should have serious thought and debate, free of fear to offend, free of party-line polarisation. But, frustratingly, that programme was full of non-sequiter faux connections between facts, random and unbalanced examples, and insidious comment. So v dissapointing - and unhelpful, IMO.

did you know that poland was 'forced' (in order to join the EU) to close it's 'open border' with the Ukraine. Before the border closed traders would come over the border and it was great for the economy.

After the border closed drug/people trafficking, prostitution and general crime rose.

C'mon then VP - what's on your mind about immigration?

well i suppose i'm "fabulously liberal" because i'm the child of hard working, tax paying, non terrorist immigrants.

I think there is a mood of fear and hate brewing. All it would take is a downturn in the economy for fascist groups to get a real hold.

well said bossykate

I am concerned about that too VP, as there is dissatisfaction with Labour, without there currently being a viable alternative opposition IMHO, that it is an ideal breeding ground for extremist parties to get a foothold.