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Least surprising headline of the day

David Cameron’s immigration speech fails to capture the imagination

This is a headline on the Coffee House blog of the Spectator. I am not picking on CH – it is a good site generally – but it ought to be a default position, borne of years of following Cameron’s speeches and sayings, that nothing he has to say, nothing at all, captures the imagination. Even when he apparently stands up for certain things, such as press freedom, and it gives us all a glow of approval, it is quickly destroyed when the grubby reality intrudes. Cameron, and the coterie of buffoons, hangers on and knaves who work with and around him, have no ability to fire anyone’s imagination. Far better to have a headline saying “Cameron says some things about immigrants”.

11 comments to Least surprising headline of the day

  • Andrew Duffin

    He’s extruding some verbal material about restricting the benefit rights of non-UK EU citizens.

    A child would know that this will be ruled illegal by the EU as soon as anyone takes it to the courts.

    Why do the legacy media keep falling for this rubbish?

  • George

    Isn’t the question “why do the legacy media keep promoting this rubbish?”

  • monoi

    It is incredibly difficult to come to this country if you are outside the EU or commonwealth.

    And if you manage to go through the process for a tourist visa, process which is designed to stop many people even trying, you cannot do anything like working (fair enough), fall in love, use PRIVATE medical treatment, etc… Benefits? You are having a laugh. Or you read too much of the extruded material in the press.

    Even if you have a private sponsor/citizen who will finance your stay.

    All that decided by some faceless bureaucrat somewhere. Talk about dehumanizing.

    I have been looking to help someone from a very poor background to come here for a few months, to see what is possible in life, and I am utterly disgusted by the procees.

  • Cameron has just noticed that UKIP is doing better than expected and wants some of that.

    Cameron and all these media outlets are all as bad as each other: nobody seems to have noticed the idiocy of paying more attention to where someone has come from than what they have done. What is wrong with people?

    Should an immigrant get the same benefits as a native? It’s the wrong question and you have to be an idiot or a liar to ask it.

  • Johnnydub

    “It is incredibly difficult to come to this country if you are outside the EU or commonwealth.” – So where have all the Somalis come from then?

    The reality is that our borders are only as strong as those of the weakest EU member, as once they get an EU passport – BOOM! Benefits here we come…

    The answer to the question “where have all the Somalis come from then?” is Denmark. After they realised what the “cultural enrichment” of their Somalis amounted to, the Danes changed their benefit entitlement rules, and their imported Somali population swiftly decamped to the UK.

  • Sigivald

    Would I want politicians to fire my imagination, in general?

    They ought to be bland, boring, and uninspiring. Inspiration makes people stop thinking, half the time.

  • James Metcalfe

    One of the things I consistently loathe reading about the UK is the continued use of the word ‘targets’. We see ‘target-rich’ as a description of children being picked upon by Jimmy Saville-type paedos, ‘lfailure to achieve individual targetting’, as some mind-speak format for ‘oops, sorry, but we killed your Granddaddy in our hospital’ and so on. People, let us be clear on this:

    Target Rich =

    A blind man with a severe grudge against anyone called a ‘politician’ in the Visitor’s Gallery of the House of Commons with an M60 machine gun and approximately 2,500 rounds of 7.62 ball. Increase the allowance for HoR/Senate accordingly.

    Individual Target =

    What you stick on a politician (think Maximillian of Mexico) moments before you give him the option for a final cigarette, and swiftly followed by the words, “Squad, AIM, Squad FIRE’

  • The reality is that our borders are only as strong as those of the weakest EU member, as once they get an EU passport – BOOM! Benefits here we come…

    Which does not indicate we have ‘an immigration problem’ but rather we have a ‘benefits problem’. I am all for people who come to Britain in order to work… but it hardly matters where they come from if they are just going to sponge off other people’s money that has been extracted by the state at gunpoint.

    Get rid of ‘benefits’, or at the very least hugely raise the bar for *anyone* claiming them, and all manner of good things happen to the economy and society generally, including not encouraging bludger immigration.

  • monoi

    Perry is right.

    It is a benefit problem, not an immigration problem. Benefit problem which also concerns people whose only claim to fame is to be born here. The latter are no more deserving than the former. At least, immigrants are trying to better their life.

    It reminds me of these turks or armenians who were ready to defend their shops and businesses during the riots, and which funnily enough, were avoided by the rioters. Those people showed fortitude and in my view would be more deserving of benefits than the locals busy looting.

    In any case, this “blame the foreigners” attitude is despicable, and scarily on the rise in all the eu countries. I blame the politicians of the left for creating it, and the politicians of the right (is there such a thing nowadays?) for not putting a stop to it.

  • Brian Micklethwait (London)

    Last night I attended a talk about how countries get rich, given by JP Floru, who has just written an excellent book about it called Heavens on Earth.

    A point that came up is that one of the reasons why Hong Kong never cursed itself with a welfare state was that immigrants were flooding in at such a rate that Hong Kond just couldn’t handle it, and perhaps more to the point did not want to. Flood in guys, but you are taking your own chances.

  • Schrodinger's Dog

    Sigivald,

    Quite.

    Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all inspiring, charismatic leaders.

    ‘Nuff said.