Anti-immigration, anti-women, anti-equality….the list goes on.
Cath Elliott
Posted on April 14, 2011
I know none of this will be news to anyone by now, but I thought I’d just recap on what a truly crappy week this has turned out to be. So here goes.
Earlier this week it was announced that Eaves Housing/the Poppy Project has lost its funding to provide specialist support services to female victims of trafficking, and that the contract has gone instead to the anti-choice, homophobic, religious bigots of the Salvation Army. (More on this to follow).
Official figures have revealed that women are bearing the brunt of the job losses in Britain’s labour market. David Willetts has said he’s buggered if he knows who to blame now.
David Cameron has pulled out his dog whistle and blamed just about everything he can think of on immigration.
And just to top it all off: the Government is thinking about scrapping the Equality Act, probably because the act makes it a bit difficult for them to get away with carrying out policies that impact disproportionately on (or directly discriminate against) women and immigrants.
Thankfully the Government is seeking views on that last one. So I urge you – go to the site and let them know what you think – Red Tape Challenge
Too Much To Say For Myself 
I’m going to do the redtapechallenge when I’ve had a chance to think of how to be eloquent about it.
I shall look forward to your Eaves/Poppy post. Until then, I shall keep my powder dry!
***And just to top it all off: the Government is thinking about scrapping the Equality Act, probably because the act makes it a bit difficult for them to get away with carrying out policies that impact disproportionately on (or directly discriminate against) women and immigrants.***
1. Immigration is fine, but it needs to be reasonably selective. In other words, you want people who hold compatible values & have the skills to support themselves in the job market. Otherwise, the welfare state can’t be sustained.
2. The equality act is a nice idea, but based on flawed assumptions (ie. it ignores human biodiversity). Rather than focussing on statistical group outcomes, focus on individual rights.
Immigration is already selective Schwarz, as you would know if you knew anyone from outside the EU who has tried to enter the country recently. However a consequence of being part of the EU is that we have freedom of movement within member states – which has largely led to the rise in ‘immigration’. So Cameron is talking bollocks.
Of course Cameron wouldn’t be fearing a drubbing in the polls, and reaching for casual racism, the last refuge of the desperate by any chance?
No idea what your second paragraph means.
Which of the following best describes you?
I am commenting on my own behalf
I am commenting on behalf of the small or medium-sized company I work for
I am commenting on behalf of the large business I work for
Other
I wonder if they’ll check? I mean we could all claim to be representing small businesses. Or indeed large ones.
I shall look forward to your Eaves/Poppy post. Until then …
Oh great, just what we need. Yet another infestation of scum rapist-johns and their apologists. Always come flying out of the woodwork whenever their “right” to use and abuse women is questioned.
‘people who hold compatible values’
What does this even mean? shall i ask all members of the BNP to leave the UK because they do not hold compatible values with me? shall i ask the guy who sometimes makes homophobic remarks to leave the UK because his values are not compatible with mine? Or David Cameron? can i ask him to leave because he is pissing on all the values i hold dear?
FFS.
and if i read one more thing about how equality is not ‘natural’ because of our ‘primal ancestors’ or, most startling this week, because women are ‘naturally sexually submissive’ i will scream and scream and scream. so many studies have disproven and discredited that innate crap.
Why, Parallel, I’m “another infestation of scum rapist-johns and their apologists.”
How kind.
With language like yours, who needs the BNP?
Massaging the figures, Scameron stylee:
Take this question of Europe. Yes, our borders are open to people from other member states in the European Union. But actually, this counts for a small proportion of overall net migration to the UK. In the year up to June 2010, net migration to our country from EU nationals was just 27,000.
That’s not to say migration from Europe has been insignificant. Since 2004, when many large eastern European countries joined the EU, more than one million people from those countries have come to live and work in the UK – a huge number. We said back then that transitional controls should have been put in place to restrict the numbers coming over. And now we’re in government, if and when new countries join the European Union, transitional controls will be put in place.
But this remains the fact: when it comes to immigration to our country, it’s the numbers from outside the EU that really matter. In the year up to June 2010, net migration from nationals of countries outside the EU to the UK totalled 198,000. This is the figure we can more easily control and should control.
Yes but – let’s look at some more detailed figures eh?
Comparing 2010 with a year earlier, the overall number of entry clearance visas issued
increased by 7 per cent from 1,995,495 to 2,145,085; 1,826,030 were to main
applicants and 319,060 to dependants.
Visitors
• The number of visitor visas issued in 2010 was 1,518,935, an increase of 11 per cent
on a year earlier (1,365,690).
Employment
• The number of employment-related entry clearance visas issued in 2010 was 166,660,
an increase of 3 per cent on a year earlier (162,450). Between year ending December
2007 (227,635) and year ending March 2010 (158,975), the number of employmentrelated
entry clearance visas issued within a 12 month period saw a general decrease
but has since remained relatively flat.
Study
• The number of entry clearance visas issued for the purposes of study, including Tier 4
(students) and student visitors, in 2010 was 334,815, a decrease of 2 per cent on a
year earlier (341,090). Between year ending December 2007 and year ending June
2010, visas issued within a 12 month period for the purposes of study saw a general
increase from 248,010 to 362,080.
ASYLUM
• The number of applications for asylum, excluding dependants, was 27 per cent lower in
2010 (17,790) compared with 2009 (24,485).
• Asylum applications were at their lowest in 2010, since a peak in 2002 (84,130).
• In 2010, 20,645 initial asylum decisions were made, excluding dependants, a decrease
of 15 per cent compared with 2009 (24,285). The number of initial decisions has been
relatively consistent in each of the last five years, ranging between 19,400 and 24,285
following a decrease from 120,950 initial decisions in 2001, which reflects the decrease
in new applications in a similar period.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/immigration-asylum-research/control-immigration-q4-2010/control-immigration-q4-2010?view=Binary
So out of non visitor visas (by far the largest category), the next largest category, is for employment (166,660). The number of applications for asylum is falling.
Scameron is also being somewhat disingenous about the EU migrant thing. Obviously if immigration controls were removed in 2004, we would expect the majority of those new migrants to have come here before 2010 (as he himself then admits).
Ol scamface then goes on to talk about ‘sham marriages’. Well this is an interesting one – I’m not denying they take place – but they by no means confer an automatic right to enter the country and get indefinite leave to remain. If you wish your spouse to enter the country you have to prove you can support them without recourse to public funds and that you intend to live permanently together.
With language like yours,
Because the problem isn’t the exploitative misogynistic shits, it’s the people who use curse words to talk about them ?
who needs the BNP?
they have a monopoly on swearing ? A policy to tell rapists to fuck off ? What ??
This page from the ONS (which gets updated regularly, on the same URL) shows the trend of how females have been and continue to be, hit by the recession:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12
The number of unemployed men fell by 31,000 on the quarter to reach 1.45 million but the number of unemployed women increased by 14,000 to reach 1.03 million.
[…]
The number of male claimants has fallen for fourteen consecutive months but the number of female claimants has increased for nine consecutive months.
Every time I check the page it shows the same thing, more females being made redundant, and more males finding work again. Employers are discriminating against females, and the government is doing nothing.
Paterson, you have a fucking cheek, showing up here with your red umbrella. Why not hang around with your bessie mates, the ECP?
There’s another article inthe Guardian this morning about the work the Poppy Project was doing – two things stand out:
1) from the article “… the coalition government does not regard sex trafficking as a priority – regardless of Cameron’s pledges … letters from officials, which concede that, while the rape experienced by victims is “unfortunate”, it does not qualify them for government help”.
2) the rank misogyny (as usual) in the comments, the complaining about the “feminist agenda” and so on (how dare people prioritise women’s lives !)
They are actually *pleased* that traffiked women will suffer – they do not want to see women treated as human beings with rights that count.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/apr/17/prostitution-human-trafficking