Religion and Politics.
Religions plays no part in public discourse in the UK. And very
little even here in 'Catholic' Spain. In the USA, however, everyone
seems to talk religion, especially during presidential elections. Is
there any candidate there, other than Bernie Saunders perhaps, who doesn't
believe that God is responsible for their success and/or failure? It
seems The Almighty has plans – always a mystery – for each and
everyone of them. Which prompts the question – Why vote? Why not
the drawing of straws, overseen by Big G? Anways here's a couple of
people who'd be laughed to perdition in the UK and elsewhere:
- The daughter of evangelist Billy Graham insists that If Americans repent, there will be peace on our streets. And God will begin to reveal the plots of our enemies and terrorists before they are carried out. Not just that. He'll also control the weather patterns and protect us from these violent storms that are taking human life. Surprisingly, she admits that God allows bad things like the September 11 attacks and the mass shooting in San Bernardino to happen to show us that we need Him and that we’re desperate without him. She'd be considered insane in the UK. Like that nutter David Icke. But, then, he did believe he was the son of God. And complained when people didn't take him seriously. Thunderbolts would have been more effective.
- People of the Right in the US are now wondering whether Donald Trump is their punishment from God for straying from the path of their (Biblical?) version of Righteousness. Here's one example of this form of lunacy.
Identity Proving: There
are at least 4 documents you can use in Spain to prove your identity.
Needless to say, this provides ample opportunity for error, both on
the part of dumb computers and (even dumber) people. I made between
10 and 15 efforts last night to try to get confirmation from
Telefónica's Movistar that I can get cable at my house. Having had
the NIE number (on their previous contracts) rejected more than 5
times, I tried every other document but without success. It's rather
ironic that I can't communicate with the computer of a
telecommunications company. Or would be outside Spain . . .
UK Benefits: My
neighbour, the lovely Ester, visited me the other night, to raid my
fridge for beers. There was a program on the BBC about people in the UK
who live off benefits. Seeing that folk could spend their entire life
on these – cf. a couple of years or so in Spain – Ester sat there
gently shaking her head in astonishment and disbelief. Why do you
thing refugees like to head for there? I asked her. But answer came there none.
Government Lies: It's
never wise to believe official figures, even in Britain. At the end
of this post is an article by the estimable Alison Pearson, who notes
just how false the British government's numbers have been about
immigrants in the last 5 or 6 years. I was going to just link to this article but it seems to have disappeared in the last 2 hours.
Britain and the EU and: HT
to my Ferrol friend Richard for this wonderful clip from the
marvellous TV series Yes, Minister of a decade or two ago. It's hard
to believe it wasn't accurate back then. And even more so now.
Finally . . . The
Caminos de Santiago: I've cynically stressed a few times that these
have far more to do with money than faith. Hence the regular
'discovery' of old routes that merit re-introduction. Here in Galicia
alone, we've had 2 of these in the last 5 years. The first was the
Spiritual Way, heading NW from Ponters via the wine country to
eventually join up with the established Portuguese way. And now we
have The Way of Father Sarmiento. As this map hopefully shows, this
turns west once you cross the river Miño at Tui and then heads along
the Spanish bank of this river and up the coast to the island of
Arousa, where some walkers will be able to refresh supplies at the
centre of Galicia's drug trafficking operations. The camino then heads up to Pontecesures and the Portuguese Way again. I trust God is
impressed with all this devotion.
Government Untruths:
The gap between ONS
migrant figures and the truth is as wide as the Grand Canyon. We are
owed an apology
So, it turns out the
British people are owed an apology.
- Every parent whose
child can’t get a place at a secondary school of their choosing.
- Every plasterer who
claims that his wages have been driven down remorselessly by Eastern
Europeans, yet been told to shut up because migrants are really good
for the economy.
- All those damned as
“racist” when they dare to wonder why families who have lived
here and paid their dues for several generations can’t get priority
on the housing ladder.
- Every heavily
pregnant woman turned away by her local maternity unit because it’s
“full”. (Half of all UK maternity units have rejected women in
labour over the past two years, particularly in migrant hotspots
where the birth rate is going through the roof.)
- Every poor woman’s
husband who has to drive 35 miles, with his wife groaning like a
stricken moose, to find another hospital in which she can give birth.
And this in the world’s fifth richest nation.
The apologies are due
because of a report issued by the Office of National Statistics. And
what the ONS admitted to was The Gap. Official figures show that, in
the five years to 2015, just under one million immigrants came to
this country from the EU, as they are perfectly entitled to do. the
number of National Insurance numbers issued to EU migrants was more
than 2.2 million.
In all, the ONS now
estimates a total of 2.4 million entered the country. In one year,
mid-2014 to mid-2015, a quarter of a million Europeans came in
according to the official measure, yet almost 700,000 bagged
themselves a NI number. The Gap, in other words, is more of a grand
canyon. Suspicions that the figures were being grossly underestimated
are now confirmed. The extra number of EU migrants the ONS has found
down the back of the sofa amounts to six Newcastles.
It’s a stupefying
figure, which helps to explain the growing crisis in the NHS, with
one migrant registering per minute with a GP in England and Wales.
(Yes, madam, it’s why there isn’t a single free paediatric bed in
Greater London for your little boy with a bursting appendix.)
With the referendum
campaign in full spate, no wonder they resisted a Freedom of
Information request for months before releasing this deeply damaging
data.
So, how to explain the
convenient discrepancy between the number of EU migrants the British
people were told were here and the actual figure? Ah, says the ONS,
with a lofty air: short-term immigrants have not been included in the
tally. They aren’t here for long enough to make a difference, so
count them out. It depends what you mean by “short-term”. The
idea is that, when Piotr the plumber arrives in search of work, he
can cheerfully claim to have come for no more than a single year:
half-a-dozen bathrooms, a handful of blocked U-bends, a quick burst
of grouting and bang, he’s out of here. Lovely job. And, because of
the time limit, he will not be registered as an immigrant, though he
will still need that NI number. And if, during his time here, some of
the other local plumbers get priced out by his efforts, well, so be
it. It’s the law of the market.
Now, Piotr may, as the
ONS sweetly assumes, have had no intention of staying on. But what if
he does? Maybe he proves such a dab hand with the plunger that
the urge to leave starts to fade. And what if his family joins him?
Then we will have lots of little Piotrs in need of schooling and
healthcare. (Just think that we need an extra 900,000 school places
by 2024.) Before long, the term is not looking quite so short. In
fact, the term may never end. Those in favour of free movement of EU
citizens, and who regard anything else as cruel and bigoted, will say
such speculation is unfair; we cannot really tell what Piotr is
likely to do. But we can. Until recently, anyone wanting to measure
The Gap would hit a problem, because HMRC would not disclose how many
NI numbers issued to foreign nationals were still “active” – in
other words, how many EU workers remain here, and how many have gone
home.
Now, the ONS has
unveiled the truth: among immigrants from the eastern Europe
countries that joined the EU in 2004, half of all NI numbers are
active for more than a year. For Romanians and Bulgarians, that
proportion is about 40 per cent, and among more established EU
members, like Spain and France, it is 45 per cent. In short: every
other Piotr is staying put. The fault does not lie with Piotr. The
fault lies with the Government, which truly, madly, deeply wishes
that we would stop asking awkward questions about immigration and do
something else, like lying in beer, bratwurst and I HEART Merkel!
T-shirts for our Eurovision party at the weekend. Boris Johnson has
accused the Government of “terrible dishonesty” and urged it to
“man up” about the facts. And, damn it, he’s right. When your
figures are a million men down, and more, it’s time to man up in a
serious way. The pattern of this referendum campaign so far is
the Establishment telling the men and women of this country we are
too stupid to understand what’s good for us. Trust in the elites,
folks, and vote Remain. If the latest figures say anything,
however, it’s that the elites are not to be trusted. When it comes
to uncontrolled immigration, they have played the biggest con-trick
in living memory. I am sure there are many eloquent words to describe
this situation, but the three I find myself reaching for are
absolute, bloody and disgrace.
In 2004, New Labour
predicted that unrestricted access for eastern Europeans joining the
EU would see the UK population grow by 13,000 a year. We all know how
that worked out, don’t we? It took till 2013 for former home
secretary Jack Straw to call the calculations “a spectacular
mistake”.
A mistake paid for
every day by families as their public services fray and
fracture. Politicians know that if they consulted the population
about uncontrolled EU immigration, they would say, No.
So instead they
underestimate, obfuscate and, failing that, they lie. And now, from
the great smokescreen of deceit emerges a scandalous truth. The
British people sensed it all along. Didn’t we? Our instincts were,
and are, spot on.
Brexit now has its best and biggest weapon. Use it well.
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