Making fun of regional accents is not the same as stating that foreign nationals are able to szpeak a native language with greater skills than natives. Not the same thing at all.

Would a Frenchman ever make that remark about other Frenchmen? Doubt it.

Or a German about other Germans? Don’t think so.

So just why do the British feel so relaxed about so freely insulting other Brits? And what criteria is used to determine quality of language skills when doing so?

Tim adds: Actually, most French would in fact say that about most other French. Regional accents are very strong and everyone does indeed make fun of them. Germans are even worse. The local variations are not really mutually understandable. Think as different as a Cornish accent and a Geordie or more. Yes, they very much do make fun of those who do not speak High German as well as their regional variation. We actually make less discrimination on these than the two countries you mention.

Yup, mine too. Married to a Russian in Dubai, one who speaks better English than most Brits, for that matter.

Socialists just love their dependent, client populations.

I’m glad to hear that, though am subsequently puzzled by what appears to be the contradiction between that statement and your initial remark “(on pretty good grounds as well)”.

It is you who have brought up ethnic difference – and even then not properly. ‘Black’ can refer to race, ‘Asian’ refers to someone coming from a particular place. East Asia? South Asia?

Tim, one of the UK’s glories is that we were amongst the first modern countries to offer multi-ethnic citizenship. Indeed, the UK, primarily made up of Celts and Anglo-Saxons as it is, might be though of being the first modern multi-ethnic society. However, unlike many other nations its guiding force has always been civic nationalism as opposed to racial nationalism. If British citizens wish to be re-united with family members who are not British citizens, why should other British citizens be denied the right to discuss whether or ot this might be a good or bad thing merely on account of race? In your eyes, is race more important than citizenship?

The fact that British citizenship may have been handed out too lightly, on the other hand, is a discussion for another time.

Serf,

You write,

“Thanks mate, thats my family screwed.”

Tough.

Tim adds: “In your eyes, is race more important than citizenship?”

No, that most certainly is not my view. Not at all. My point was that this is something that will be said in the public sphere, not that I agreed with it. A prediction, not my view.

Let us just apply the laws we have and make life bloody difficult for anyone wanting to come and live here

We are being subjected to a vast social experiment which we didn’t agree to because we weren’t asked

Thanks mate, thats my family screwed.

“2) Asylum seekers. Not a lot we can do as asylum is governed by UN measures.”

Opt out of them. Or leave the UN. What does it do for us, anyway? If Somalis cannot live with other Somalis in Somalia in peace and harmony, really, what problem is it of ours?

“3) Family reconciliation. This we can change if we should so wish. It would be instantly decried as racist (on pretty good grounds as well).”

What “racist grounds”? Please explain, I’m dying to know. As a social policy, family reconciliation, or chain migration as I prefer to call it, fails because it creates ghettoisation. As an economic policy, please explain how importing unproductive illiterates enriches us. As you know I have tried hard to find the evidence, and cannot see it.

““We will have a shortage of labour in the future and this is already true of some sectors,” said José Manuel Barroso”

As far as the UK is concerned, this is a lie. Immigration policy is quite clearly being used as a means of relieving businesses of their obligation to ensure the people they employ are properly trained. See here –

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/06/great-british-engineer-shortage.html

and here –

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/great-british-engineer-shortage.html

“If you actually want to be able to do anything about it, you have to understand that the only way that anything can be done is by leaving the EU.”

On that, at least, we agree.

KayTie,

You write,

“No-one should underestimate just how difficult Governments make it to legally immigrate to a country”

You think this is bad? Explain, please.

“…this rule really makes a difference to the individual, the host country (and the original country: if all the high-earners left the UK his economic plans would be in tatters).”

So are you arguing that Gordon Brown’s economic plans possessed a shred of merit in the first place? If he cannot draw up plans based on the skills, competences and productivity of the people who can actually vote for him, I would have thought that the plans themselves must be defective.

Tim adds: “What “racist grounds”?”
The criticism will be that it is blacks and asians who are denied the ability to bring other members of their families in. Given that this is in fact true….

Tim, unfortunately the Modern Liberal Left have foisted post modernism on us, and its all about feeling, so i say if you cant beat them join them.

Wrap the demographic/immigration up with the Eu so the public can grasp the issue, and run with it, afterwards we will then have a political argument about immigration ect, settled at the ballot box.

Its the only way I am afraid, you will just have to take a big gulp and look away, cause it is going to be nasty.

What, because every immigrant (net migration = 185k people) lives in a house on their own? Idiot.

One of the major benefits of the EU: free movement of labour. No-one should underestimate just how difficult Governments make it to legally immigrate to a country and this rule really makes a difference to the individual, the host country (and the original country: if all the high-earners left the UK his economic plans would be in tatters).

It’s not clear that even that would stop the tide of migrants ariving in Britain.

But there are other ways of managing the inflow. One way would be to stop all new housebuilding and attempt to freeze the population at its current level. At the moment, we are building around 180,000 new homes every year, just about keeping pace with the levels of net migration.