Tim Worstall

24 responses so far ↓

• 1 Kay Tie // Jun 2, 2009 at 4:43 pm

  Hmmn. I was quite well disposed to UKIP and Farage in particular until Thursday’s Question Time when they just happened to mention immigration. Then you could almost see the spittle flying (at an audience mostly composed of EU immigrant entrepreneurs fleeing neo-communist policies in France, Italy, etc.).

  I’m not sure I can vote UKIP: rather like voting for Hitler because you like his re-armament policies and hope that the bit about the Jews was mostly for show..

• 2 PC // Jun 2, 2009 at 4:50 pm

  Agreed Kaytie. But I see UKIP more like a stepping stone .. get out of the EU first then the damage can start to be repaired.

• 3 Liam // Jun 2, 2009 at 4:50 pm

  On the verge of his historic election win Kinnock would have used that picture too.

• 4 Mark Wadsworth // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:12 pm

  Kay Tie, agreed, UKIP’s immigration policy needs fine tuning a bit, but it’s not far off what the average voter wants.

• 5 Kay Tie // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:14 pm

  “but it’s not far off what the average voter wants.”

  Since the average voter thinks immigrants get free houses, cars and plasma TVs, this doesn’t reassure..

• 6 chris // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:23 pm

  vote for anyone who doesnt have MPs or MEPs!

• 7 john b // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:24 pm

  @the original claim, o rlly?

• 8 Catnip // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:28 pm

  Meeow – I like the picture!

• 9 Kit // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:31 pm

  Is this Tim’s Kinnock moment?

  Tim adds: Well, at least I’ve not said to return to your constituencies and prepare for power!

• 10 JuliaM // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:34 pm

  

• 11 ukipwebmaster // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:53 pm

  Fame at last Tim:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8079454.stm

• 12 Banditry » Blog Archive » The uniforms were also pretty // Jun 2, 2009 at 6:24 pm

  [...] Quote of the day: I’m not sure I can vote UKIP: rather like voting for Hitler because you like his re-armament policies and hope that the bit about the Jews was mostly for show.. [...]

• 13 Mark Wadsworth // Jun 2, 2009 at 8:32 pm

  Kay Tie, the average voter does NOT think that, or else the average voter would be voting BNP, which they clearly aren’t. What UKIP propose is a return to the system we had until 1997 (AFAIAA, I’m not really too bothered).

• 14 Kay Tie // Jun 2, 2009 at 9:24 pm

  I hope you’re right, Mark.

• 15 wonkotsane // Jun 3, 2009 at 8:48 am

  I don’t understand what the problem is with UKIP’s immigration policy. It’s quite simple. The economy is in a shit state and unemployment is hovering around the 10% mark. There aren’t enough jobs for the people already living here (whether they were born here or not) and there isn’t enough money to pay people not to work. If there are no jobs for immigrants and we can’t afford to pay them not to work, what is the point in them coming here? They may as well stay where they are or go somewhere else that can provide them with a job or pay them not to work. After a 5 year ban of economic immigration, a points-based system will be introduced to allow immigration based on the potential immigrants’ ability to get a job, useful skills and ability to speak the language.

  In what way is that racist or even remotely like anything Hitler ever did?

• 16 Henry North London // Jun 3, 2009 at 8:54 am

  You will be getting my vote on Thursday but purely because the Libertarians are not standing in the EU elections

• 17 wonkotsane // Jun 3, 2009 at 9:16 am

  I’ve elaborated a bit on my previous comment:

  http://bloggers4ukip.blogspot.com/2009/06/ukips-immigration-policy-in-laymans.html

• 18 Kay Tie // Jun 3, 2009 at 9:44 am

  Wonko, please explain why people like you always go on and on and on and ON about immigrants and benefits as if benefits ate somehow generous and immigrants want to come from Poland etc. to live in poverty in a sink estate amongs hooded thugs.

  Christ on a bike. I wish you’d remember that immigrants are ALSO business people, engineers, doctors, and other skilled professional people. But you can’t get that image of a dark skinned Somalian gang member out of your head, can you?

  To see what a “tough on immigrants” policy is like, go and read the Manifesto report on the new regime for visas for visiting artists. We deported Alison Crowe back to Canada on entry to Gatwick for a visa violation. We’re making the US visa fuckwittery under Bush look like mere paperwork.

  We know Tim’s views on immigration don’t line up with the spittle fleckers in UKIP but he has to button it while a press officer.

• 19 rosscoe // Jun 3, 2009 at 10:39 am

  I agree with UKIP that we should have control over our borders , but I think that once we have that control we should probably leave them open, the benifits of free movement of goods and people far out wiegh the percieved disadvantages, but I think most sane people can agree that that is a decision for the british state not the european one. I confess though that I to am more than a little uneasy about the focus on immigration and immigrants in UKIPS campaigning, I probably will be voting for them as I believe that if everyone who dislikes the EU does and they beat labour and/or the lib dems again it might show that being anti eu is not electoral suicide and could possibly encourage the brighter sparks in the other parties to follow suite.

• 20 john b // Jun 3, 2009 at 12:16 pm

  “unemployment is hovering around the 10% mark.”

  In crazy-bizarro-fantasy world, yes. According to the internationally accepted ILO definition, it’s 7.1%.

  Otherwise, what Kay Tie said.

• 21 mdc // Jun 3, 2009 at 1:37 pm

  No party is actually pro-immigration. Do you think Labour is? A party bankrolled by people who are picketing their workplaces waving ‘British Jobs!!!’ placards, that has introduced the new ‘points system’, that has committed to mass deportations, etc…?

  At least UKIP want to leave the EU.

• 22 wonkotsane // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:02 pm

  So Kay Tie, I can safely assume you didn’t read what I wrote and haven’t read anything else I’ve written?

  For a start, I didn’t mention Poles – in the blog post I used a one-legged Bulgarian goat farmer and a multi-millionaire businessman from Dubai as examples of either end of the spectrum and how the immigration system while we are under EU rule will only allow us to stop the multi-millionaire from Dubai coming into the country, but not the one-legged Bulgarian goat farmer.

  In fact, reading back through what you’ve written again, you’re accusing me of all sorts of things when you don’t even know who I am. How about you go fuck yourself and come back and talk to the grown-ups when you’ve moved on from accusing people you know nothing about of racism.

  Honestly, you do attract some riff-raff here Worstall. Don’t you cross reference ip addresses with a database of know hand-wringing liberal hippy vegetarian hunt saboteurs?

• 23 Michał Gancarski // Jun 3, 2009 at 11:07 pm

  I am probably one of these Poles that would like to move to England or Ireland at some point. At the very moment of writing this comment I am importing educational services from your country through the University of London External System, praising the open market for the opportunity to do so. I have also been given a chance to visit London in May and I am coming there again for my second exam next week. I think the city is extraordinary.

  As British citizens you have obviously the right to shape UK’s immigration policy as you see fit and I think that some measures targeting foreigners abusing Britain’s public services without contributing anything in return should be put in place, in the exactly same manner as Norway has done lately. Just don’t close your labour market for people who could be valuable for the British economy only because of fear of unemploment and current economic slowdown.

• 24 Sam // Jun 4, 2009 at 3:05 pm

  I am in the opposite situation – I am a Brit living in the USA, and so get to suffer the “US visa fuckwittery”.

  Frankly, it’s scary. I’m well-educated, have a fairly well-paying job, own a house in the US, pay US taxes, and have a US citizen child. I’m in the US as a guest, which is fine – I expect to be thrown out if I abuse that hospitality. I’m not worried about that.

  I am worried about some capricious decision by a US official who just decides not to renew my visa. Rationally, that shouldn’t happen, but the knowledge that my presence here is subject to the whim of some random individual does not fill me with confidence.

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