howard

well who would have thought it. how did we all miss this?
leave it to the un to point out the obvious as they accuse howard of:
"indulging in "political opportunism" and encouraging hatred of foreigners by dragging asylum-seekers into party politics."
this comes ahead of his first major speech since the election was called - and what was it going to be about - oh immigration and the fact he sees blair and co as "pussyfooting" around the issue.
according to the independent howard is due to say:
""For too many years immigration has been a no-go area for political debate. If you said you thought that too many people were coming here, you were branded a racist. Let's be clear: it's not racist to criticise the system. It's just common sense.
"If we don't speak up now and have a proper debate about immigration we'll only help the bigots who preach racial hatred and the people-smugglers who profit from other people's misery. Mr Blair may want to pussyfoot around this issue, but I don't."

in a sense howard is right a sensible debate does need to be conducted over immigration and asylum seekers. it should be a rational debate, a coherent debate and one that is conducted in the cold light of day and not in the heat of an election.

howard does not help his case by lying. howard's plan for offshore centres and that the eu and un had set them up was met with "It is not correct that overseas processing centres have been established.." from anne dawson-shepard the british representative of unhcr.
ooops thats ok, what do the facts have to do with anything as long as you can claim that you are not racist.

howard seems to ignore that by bringing this (non) issue to the fore he is in fact doing the work of groups such as the bnp for them. it legitimates them because they can now point to the the main parties who are in a tizzy about how hard they can appear to be before they go into goose-stepping territory. the bnp can now campaign on this issue and no one can accuse them of stirring up hate because howard has gotten there first.

as for people-smugglers what is it that howard is sniffing because it is sure powerful stuff. people smuggling isn't occurring because it is easy to get into the uk, it's happening because people are making lots of money out of some poor wretches who want to have a better life for themselves. making it harder for legitimate immigrants or asylum seekers to enter the uk is not going to worry the gangs who operate people smuggling rings, it is going to encourage them. they are going to be making more money out of the misery of others. but it will be ok because the official statistics will be down and howard and blair can say - look what we did.

the worst of it is that we will still go to all these countries and offer jobs to their best people so that we have doctors, nurses, teachers (and of course nannies for the great and good).

howard may not be a racist - he is something worse he is someone who will prey on the base fears of people, he will stoke imaginary fears and he will do it for one reason only to have a chance to be the prime minister.