The rank hypocrisy of Tony Blair: He threw open Britain to millions of immigrants, but now sneers at Ukip

Daily Mail

There is a particular tone of voice that BBC presenters use when announcing that the airwaves are to be cleared for an interview with Tony Blair.

A solemn preamble conveys the sense that after that morning’s tawdry squabbling of contemporary pygmy politicians such as Nigel Farage, this is the main act.

In truth, very few of us outside BBC headquarters want to hear anything more from Mr Blair, apart, that is, from him uttering one single word. Which is why I stay tuned, in the forlorn hope that I might one day hear Blair say: ‘Sorry.’ 

That is, sorry for leading us into ill-judged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with thousands of casualties on all sides; sorry for permanently damaging our country’s diplomatic standing by fatuously endorsing President George W. Bush’s cack-handed statecraft; sorry for changing, through a purposeful policy of mass immigration, the cultural fabric of our country without first asking if there was a consensus to do so.

Inevitably, Mr Blair was not actually in the BBC studio. On this occasion he was ‘joining us from Berlin’ - a change from Ramallah or Dubai or the other places between which he flits on private jets, and from which he tends to broadcast when taking a break from his crowded schedule of lectures delivered for a vast fee.

The most striking aspect of Blair’s performance yesterday was his assumption that the spectacular progress made by Ukip in last week’s local and European elections came out of the blue sky and had nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with him or the policies of the government he led.

‘I’ve always said you have to have proper controls in place on immigration,’ Mr Blair intoned, unchallenged.

This peculiar assertion is punctured by the research of Migration Watch, which estimates that immigration during the New Labour years added three million to our population.

It also ignores the account of a former Blairite speechwriter, Andrew Neather, that from late 2000 onwards the deliberate policy ‘was to open up the UK to mass immigration’.

More than that, New Labour’s open-door immigration policy was designed, Mr Neather said, to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.

Well, the consequences of that shamefully irresponsible politicking are now to be seen, both in the eastern European migrants crammed six to a room in East London, and in Ukip’s electoral progress.

Nigel Farage would not be grinning at us from the pages of our newspapers with an empty pint glass on his head were it not for Mr Blair’s policies."

A kick in the pants that Westminster so richly deserved

Daily Mail
The public’s deep concerns over mass immigration, with its devastating impact on housing, hospital services and schools, and the loss of sovereignty to a corrupt, unaccountable Brussels, were dismissed as the ravings of bigots and fanatics.
Yesterday, as Ukip claimed 150 council seats across the country, the three established parties  paid a very heavy price for treating ordinary people with such contempt.   .......
Why can’t the Prime Minister understand that, by labelling Ukip as ‘scaremongers’ and ‘closet racists’, he is insulting millions of small ‘c’ conservatives who have deserted his party over his commitment to windfarms, gay marriage and foreign aid?

Who's your mob?

The Black Steam Train
If you’ve read any ‘Aboriginal’ media interviews, or watched NITV for longer than an hour, you’ve probably come across the question ‘Who’s Your Mob?’, and for those who never heard it, let me explain it to you, and for those who have – I want to tell you why I despise the term.   .......

Can anyone please explain to me how it is racist to say “All Aboriginal people are (insert derogatory stereotype of your choice)”, but not racist to think all Aboriginal people use poor grammar and are capable of speaking or understanding in only the most basic of English, or have only one way to ask one another where they are from, or who their family are.  I’m told only the first one is racist, the other, simply ‘cultural awareness’.  

If that is what passes as ‘cultural awareness’, you can take it and shove the whole idea.  I speak, read and understand English at a level you would hardly call remedial.  This is not a skill unheard of for an Aboriginal person to possess, in any location."

Dave and Ed just don't get it: by branding Ukip racist they're damning millions of decent Britons

Daily Mail

Much of the media has obediently been doing the work of the three main parties. The BBC's normally admirable political editor, Nick Robinson, interviewed Mr Farage in  the tones one might employ for a convicted international war criminal.

Most newspapers of Left and Right (though not the Mail) have depicted Ukip as an extremist party inhabited by fruitcakes, crooks or dangerous lunatics.

The normally Eurosceptic Times and Sun have been among Mr Farage's most unforgiving critics. Of course, Ukip harbours some undesirable characters, and the media would be failing in their duty if they did not expose them.

But I suspect that the majority of Ukip members are solid types who are not racist, and I am sure the same can be said for most people who will vote for the party today.

But here is the extraordinary thing. Despite this barrage of insults from the political class and much of the media class - surely unprecedented in scale in modern times - Ukip still rides high in most opinion polls, and it seems likely that it will outdo the Tories in today's vote, and very possibly Labour, too."