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January 15th, 2010Eurabia: No such thing
January 8th, 2010The Brookings’ Institution’s Justin Vaïsse takes apart the Eurabia myth in this excellent short piece inForeign Policy.
He points out the concept’s stylistic links to fear of “Eurocommunism” in the 50s and general anti-European and anti-internationalist sentiments on the American right, and correctly positions Melanie Phillips as “on the fringe far right” in European debate.
Here’s some of the good stuff:
If these books insist so much on the future, it is because current [evidence for Muslim take over is] unimpressive. According to the higher range of estimates by the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC), there are already as many as 18 million Muslims in Western Europe, or 4.5 percent of the population. The percentage is even lower for the 27-country European Union as a whole. The future will certainly see an increase, but it’s hard to imagine that Europe will even reach the 10 percent mark (except in some countries or cities). For one thing, as the same NIC study indicates and demographers agree, fertility rates among Muslims are sharply declining as children of immigrants gradually conform to prevailing social and economic norms. Nor is immigration still a major source of newly minted European Muslims. Only about 500,000 people a year come legally to Europe from Muslim-majority countries, with an even smaller number coming illegally — meaning that the annual influx is a fraction of a percent of the European population.
Finally, though the Eurabia books describe Europe as committing “slow motion suicide”, reality begs to differ — and increasingly so. According to demographers, in 2008, fertility rates in France and Ireland were more than two children per woman, close to the U.S. (and replacement) level; in Britain and Sweden they were above 1.9. And though in the 1990s European countries set an all-time record for low fertility rates, figures are now rising in all EU states except Germany.
People power, wielded by pols
January 7th, 2010So, Iceland’s president has thrown a controversial international financial deal to a referendum. Looking at this alongside the Lisbon Treaty kerfuffle in the UK, can we now approach a definition of “referendum” as:
a political device used by politicians of one party to unpick international agreements made by politicians of another party, in circumstances where they believe the popular mood of the moment is on their side.
The numbers game
January 6th, 2010A group of cross party Parliamentarians (including a former Archbishop of Canterbury) have released a statement (extracted and linked at ConservativeHome), saying that immigration is too high and that the population of the country should be capped at 70 million.
It is not surprising that a bunch of backward-looking, right-leaning MPs should want to stop immigration. It is not surprising that they should garland their views with endless protests that some of their best friends are Polish, and they just love what Indian women do with those henna patterns.
What is surprising is that they think their idea of a 70m cap is even slightly credible.
First problem: Why 70m? The UK population doubled in the eighteenth century and more than doubled in the nineteenth – presumably former MPs would have set 10m as the target, or 20m. What makes a less-than-10% rise unacceptable now? Is there some magic number of schools or hospitals, beyond which more can never be built? Are there no empty homes in northern England, no brownfield land where these new arrivals can be accommodated?
Second problem: Which 70m? If an economist were to choose 70m people to live in the UK, there would be far more hard-working, young, tax-paying immigrants and far fewer old, workless, unhealthy, pension-drawing British people. Is it really a good idea to shut out the people who will be paying for my pension?
Third problem: How 70m? Given that the population of the EU is about 500m (and will be more soon), and that they can all live wherever they like, how do we keep them out? Do we start culling when we get to 70m+1? Leave the EU? Smear excrement around the arrivals lounge at Heathrow to discourage people?
Fourth problem: Why bother? The statement appears to believe that the growth in the BNP vote is linked to some sort of rational concern about immigration, and that if the government only adopted an explicitly xenophobic immigration policy, everyone would be happy and the issue would drop off the agenda. Well, nice idea, but the right-wing papers are driving this agenda, and will continue to do so right up to the moment when their man gets into office. As soon as that happens, the tone will change and the Government will be become the good guys who are doing their best (except for occasional beatings to serve as a warning). Then we’ll see what happens to the salience of immigration, and the BNP vote.
Update: Some excellent critiquing of the “balanced migration” report at Left Foot Forward.
Draft Conservative Manifesto
January 4th, 2010Happy New Election Year everybody.
Today’s big news story is the (fourth or fifth) first day of campaigning for the general election, likely to be held in May.
I was particularly impressed by how the Conservatives are giving at least a veneer of crowdsourcing to their manifesto by inviting questions (this week on the NHS) and allowing people to vote on the ones which are put to David Cameron in a live webcast on Friday.
It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Political correctness
December 19th, 2009I enjoyed reading Sunder’s piece at NextLeft, discussing the bogeyman that is political correctness, and particularly the new Campaign Against Political Correctness (incomprehensible website).
I completely agree with Sunder that political correctness in the UK is a false argument: something that exists – as I said in a Twitter row with someone the other day – merely to legitimise rudeness, racism and prejudice as “mainstream”.
So with that in mind, I’m going to take some time off for Winterval, and will be back on 4 January, refreshed by lashings of tofurkey and organic fairtrade Islamist grape juice.
Happy holidays, seasons greetings and best wishes for (shamefully Christo-centrically dated) 2010.
This won't last long
December 16th, 2009Astonishingly, the BBC has titled a Have Your Say discussion Should homosexuals face execution? (it relates to a proposed Ugandan law making homosexuality a capital offence).
Much less surprisingly, the majority of the most recommended comments are anti-gay (although some of the anti-gay posters, in a startling display of liberalism, think that execution is going a bit far).
When are we going to get over this idea that commenting on news articles is a useful function?
Freedom of expression posters
December 15th, 2009I’m thoroughly enjoying the posters on the theme “Freedom of Expression” to be found at poster4tomorrow.
Stepping in, stepping out
December 14th, 2009Lots of comment around Simon Cowell’s threat to launch a political X Factor. Not that people necessarily remember it, but the idea’s been done, and spectacularly didn’t work.
Also revealed are the voting patterns in the phone poll, which show that the only actual intervention by the judges was to dump out Jedward. For which relief, as they say, much thanks.
Planet Pledge Pyramid
December 11th, 2009A very quick shout out to Saul Albert at The People Speak, who has started aPlanet Pledge Pyramid:
a pyramid scheme to save the planet… culminating in a gonzo reality game-show called Who Wants to Be…? where the audience decides how to spend the money. Of course, they could decide to do anything with the cash, but it’s happening at the Copenhagen Climate Forum, and this time, we’re inviting an Internet audience of indeterminate size to join in, pledge and vote live on the outcome!
Go and take a look.