Monday 15 March 2010

Flee! Flee While You Still Can!

...Yasmin is getting ready to sing!
I could tell you once more about the lot of the poor asylum seeker in our country – sing that plaintive folk song again and again until the voice cracks...
Yes, it's that old classic "Why Is The UK So Beastly To Immigrants?" again...
...the tragedy of Serge and Tatiana Serykh and their son, Russians temporarily housed in a tower block in Glasgow where others like them were kept, people who left their own lands and found no acceptance in ours...
We should have immediately let them stay, you see, despite them having no right to claim asylum, because...well, Yazza doesn't say why, exactly.

It's not like we really have such a shortage of home-grown lunatics that we really need to import the exotic foreign type, is it?

But she's still singing those pro-asylum seeker blues:
The women at one immigration removal centre, Yarls Wood, are on hunger strike and complain about racial and physical abuse. Donkeys in sanctuaries can raise more sympathy than do these caged humans. A Swiftian thought – maybe we should turn the enclosures into zoos, label the countries the inmates come from, watch them feed and fight, maybe on a good day attack their guards.
Beg pardon?

Has the Yazzmonster finally taken leave of her senses? Is she seriously suggesting that violent disorder (to the tune of £38 million) in detention centres is a good thing?

And why, other than the obvious, is she so keen on open borders?

Well, how else is a wealthy columnist supposed to feast on a wide range of exotic delights while out and about in the capital?
On Saturday night we popped into a small, unlicensed Vietnamese eatery on Kingsland Road in the East End. It was buzzing with arty young things. The young waiters were delightful, the food – which cost a tenner each – was fabulous...

...Walking to the car we saw a new coffee house, The Bridge, and went in. I suddenly wanted a Turkish coffee. Ricco, the owner, in the middle of serving up lattes and cappuccinos, immediately set to, lit a small primus stove and started making me some.
That's just peachy, Yasmin. How could we think of denying you your Vietnamese meal and wonderful Turkish coffee?

If it irretrievably changes the look and culture of our high streets, and forces up house prices, and restricts job opportunities and demands for basic services, why, that's a small price to pay, isn't it?

After all, only good ever came from immigration or asylum, right?
Just a cursory think through exiles made good gives one hope and should give the authorities some doubts about their draconian policies. The conductor Sir Georg Solti would not have flourished if his family had not been able to flee Hungary and find a home here. Jung Chang, the writer of the wonderful Wild Swans, found her voice once she knew she was safe in our country.
Some impressive names there.

Sadly for Yasmin, there are other names to hang on immigration and asylum policy:

Mohammed Kendeh

Ali Majlat

Mauro Patrice Lopes

So it's not all bún chả and kahve, is it, Yaz?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

How many of the staff of that Vietnamese restaurant serving meals for £10 a head in the middle of London were on even the minimum wage, do you reckon?

staybryte said...

Yazza's factually challenged as well as a frothing mentalist. Georg Solti fled Hungary for Switzerland in 1939 and he spent the war there.

He first came to Britain to take up a position at Covent Garden in 1961, having lived pacefully in Germany for many years after the war.

Jim said...

Is this 'delightful' unlicensed restaurant unlicensed in the sense of no alcohol, or in the sense of running below the radar of the State? Ie no health inspections, no tax paid, no VAT charged on food, no NI contributions paid, no insurance?

Cos if its the latter, it presumably will be undercutting genuine businesses that have all the costs it avoids. That doesn't promote 'social cohesion' a great deal does it?

Angry Exile said...

As per normal I can see the value in Yazzer's central theme because I'm a migrant myself, and being also a libertarian I'm all for the free movement of goods, capital, services and people. Unlike Yazzer I've filtered this through a layer of common fucking sense and added an extremely important caveat: 'but not while the government is still hosing taxpayers' money at any fucker who rocks up with enough nous to have his hand out as he gets off the plane'. Do something about that and you'd eventually need a detention centre about the size of a small motel for the whole country.

Stan said...

I've not much to add to what yourself and other commenters have said except as someone who lives in an area with a large number of immigrants I know exactly how much of a detrimental impact this has on jobs, homes and services (particularly schools). Things are now so bad that even the immigrants can't stand immigrants coming in and taking "their jobs" and "their homes". The irony would be delicious if it were not so bloody catastrophic.

Joe Public said...

And if she gets Food Poisoning 'cos of uninspected, unhygenic practices, will she book a flight to a Vietnamese hospital?

Or, will she expect us British Taxpayers to foot her NHS bill?

blueknight said...

Yazz, do something useful. Take all your wingeing and moaning to the countries where these illegals originate.
That may discourage some of them from coming here.
(Does she really go to all these cafes, or is she making it up like the story about the hairdressers?)

Mark Wadsworth said...

Immigration does not force up house prices - what it does is displace natives from social housing and push up Housing Benefit bill to Timmy Taxpayer, and I doubt whether immigration even forces up rents.

The reason for high house prices is Home-Owner-Ism, we only have ourselves to blame for that.

But apart from that, which is Alibi-Brown's stupidest article so far? You're the expert. I keep thinking that this must be it, but she always seems to top herself. Although unfortunately not in the same manner as these 'asylum seekers'.

KenS said...

Immigration does not force up house prices

Are you sure? The displaced natives go on to rent **somewhere** that they would not otherwise have done, which increases demand on the private rental market, which pushes up rent, which encourages more people to "buy to let", which pushes up the price of housing.....

JuliaM said...

"How many of the staff of that Vietnamese restaurant serving meals for £10 a head in the middle of London were on even the minimum wage, do you reckon?"

I'd be surprised if the answer was 'any of them'!

"Yazza's factually challenged as well as a frothing mentalist."

You'd think the 'Indy' would have a dedicated team of editors to pour over her every uttering, wouldn't you? To preserve their reputation, if nothing el..

Oh. Wait...

"Is this 'delightful' unlicensed restaurant unlicensed in the sense of no alcohol, or in the sense of running below the radar of the State? "

Good point!

"Do something about that and you'd eventually need a detention centre about the size of a small motel for the whole country."

I'd hope so. But as pointed out, you'd still need to remove the opportunity to join the black economy...

JuliaM said...

"Things are now so bad that even the immigrants can't stand immigrants coming in..."

Because they can see the unfairness in the current system better than anyone. They did things the hard way!

"Does she really go to all these cafes, or is she making it up..."

I wouldn't be surprised to hear this was another lie. For a supposed Muslim, she's quite blase about porkies...

"Immigration does not force up house prices..."

But surely, as Ken points out, it has to have some effect on supply and demand?

Anonymous said...

For a supposed Muslim, she's quite blase about porkies

Telling porkies to the infidel is not wrong

dr cromarty said...

Here's an interesting fact about the three asylum seekers in Glasgow. They were seeking asylum from that notoriously oppressive state Canada.