Well, Rev, You Know What They Say Happens When You Assume

Letters in tthe 'Guardian' can be illuminating. Here's one from Rev Dr Michael Fox:

Twenty years ago, while making a documentary on politics for the Open University, I interviewed a group of 15-year-olds at a school in Moss Side, Manchester. The school had selected a mixed group of children, half identifying as white British, half as second-generation immigrant. Against my expectations, when discussing immigration, the children of immigrants strongly expressed views similar to those now espoused by Ms Mahmood. “The country is full,” one of them said. I assumed at the time that the children were reflecting the views and language of their parents, with such factors in play as a desire to “fit in” their host country and to identify with the perceived values of their neighbours, a kind of “self-othering” as a natural response to the trauma of migration. Conversely, the white British children were open and accepting of immigrants.

Oh dear, how awkward, Rev! But why, apart from the obvious, did you assume it would be different? 

As a (non-Conservative) son-in-law of a former Conservative home secretary, the late Robert Carr, who took the decision to admit refugees from Idi Amin’s Uganda in 1972, I have always found it unthinkable that some more recent Tory holders of that office have abandoned the compassion he personified in favour of a “drawbridge” mentality.

A drawbridge is something you pull up when you're under attack, Rev...