And There You Have It

Assuming this is genuine, (via Devil's Kitchen) we find that someone's admitted what we've all suspected for a very long time ...

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

... "But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland."

It's worth noting there was no denial from the Home Office spokesman contacted by the Telegraph for comment. It's also worth nothing the great timing of this revelation, the day following the public pillorying of Nick Griffin. It can't be a coincidence, and I bet Griffin and his cronies are delighted.

Here, they have a statement from a former advisor to the sitting Government admitting that it doesn't care about its voters or the country they govern - they are devoted instead to their utopian delusions and their loathing of the political Right, and aren't afraid to screw up a few innocent people's lives to try and make them reality.

Of course, we always knew this in a way. There was no way Tony Blair and co., were stupid enough to think what they were doing was in the national interest. We always knew there were certain conveniences to a slack immigration policy:

When I was a business journalist in the late 1990s, I remember writing stories about how bus companies were recruiting in homeless shelters because they couldnt find the staff. The people in those shelters were being offered structure to their lives, from an employer forced by economic conditions to deal with the greater risk they pose. It was a sign of economic growth addressing social problems – as it should be.

But mass immigration has broken this link. It meant Gordon Brown could actually afford to keep so many million on benefits, as tax receipts were being generated by comparative newcomers. It was a lot easier than trying to reform welfare. Scandalously, thats what Brown did. To my mind, it is the most contemptible failure of his time as Chancellor. He had the money, the economic boom, to sort out the welfare dependency that afflicts so many communities in Britain. But he took the easy, short term route. To use that analogy the Prime Minister is so fond of deploying, he walked on by on the other side. Why get your hands (and poll ratings) dirty with welfare reform when you can rely on immigrants to keep the economy growing and tax receipts flowing? And who wants to end up with disabled people chaining themselves to the railings of parliament, as happened when Blair tried welfare reform? Brown took the easy option. And his short-termism has condemned millions to worklessness and poverty who might otherwise have escaped it.

And it's not just true with welfare reform. This is true with education reform, tax reform, and economic reform. This Government has a real cynical contempt for both the past and for the future.

This matters for Cameron, because he will inherit Browns dysfunctional labour market – one distinguished by its striking failure to provide that now-notorious Brown slogan British jobs for British workers. What if, when the recovery comes, the economy just sucks in more immigrants and the huge surge in dole numbers is never properly reversed?

Thats why immigration matters. You cant understand the UK labour market, or the pernicious nature of the UK welfare state, without it.

They're not stupid, this bunch. They know exactly what they are doing, and they and their ilk have known it for decades. As Sean Gabb put it ...

The purpose of the Government that took power in 1997 was to bring about a revolutionary transformation of this country—a transformation from which there could be no return to what had been before.

And for those of us who have to live with the consequences and try our best to put it right? Well ...

If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.