David Cameron, Enoch Powell and Vince Cable

 

              David Cameron and Enoch Powell are or were very different kinds of politician. Dr Cable’s recent abuse of the Conservative party was designed to equate current Conservative  thinking on migration with the “rivers of blood” extremism of Mr Powell’s most infamous speech.  It shows a lack of respect for the Prime Minister he serves, and a lack of knowledge of Mr Powell’s general work on government and the EU.

              As always with people like Dr Cable his rude remarks are loaded with contradictions and errors. Two years ago Dr Cable was happy to sign up to a government decision to put off for another two years opening our borders fully to Bulgarians and Romanians. Why was it the case that two years ago this deed was neither damaging to our relationships with eastern European countries, nor Powell like?

               Now that Mr Cameron and Mrs May are trying to find legal ways to prevent overloading our welfare system by too many new arrivals, Dr Cable changes tack and accuses them of Powellite tendencies. They are seeking to implement the Coalition agreed policy of curbing immigration, something he signed up to at the beginning. How does he propose to hit the government’s target for reduced migration, as he disagrees with the measures needed to achieve it?   Where does he think the UK is suddenly going to get a large amount of extra public cash to provide generous public services and benefits to more new arrivals?  What is he suggesting we cut in our public budgets to make this extra cash available? One of the left of centre think tanks is already saying we do need to give more cash to local authorities likely to receive new  migrants.

                 Dr Cable is also clearly against the UK government seeking to change the EU rules to give a country like the UK more control over its own benefit system and  borders. Does he not read his emails or talk to his own constituents? I cannot believe his voters are keen on all this close EU integration that many people write to me to complain about.

97 Comments

  1. Richard1
    December 26, 2013

    Its fine isn’t it? Let the Liberal Democrats be clear that the policies they stand for are uncontrolled immigration, no attempt at all to curb the ever-encroaching power of the EU and of course lashings of ‘green crap’, wind farms and the rest of it. This should suit Conservatives fine – people who support these policies should vote LibDem or Labour, people who do not should vote Conservative.

    1. lifelogic
      December 26, 2013

      “people who do not should vote Conservative”

      but Cameron lost the last election by ratting on the EU promise, pushing all the vote blue get green crap, giving Clegg equal billing and all the endlessly higher taxes, pro bikes (with the Lexus? car behind with the bags), HS trains and endless waste guff. He is surely a Libdem in all his views.

      Why on earth should we trust him this time?

      1. Richard1
        December 27, 2013

        I think he lost the last election by giving Clegg a slot in the debates, which pushed the LibDems from 15% to 23%. With Labour at 29% he would otherwise have won. I agree there was a lot of blue green nonsense but there seems to be a change of heart there as the costs become apparent and as people become more doubtful about global warming theory.

        There are 2 possible outcomes in the election – a Conservative majority or coalition or a Labour one. Whilst it is far from perfect I think there is much more chance of prosperity and growth with a Conservative govt.

        1. Hope
          December 28, 2013

          No, I disagree. Clegg got less of the vote and fewer MPs at the last election. People seem to focus on his first appearance. When he talked about EU, immigration and defence the on screen monitor showed how disastrous his views were with the people of this country.

        2. lifelogic
          December 29, 2013

          I agree a conservative government even under the wet socialist Cameron is better than Labour or a coalition, but so slightly as to be nothing in it.
          Anyway the odd on it are, thanks to Cameron’s incompetence and the boundary bias he failed to address, extremely slim.

      2. APL
        December 27, 2013

        Lifelogic: “endless waste guff.”

        You mean like travelling to the North pole to see the huskies. Just wondering how much CO2 was generated taking him and his entourage there and back.

        Then there was the pathetic little windmill on the side of his house, that shortly thereafter was seen in a state of some disrepair. Never did hear how that was financed did we.

        Lifelogic: “Why on earth should we trust him this time?”

        We shouldn’t!

        1. Richard1
          December 28, 2013

          Got a better idea?

        2. Hope
          December 28, 2013

          You would need your had examined if you trusted Cameron based on his actions to date in office.

    2. Bob
      December 26, 2013

      people who do not should vote Conservative.

      “Conservative”?

      Is that the party that changed the definition of marriage, abolished child allowance for a specific sub-set of people and printed £175 billion pounds to give away while increasing state borrowing and at the same time culling our armed forces?

      Maybe it’s not just the definition of “gay” or “marriage” that’s changed.

      1. Hope
        December 27, 2013

        Excellent.

      2. Timaction
        December 27, 2013

        The Conservatives controlling immigration? Hardly. 503,000 immigrants last year, 517,000 the year before. 218,000 from outside the EU last year alone. So where’s the control? We shouldn’t have a managed net migration policy based on our young talent and entrepreneur’s leaving to go to the English speaking Commonwealth.
        The spin of movement of UK citizens leaving to other EU countries is in the main retirees to Spain and France (1.3 million) who are no burden to the host nations. Unlike the minimum wage replacement who are subsidised by the British tax payer. Can’t wait for the next wave in January!

    3. Iain Moore
      December 26, 2013

      Trouble is the Cameron Conservatives are so politically confused, and so inept at making any argument there is no chance they will profit from Labour and the Libdems being the parties of uncontrolled immigration for they won’t be able to figure out what the argument is, even if they did they wouldn’t be able to give expression to it, and more likely than not find it just too intellectually challenging to hold a position that is different to the metropolitan metroseuxal crowd. So they will throw in the towel and do what they have always done up to now, say ‘ me too’ and give the job to someone like Soubry to wax lyrical about having a millions and millions of immigrants.

    4. Denis Cooper
      December 27, 2013

      Wake up, those leading the Tory party are just as much in favour of continued mass immigration as those leading the other two old parties. Look at their actions, not their words designed to placate their members and supporters.

      1. Hope
        December 28, 2013

        Well said Dennis. Who are you asking to wake up?

  2. arschloch
    December 26, 2013

    For Enoch to start talking about “whip hands” was justifiably enough for him to no longer be seriously taken as a politician, but this little segment from the speech shows that he was right on the money on what is happening in the UK today:

    “For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country. They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted.”

    Lets get it straight this is happening because you and Vinnie and all the rest of them at Westminster are still obsessed with your failed neo-liberal economic experiment, which demands a constant flow of cheap labour. Here are some wise words from Pierre Bourdieu on your “obsession”

    “Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia evokes powerful belief – the free trade faith – not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it.

    For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.

    And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses.”

    Reply I have always supported controlled immigration, and have often pointed out the dangers of so called independent central banks.

  3. Leslie Singleton
    December 26, 2013

    Cable should know that previous waves of immigrants were, first, not a continuous flow as now, secondly, much less numerous than now and, thirdly, often in real and immediate mortal danger instead of the ridiculous as always position we find ourselves in in the EU with foreigners piling in on spec. And I don’t for one moment buy the stuff about how we could not cope without immigrants, indeed, one might have thought that left wingers would welcome much reduced immigration because surely that would drive up wages for the lower paid, a major goal of everybody I should have thought, theirs more than most.

    1. lifelogic
      December 26, 2013

      Clearly we do not “need” immigration, but it can have very considerable benefits if done intelligently & selectively. It is uncontrolled EU immigration that is so hugely damaging. The country simply cannot afford the current level of benefits with uncontrolled immigration (of people who have simply never contributed to the pot).

      The nonsense about needing them to provide certain services or do jobs the British will not do is just that, pure nonsense. If we have less immigration we would need fewer services (as the population would be less). The existing population would also have to be paid more to do these essential jobs. Perhaps the existing population would have more children themselves as they could now earn more and not have to pay huge taxes to pay for others benefits. Houses would also be cheaper due to reduced demand.

      1. zorro
        December 28, 2013

        Absolutely right

        zorro

    2. uanime5
      December 26, 2013

      one might have thought that left wingers would welcome much reduced immigration because surely that would drive up wages for the lower paid, a major goal of everybody I should have thought, theirs more than most.

      As long as employers can use zero hour contracts and keep trying to pay as little as possible reducing immigration won’t increase wages. After all the lowest paid jobs aren’t the jobs with the highest number of immigrants.

      1. Edward2
        December 27, 2013

        Seeing that zero hours contracts only apply to less than 3% of the workforce I think you are overplaying their effect on the labour market Uni.

        If you are claiming that an additional 5million new arrivals at a time of existing unemployment has not had a depressing effect on the labour market you are wrong.

  4. Lifelogic
    December 26, 2013

    Indeed, lefty politicians such as Vince Cable are racked with contradictions. Essentially they want to be seen to be being nice and kind (needless to say, using money stolen off others under threat of imprisonment to do it). The racist card is thrown about freely, usually as a way to avoid sensible debate. They still seems to think they have a magic money tree and are playing the part of Father Christmas.

    Vince cable, with his education, surely knows that renewable energy is hugely expensive job destroying, inefficient and means people cannot afford to heat their homes. Yet he thinks it is somehow nice to be in favour of this subsidised, countryside destroying nonsense. He surely also knows that uncontrolled/non selective immigration depresses wages, overloads schools, the benefit system, the police and the NHS. As a grammar school boy, who went on to Cambridge to study natural sciences one might have expected rather more sense. It is hard to think of a more stupid appointment than having him as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills; he is anti-business to the core. Perhaps Lord Patten, at the BBC, trust, Huhne and Ed Davey just beat it for total stupidity.

    1. Lifelogic
      December 26, 2013
    2. Lifelogic
      December 26, 2013

      The NHS is struggling quite enough already:

      Stillbirth rate in UK one of Europe’s highest, Lancet finds
      Report says many of 4,000 babies stillborn each year could be saved with increase in awareness and research.

      http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/apr/14/stillbirths-babies-uk-lancet-report

      1. Bazman
        December 26, 2013

        And as right wing fantasy further lowers living standards and causes further hardship to the lower classes where do you think the numbers will be going. Interesting to see the figures for the affluent middle classes. Are you going to tell us there is no link to poverty?

        1. APL
          December 27, 2013

          Bazman: “And as right wing fantasy further lowers living standards ..”

          It isn’t a right wing fantasy to wish to nationalize the banks, right wingers would have let RBS, Northern Rock, HBOS go bankrupt.

          It was your socialist idiot, One Gordon Brown that ‘saved the world’.

          It is you engaging in wild fantasies if you think right wingers wanted to nationalize the banking sector.

          1. Bazman
            January 1, 2014

            We should have just accepted a lose of savings and wealth by bankers paid for failure? There would have been riots as the system was overwhelmed and to argue there would not have been is laughable. If they could have got away with theft they would. The knew that they could not hence the bailout. Any other view is hypothetical fantasy. PPI, Libor, loan sharking, the scams go on and on. You seriously thing saving would have been honoured or you house would not have been repossessed as you lost your job? It would have all been your fault as the bankers sucked their pencils in their drawing rooms wondering where it all went right for them. As it is now. Like many right wing dreamers you believe that peasants can exist in Britain and is the backbone of your beliefs. Ram it.

    3. behindthefrogs
      December 26, 2013

      Vince Cable unlike many other politicians recognises that electricity generated using local resources, even if a little more expensive, is much better for the economy than that generated using using imported fuel. It is the “magic Christmas tree’ that provides money to pay for imports that places this country in the most danger.

    4. Bazman
      December 26, 2013

      What lefty racist socialist nonsense are you spouting by telling business they should not have cheap labour and have to employ feckless British layabouts for more money?
      Maybe you could also, just once, mention once about massive corporate welfare and benefit cheats such as tax evaders not paying for services they use such as education, security and infrastructure and also tell us how nuclear and subsidy for fossil fuels fits into your right wing fantasy land where wealth trickles down to everybodyin your holiday home London and not at the expense of the majority.

      1. Edward2
        December 27, 2013

        Baz
        Your own high tax, high welfare, high State spending fantasy which you favour is going really well in the EU and particularly in France I note.

        1. Bazman
          December 27, 2013

          This is in defence of benifit cheats and scroungers is it?

          1. Edward2
            December 27, 2013

            No Baz.
            Its simply that your own favoured left wing fantasy is currently not working for many citizens of the EU and in particular in France.
            So your repeated mentions of right wing fantasy as being a failing policy has a hollow ring to it.

          2. Bazman
            December 27, 2013

            Right wing fantasy is the reliance on the trickle down effect to provide wealth and infrastructure to the country without taxation or tolls and the poor should just accept thsis without question in one of the richest countries in the world. They should have nothing and be happy with it as if they try hard enough they can do the same and be rich to question is to envy. No they cannot and no it i not.

          3. APL
            December 27, 2013

            Edward2: “Its simply that your own favoured left wing fantasy ”

            Sadly it isn’t a fantasy, we’d all be a lot better off if it was.

          4. Edward2
            December 28, 2013

            The fundamental question Baz is how you improve the standard of living of everyone.
            You feel socialism will achieve this. I do not agree.
            I would say check out nations that give their citizens freedom and prosperity and there is not one socialist nation in the list.
            And Germany and Sweden are not socialist nations before you start.
            They are examples of decent successful mixed economies.

            Stop talking in extremes, no right wing politicians want no State provisions or no taxes or no infrastructure as you ridiculously claim.
            Its an argument about the way our mixed economy operates.

            Low taxes for all and small state is the route to prosperity.
            Wealth in the hands of the population not in the hands of the State.

      2. Bazman
        December 30, 2013

        Cutting demand as Osbourne did turned out to an expensive dogma with the main aim to lower taxes for the rich. However you might have to get used to this idea of more socialism as less people are needed to do menial tasks, because without the state topping up or giving them an income how will they survive? The government or companies will have to pay one way or another as quite rightly the population will not except a wealthy elite telling them they are scroungers and need to have nothing and be happy with anyone questioning this being a subversive lier. We already there with Vanishing Thicks denial of any hardship being the governments fault. Whos fault is it then or is there no hardship? Come out wherever you are. You cannot avoid being squashed forever.

    5. Hope
      December 26, 2013

      The UK has one of the lowest state pensions in the EU. Yet, Cameron,Clegg and Osborne are content to give our taxes away to the EU so other EU countries can let their public retire earlier and with higher pensions. Even Hungry and Slovinia have higher pensions.

      Would this Osborne policy have something to do with an inflated population created by mass immigration rather than the spin we have about people living longer? No national interest in Osborne’s Autumn statement on this matter. Time for the Tories to close the door and go away for a long time of contemplation as an opposition party. Lib Dems were always for mass immigration, cut our defence and become a reign of the EU superstate. Time to wipe them out from the debate, no one should vote for them in May 2014 or 2015. Powell was an astute intellectual thinker, Cable is a plonker.

  5. Old Albion
    December 26, 2013

    I wouldn’t disagree with anything you say about Dr Cable. Frankly it’s time for the Doc to retire.
    But your last paragraph could be applied to almost any politician from the Lib/Lab/Con. Once elected MP’s ‘toe the party line’ Often ignoring the wishes of their constituents.

    1. Hope
      December 27, 2013

      Their arrogance and contempt for the public is such that a radical overhaul is required. The front benches abstained from voting for the right to recall after they all promised early legislation for it to be introduced. Arrogance and contempt. Not worthy of our votes.

  6. Mike Stallard
    December 26, 2013

    I want to say a word in favour of Enoch Powell.

    First of all he was a distinguished and brave Brigadier in the war against Adolf Hitler and the barbarism of European Fascism.
    Second he was absolutely brilliant as a classical scholar.
    Third, his “rivers of blood” speech was written in excellent English and represented a very sensible point of view. There were two choices open to his country at the time.
    We could have gone down the Japanese route and kept Britain solely for the Anglos. The population would have shrunk and old people would have dominated. Then we would have got progressively poorer over time, sinking back into the rural Tudor sort of years with a tiny population of about 5 million or so. But the country would have been backward looking, rather fuddy duddy (remember the cabbage of the time?) and fearful.
    Or we could have gone down the present route.

    Either way, he was talking sense. Demonising him is simply stupid and Mr Cable, who is not stupid, ought to have known this.

    1. Robin
      December 26, 2013

      Well said Mike. It is a shame that sensible debate so rarely can be had in this country.
      John, thank you. Prescient as ever.

    2. lifelogic
      December 26, 2013

      Indeed he was proved right on the disaster that is the EU, sound money, real economics, the economy and Heath/Cameron types of idiotic price controls, mad subsidies, tax borrow and waste & idiotic market interventions.

      There was nothing racist or even against immigration in what he said. It was merely a question of the levels, speed and the degree integration with the native population. He has been largely proved to be quite right on that too.

      I think before calling people “racists” you have to define what you mean by “racist”, to the left it is clearly just a term of abuse to close down any debate.

    3. zorro
      December 26, 2013

      Powell stands head and shoulders above any of the politicians mentioned in this blog and of his time, both in terms of intelligence and politics….. Mike, perhaps you are exaggerating ever so slightly on your presumed figures for the UK population if Powell’s policies had occurred. Somehow, I doubt them and have not seen any serious population projection studies quoting those figures. Societies tend to adapt over time.

      Powell was let down badly by his party.

      zorro

      1. zorro
        December 26, 2013

        Mr Cable irritates me intensely…..

        zorro

    4. Denis Cooper
      December 27, 2013

      There is no reason at all to suppose that the population would have sunk to only 5 million in the absence of immigration. In fact at the time of Powell’s speech the natural growth rate of the population was still significant, and the government was using the NHS to urge greater use of contraception to avert what it regarded as excessive population growth. It was only later that the new factor of legal abortion became significant in reducing the birth rate down almost to replacement level, and then the reaction of the government was to reverse its previous population policy and instead embark upon a policy of allowing and encouraging mass immigration under whatever pretexts it could find.

  7. matthu
    December 26, 2013

    Dr Cable recognises what Mr Cameron wont acknowledge about ongoing membership of the EU.

  8. Excalibur
    December 26, 2013

    Oh, that David Cameron were more like John Enoch Powell !! This great English patriot, Professor of Ancient Greek at the age of twenty-five; a brigadier in the British Army by the age of thirty, his “rivers of blood speech” may yet prove prophetic. He was sufficiently prescient to see in 1930 that we would go to war again with Germany. One man’s extremism is another’s shrewd judgement. I have no doubt that many Guardian readers (that ‘traitors’ gazette’ as Kingsley Amis called it) would regard much of what you say as extreme, John. Leaving the Bulgaria/Romania issue aside, I do not think that either Vince Cable or David Cameron can be truly cognisant of the implications for Britain of the EU/India Free Trade Agreement and its potential for an influx of allegedly temporary workers that will fall mainly on Britain. Temporary in this case meaning up to ten years.
    See opendemocracy.net “The real reason for David Cameron’s visit to India”.

  9. Denis Cooper
    December 26, 2013

    As we all know, or should know, Powell said nothing about “rivers of blood”.

    I don’t know their source, but in a recent TV programme about Boudicca by Peter and Dan Snow they mentioned that when she first rose the river at Colchester was said to have run red with blood, the same ill omen to which Powell referred in his speech:

    http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/rivers_blood2.html

    “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’.”

    It was a disgrace that political opponents and journalists, many them with such excellent educations that they must have known better, deliberately misrepresented that classical quotation as a prediction of “rivers of blood”, and are still doing it now.

    Was Powell right to be “filled with foreboding”?

    Yes, I think time has proved that he was right.

    1. zorro
      December 26, 2013

      Well said, but are you surprised that a man like Mr Heath did not back him…? I am not….

      zorro

    2. Alan Wheatley
      December 26, 2013

      As I understand it, following the “rivers of blood speech” the then Labour government changed policy on immigration, and as consequence that which Powell foresaw did not come to pass.

      1. Denis Cooper
        December 27, 2013

        That was only a temporary delay, until the Major government started to abandon the previous official policy of “would-be zero immigration”.

  10. alan jutson
    December 26, 2013

    Afraid Mr Cable is not a team player, he is not even really a Lib Dem, let alone a coalition member, he is a Socialist pure and simple.

    Mr Cable should not be comparing Mr Cameron or indeed himself with Mr Powell, a politician who was far, far ahead of his time in recognising the problems the Country could face in so many ways and now proving to be true.

    Speaking to an ex military friend of ours a couple of days ago who also outlined to me Mr Powells sparkling Military service carreer as well.

    Thus we had that rare combination of a Politician who had also served his Country in a more practical way as well.

    What a shame so many want to quote this man out of context when they themselves would not be fit to tie the laces of his boots.

    Such is modern day politics, play the man, not the ball, and use spin over facts.

    1. Hope
      December 26, 2013

      Brilliant, well said. I totally concur. He was a brilliant man. Cable does not even know what political party he stands for. Muddled thinker who Andrew Neil showed before the last election that he changed his mind on a weekly basis and contradicted himself each week as well. It was embarrassing to watch and I even felt sorry for Cable as he let himself look like a dimwit.

  11. Mark B
    December 26, 2013

    John Redwood MP sir,

    As you approach what is likely to be an interesting, but not particularly relevant event, in May 2014, I think you are going to see a lot of your ‘mates’ in the coalition break from the ranks on issues such as this.

    No one, at least anyone with a ounce of common sense and understanding of the EU, believes Cameron and May can get anything from the EU with regards to ‘immigration’, let alone benefits.

    Vince Cable is also positioning himself for a post 2015 world and possibly the leadership, as is Danny Alexander, should either man be re-elected.

    The Lib Dems get a fair few votes from the immigrant community who do not so easily identify with Labour, so it is only natural that they pander to those EU Citizens who live ‘here’ and who will vote ‘here’ in 2014. You have imported a whole new ‘electorate’ right under the very noses of those that helped build, shape, and defend this nation. Clever !

    It would indeed be delicious irony, that the party that now has the most to lose from here on end, is the party that started this whole thing off.

    This is not about democracy, or governance of a nation and its people, this is about maintenance the ‘Party’ and access to the taxpayer funded trough. Its not even about politics anymore, since the EU has rather nicely made that pretty much redundant.

    So who cares what Vince says or thinks. He sure as hell does not care or think about what others say. All he cares about is getting over the political finish line first. Because ultimately, that’s the name of the game.

    And as for Enoch Powell, I say this. He was not an extremist or even a racist as some would have. He was not a bad man. He saw, and spoke, what he believed to be the truth and I am sure that many at that time believed what he said.

    Powell was a serious threat to Ted Heath and to those who wished to remain part of the then EEC. He therefore need to be removed, and what was contained in that speech, was what they chose, to remove him from the Party. In fact, I believe that the main contentious piece, came from part of a conversation he had with another Conservative and that, all Powell was doing was repeating what someone else had said. (citation needed).

    Looking back to both recent and past ‘events’, and to those perpetrators of said ‘events’, one cannot help but think that maybe Enoch Powell may have had a point. He certainly never lied to those who elected him and committed treason, unlike Ted Heath.

  12. Douglas Carter
    December 26, 2013

    It may be interesting to follow up on the more Europhile MPs with regard to this.

    Being MPs are generally required to conduct themselves in constituency-specific confines, you might request of people like Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Danny Alexander, Diane Abbott, Ed Miliband and their brethren the increase in EU and non-EU unskilled immigration they would welcome in their own constituencies? None of these MPs are my own, so I would resent them speaking on behalf of my own area.

    However, I would be only too happy to hear them speak with specific regard to their own respective seats. If Mr. Clegg or Mr. Cable would welcome an additional forty thousand unskilled entrants to dorm in their own constituencies in the next few years, then let them highlight it very publically, and make arrangements locally to house them with local taxpayer funding? And then their local respective electorates may then have their own say on the matter?

  13. ian wragg
    December 26, 2013

    Leave him alone John. He is doing more to recruit for UKIP than any advertising campaign. You ask “where is extra cash going to come from to fund extra welfare” to come from. I ask, why should any cash be found to pay foreigners of any nationality. No one has asked me if I mind £ billions of my taxes being wasted in this way or financing Indian and Chinese space programmes.
    As I have said before, Labour and the Limp Dumbs don’t want to change things and the coalition can’t. Roll on the GE and lets give you all a blacvk eye.

    1. Hope
      December 26, 2013

      Nigeria has a space programme as well.w e also helped the Uganda president buy a Lear jet. Cameron still thinks it is right to given away billions of our hard earned taxpayers’ money in this wasteful way.

  14. Iain Moore
    December 26, 2013

    Pro immigration politicians can get away with contradictions like this as they will never likely be publicly held up to ridicule and challenge by the broadcast media, especially the BBC.

    As I pointed out on ConservativeHome another contradiction is Cables stance on what will or won’t cause a housing boom. Here he has been given free reign by the media to say that the help to buy scheme (something I am opposed to) will fan the fires of an over heated housing market, meanwhile he is also attempting to censor any views that question the sanity of mass immigration. So Cable while mouthing off about 2,000 on the help to buy scheme will add to our housing crisis, 200,000 people added to our population is nothing but an alloyed good and won’t have any effect on our housing shortage at all.

    As I have said the BBC will never put a pro immigration politician in a difficult position, they will never have to answer the question…..’Minister if you are so concerned about our housing shortage do you think it wise to pursue an immigration driven population expansion?’ …or….’ Mr Milliband how do you square your concern for peoples living standards with Labour’s mass immigration that has driven down wages and conditions whilst diving up costs?’…..or…..’Mr Cameron how practical is it to pursue a reckless carbon strategy whilst increasing demand through population expansion?’

  15. James Matthews
    December 26, 2013

    If only David Cameron were like Enoch Powell! Many of us who, at the time, accepted the Liberal establishment view of the speech for which Powell is best remembered, now realise that he was using robust language to try to alert people to what we were sleepwalking into. Sadly he did not succeed, and we all have to live with the consequences of our failure to recognise how prescient his warnings were.

  16. JoeSoap
    December 26, 2013

    No.
    Unfortunately for the Conservative Party, you are caught in a pincer grip between the beliefs of the Libdems, who are following EU rules in saying no more curbs on EU immigration, and UKIP, who would be no part of the EU and therefore have no such rules to follow.
    “Get out of that one!”

  17. Roger Farmer
    December 26, 2013

    I find your piece on Cameron, Powell, and Cable somewhat disingenuous, particularly after your,” Newspapers write strange things without checking”, article.
    All you say about Cable rings true, but your use of Enoch Powell by describing him as an extremist of infamous speech is misleading to say the least. Visionary would have been more accurate. If you read his speech you will find that he was espousing Conservative Party Policy on immigration. He was also interpolating the situation on the inflow of immigrants, which reality has proved to exceed anything he predicted. He was also castigating the political classes for only dealing with the present and failing to think ahead. He also highlighted the effect that immigration was having on the indigenous population in 1968, nothing compared to the effect it is having today. Read the speech and tell me what was inaccurate or dishonest in what he said.
    Finally I come to the “Rivers of Blood” lifebelt that the press and many politician reach for when espousing their own equanimity on immigration. First of all the phrase was never used. Enoch was castigating the Race Relations Bill of that time, saying that it could be used as a weapon against fellow citizens. I doubt even he envisaged the extent to which it would be misused, even against a marmalade symbol and knitted dolls of same.
    To quote what he did say I repeat ” As I look ahead I am filled with much foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with blood”. To those who do not understand their own language this is an allegory or symbolic message. It is in much the same vein as “Red sky in the morning shepherds warning”. It was not a prediction of blood on the streets of Wolverhampton.
    You say that Cameron and May are seeking to implement the coalition policy on curbing immigration. Well that is exactly what Enoch Powell was seeking to do in 1968. He was ignored and castigated. What have we got 45 years later, your leaders still trying to plug the dam, but with an even stronger European tide against them. You should have listened to Enoch before reaching for your political hatchets to destroy a man with the UK’s future at heart.

    1. zorro
      December 26, 2013

      Well said, another good reason not to vote Tory – How they treated Mr Powell.

      zorro

      1. Jennifer A
        December 27, 2013

        In many respects it has become illegal to be conservative.

        So what point a Conservative party ?

  18. Tony Harrison
    December 26, 2013

    The most egregious and erroneous aspect of Cable’s pathetic interjection is his mentioning Cameron in the same breath as Enoch Powell, a man who stood head & shoulders above our present Prime Minister in all the ways that matter. I suppose it’s correct to say that Powell’s 1968 speech is “infamous” in that both his message and the way it was articulated were first misinterpreted, then successively maligned, largely by the Left but also, to their shame, by the intellectual lightweights and political third-raters who subsequently occupied senior positions in the Conservative Party.
    This does not include you, Mr Redwood, and I hope your reference to “extremism” does not mean you are among those who traduce the memory of Powell, a great man and one of the most impressive figures in post-WW2 British politics. Would that we had men of his calibre in Parliament now.

    1. lifelogic
      December 26, 2013

      Indeed.

    2. Leslie Singleton
      December 27, 2013

      He was certainly remarkable but I have not noticed anything here on his getting in to a sulk, or so it seemed to me, and recommending Labour and then becoming an Ulster Unionist. Not exactly “Steady the Buffs” and with all his brains he should have realised that his notorious speech would not be well received or understood worth a damn.

  19. Bert Young
    December 26, 2013

    Did not expect a blog from you today – well done ! . I support the indignation of the public in response to Cables’ and Alexanders’ comments on immigration and our membership of the EU . As members of the Cabinet they are entitled to their views but not to the extent of announcing them to the world . They should be sacked . This sort of thing , if allowed to go on unchecked , will become more commonplace in the run up to the election . I made the comment to a friend yesterday that if it had happened during Margaret Thatcher’s time she would have hit the roof and sent them packing .

  20. Edward2
    December 26, 2013

    I believe Mr Cable’s remarks were simply part of a carefully considered attempt by him to be the next leader of his party and to enable a Labour Liberal coalition to form after the next election.
    All his outbursts are aimed to achieve this position as he plays for popularity to the left wing galleries of both parties.

  21. ancientpopeye
    December 26, 2013

    David Cameron, Enoch Powell and Vince Cable

    So why on earth does Mr Cameron not sack him, the man is an obvious trouble making chancer. That is, as well as being profoundly wrong.

  22. Brian Tomkinson
    December 26, 2013

    Is it not the case that neither Cable nor Cameron are really interested in ” curbing immigration” to the UK? This is just another straw man that suits both men.
    Such seemingly disloyal utterances from LibDem cabinet ministers are regularly issued and tolerated by Cameron to such an extent that one can be forgiven for wondering if the whole thing is not stage managed by the quartet who control this government – Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Alexander.

  23. Remington Norman
    December 26, 2013

    You refer to the ‘“rivers of blood” extremism of Mr Powell’s most infamous speech’. It surprises me that anyone who has read the speech again, or Simon Heffer’s excellent commentary on it in his biography of Enoch Powell, would continue to regard it as extremist. It was not then, it is not now. The language Powell used was certainly colourful, but that was intentional to assure that a subject of singular concern not only to his constituents but to the wider population, would at last enter the political consciousness. The sentiments he expressed – namely that large influxes of ethnic minorities, from wheresoever, would swamp and ultimately destroy the host culture – were carefully considered and have unfortunately proved all too accurate. The problem highlighted in Birmingham in 1968 is one that no subsequent government has had the guts to either address. The demographic consequence is that it is certain that whites will, sooner not later, become a minority in the UK. This is an appalling indictment of governments’ failure to accept the overwhelming will of the people. Worst of all, it is now too late to reverse the trend.

  24. lojolondon
    December 26, 2013

    Because, John, this is nothing to do with what is good for Britain or what the voters want. It is all about drawing a clear division between LimpDims and Tories, preparing for the next election.

  25. margaret brandreth-j
    December 26, 2013

    It demonstrates a lack or foresight . We simply cannot go on squeezing more people on to our island. We have to say NO MORE.

  26. peter davies
    December 26, 2013

    Indeed, he speaks at times like a spoilt child throwing his toys out of the pram.

    I don’t understand that with these sorts of outbursts (and he know it is the latest of many) why he is still in Govt – his tone makes him more suitable for the Labour party in my opinion.

    His constituency as I understand it is Twickenham – should be a good seat for another party to mount a strong challenge to get a feel of what the people who voted for him think given that areas like this I presume are highly affected by this issue.

    1. Max Dunbar
      December 27, 2013

      He was in the Labour Party.
      If you check the results for the last election he had a substantial majority of about 12000, well ahead of the Tories who came second. Labour received only a few votes and UKIP fewer still.

  27. Qubus
    December 26, 2013

    Enoch Powell was a fine man; would that we had a politician if his calibre today. He was right then and Cable is wrong now. I recommend the fine biography by Simon Heffer “Enoch Powell: Like The Roman”.
    Get your facts right Mr Cable.

  28. Remington Norman
    December 26, 2013

    Comment ‘awaiting moderation’ – now disappeared!

    1. Leslie Singleton
      December 27, 2013

      Norman–Be of good cheer–John has been known to sneak off and have breakfast and stuff and usually but not always you will pass moderation later, as indeed I think you already have today.

  29. Alan Wheatley
    December 26, 2013

    Powell on Thatcher is interesting.

    Following the decision to send the Task Force in response to the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands, Powell said in the Commons, probably bearing on mind how many a politician copes with a major crisis, that we would soon see the quality of the metal with which the Iron Lady was made.

    Following the successful return of the Task force he again spoke in the Commons to the effect that we then knew that the metal was of the finest quality. I think he was very impressed!

    He made his points with the eloquence of which others have spoken.

    I have often mused on the quality of the metal with which the “Iron Chancellor” was made, and wondered how Powell would have made use of an opportunity to speak in the Commons on such a matter. Would he have been able to deploy his eloquence so as to offer a judgement as to the quality of this metal as “pig” (a poor quality iron) without incurring a criticism of rudeness? Surely Gordon Brown could rightly be accused of being “pig-headed”, so the juxtaposition of meanings would surely have appealed.

  30. Remington Norman
    December 26, 2013

    Comment keeps disappearing. Please advise.

  31. JoolsB
    December 26, 2013

    John,

    Mass uncontrolled immigration predominately only affects England and as the Tories won a 63 seat majority in England in 2010, why are Cable and the duplicitous Lib Dums allowed to publicly and constantly stamp their feet and contradict or over-ride Government policies which only affect England in this way?

    The Tories have a healthy mandate in England and as most UK Government policies post devolution predominately only affect England nowadays, it being the only part of the UK and western world denied a parliament of it’s own, when are you and your fellow Tories with English seats going to say ‘enough is enough’ to the petulant Lib Dums? Why is your party allowing every idea/policy to be undermined in this way by your very junior partners?

    Question John:- Now Scotland, Wales and NI have their own legislature and England does not, what will you and your fellow Tories do if you win another majority in England in 2015 but England ends up being governed by a Labour government or a Lab/Lib coalition? Will you all do as you do now and stand idly by whilst your constituents continue to be denied the government of their choosing or will someone have the courage to demand an answer to the English Question so England no longer has to suffer either the Lib Dums or Labour every again unless she votes for them that is.

    Reply Those of us who want English votes for English issues, the English Parliament at Westminster,first have to gain a majority of the UK seats . At the moment the UK government depends on MP votes from outside England to sustain it, and cannot bring to bear the Conservative majority in England all the time Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh MPs from other parties insist on voting on English issues. Maybe English nationalists should run a campaign by emailing and writing to dissuade non English MPs at Westminster voting on English health, education, local government, environment etc.

    1. JoolsB
      December 27, 2013

      John,

      First of all, those of us who want to see constitutional fairness and equality for England are not necessarily nationalist. I would call myself a unionist, albeit in a very dis-United Kingdom and denying England a voice on the excuse that the Tories need a UK majority is what will eventually break up this un-United Kingdom. Ignoring the English Question is unsustainable.

      Second, English votes for English laws is a fudge and an insult. England deserves it’s own legislature equal to those of Scotland, Wales & NI.

      Third, the chances of the Tories winning a UK majority in 2015 are slim in which case the Tories, who would not exist if it were not for England, have by their silence on the matter, resigned England to going on being discriminated against post 2015 by an even more anti- English Labour Government.

      The Tories are totally silent on the matter. How about making a few noises so that the people of England, who are growing more and more resentful at the status quo, might at least believe someone is on their side. At present, they see no difference in the the two and half main parties in their anti-Englishness and denial of all things English which is one of the reasons UKIP is becoming ever more popular – they are the only party willing to champion England against the rotten deal it is getting post devolution,unlike the Tories. Shame on them.

  32. uanime5
    December 26, 2013

    Two years ago Dr Cable was happy to sign up to a government decision to put off for another two years opening our borders fully to Bulgarians and Romanians.

    This was in accordance with EU rules, by contrast the proposed system is illegal under EU rules. It has also been criticised by the UN.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/un-attacks-governments-immigration-bill-for-risking-culture-of-ethnic-profiling-9025395.html

    Now that Mr Cameron and Mrs May are trying to find legal ways to prevent overloading our welfare system by too many new arrivals, Dr Cable changes tack and accuses them of Powellite tendencies.

    The proposed ways aren’t legal because they treat other EU citizens differently from EU nationals.

    They are seeking to implement the Coalition agreed policy of curbing immigration, something he signed up to at the beginning.

    Perhaps they should start by reducing non-EU immigration, specifically preventing IT companies using ITC to import thousands of Indian workers.

    Where does he think the UK is suddenly going to get a large amount of extra public cash to provide generous public services and benefits to more new arrivals?

    Given how little in benefits immigrants from the EU claim the UK won’t need much extra cash for the new arrivals.

    Dr Cable is also clearly against the UK government seeking to change the EU rules to give a country like the UK more control over its own benefit system and borders.

    Well given that there’s no prospect of getting the other 27 members to draft a new EU treaty to change one of the fundamental freedoms it’s reasonable for Dr Cable to oppose this.

    Does he not read his emails or talk to his own constituents? I cannot believe his voters are keen on all this close EU integration that many people write to me to complain about.

    In Dr Cable’s constituency (Twickenham) 54.4% voted Lib Dem, 34.1% voted Conservative, 7.7% voted Labour, and 1.5% voted UKIP. So he’s unlikely to receive many anti-EU emails when 62.1% of his constituents voted for pro-EU parties.

    In other news by selling the loan book (including all the rights to all the income) Osborne has created a £1.7 billion shortfall in the student budget. Quite the miscalculation.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-finance/10522181/George-Osborne-is-putting-the-future-of-students-at-risk.html

    There’s also another shortfall in the number of teachers needed, especially in STEM subjects, resulting in the government missing its recruitment targets. Personally I blame the trebling of tuition fees, which made it more expensive to become a teacher, and the confusing nature of the website that’s meant to encourage people to become teachers (they have so many different schemes it’s impossible to know whether you can get a bursary or not).

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10537266/Schools-facing-shortage-of-teachers-after-recruitment-failure.html

    1. Hope
      December 27, 2013

      Unit our left speech is short on fact. Benefit includes tax credits and those totally on welfare, those who were lost to he system of asylum seekers, those who claim child benefit and do not live int he UK or have UK parents. Socialist drivel as usual without fact. Smoke and mirrors.

  33. Max Dunbar
    December 26, 2013

    Powell was a man of integrity, patriotism and intellectual brilliance. Cable was a Glasgow City councillor.

    1. APL
      December 28, 2013

      Max Dunbar: “Cable was a Glasgow City councillor.”

      Probably a man of the highest ethical and financial probity, then.

  34. petermartin2001
    December 27, 2013

    It is arguably the case that any Government should have a population target and /or a population growth target just as it has an inflation target or an economic growth target.
    If so, some reference to the facts of the matter may be a good starting point for discussion.
    http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/impact-migration-uk-population-growth
    Uniformed arguments based on emotive phrases like “rivers of blood’, ‘swamped by immigrants’ etc etc have never led to anything useful previously and neither will they in the future.

    1. APL
      December 28, 2013

      petermartin2001: “It is arguably the case that any Government should have a population target ”

      Arguably. But no, a government shouldn’t have a population target.

      For the purposes of planning and infrastructure, it would be prudent to have a projection of the population in x or y years.

  35. Cheshire Girl
    December 27, 2013

    I’m really very fed up with this coalition government! Instead of pulling together for the good of the country, it it an excuse for scoring points and blaming the other side. At the next election I want to see a one party government. That way, the buck will stop with them and they won’t be able to blame the others! I think this one has been an absolute disaster!

    Reply The problems come from trying to get 2 parties with a very different view of the EU to work together – how would adding in another federalist party to the mix help?

    1. Hope
      December 27, 2013

      Cameron chose to do this. He could have taken a stance similar to Harper in Canada. He did not have the courage to go alone and call and rally election to get an overall majority. Instead he took the opportunity to change the Tory party. Major and Heseltine are not advisors by accident, his choice of pro EU green quack ministers with an aggressive gay lobby of MPs is no coincidence either. It is painful to watch. The supporters have halved, polls show the Tory party in a perilous position, it will be worse after EU elections in May 2014 , QMV comes into effect in Nov 2014. The public will become aware that MPs have become redundant as Brussels runs everything and the other EU countries wish us to pay more, give more and have no say over treaties which effect our national interest- you know the dangers Cameron warned us about and did nothing once in power.

      1. Denis Cooper
        December 27, 2013

        Well, I’d agree with most of that, but not:

        “QMV comes into effect in Nov 2014.”

        QMV is already in effect for most EU decisions and its scope will not be extended in Nov 2014; what will happen then will just be a change to the details of the method used when operating QMV, a change which very probably will be to our disadvantage more often than not.

    2. Tony Harrison
      December 27, 2013

      Clearly, Mr Redwood, loyalty obliges you to imply that the Conservative Party is not “federalist” unlike both Labour and the LibDems, but I trust you won’t go any further and suggest your own Party is “EU-sceptic” to any significant degree. We’ve heard such claims for a long time now, and they won’t wash: on those occasions this Parliament when the issue has been put to the test in any serious way, fewer than one-third of Tory MPs put their money where their “EU-sceptic” mouths supposedly were; and during the 40 or so years of our participation in the EEC/EU, your Party has mostly been in power – and has distinguished itself by its irresolution, timidity, inanition and general hopelessness in the face of Brussels.

  36. James Reade
    December 28, 2013

    Because, of course, you John display not a single ounce of contradiction on this matter, do you?

    This is John Redwood, he of “get the government out of the way of business”, except when it comes to hiring workers. Then it’s “get government in the way of firms hiring the best worker if that worker happens to not be British”.

    No, not even a hobby of a contradiction there, John. Happy New Year.

    1. Edward2
      December 28, 2013

      No James there is no contradiction in wanting business in the UK to be successful and us having a sensible immigration policy just like growing nations like USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have.
      No contradiction at all.

      1. James Reade
        December 31, 2013

        Edward, you are either trying to deliberately miss the point, or you simply are missing the point.

        Let me be a bit clearer (it seems despite my best efforts my phone did mess up a bit of what I wanted to say).

        John constantly talks about infuriating government policies that get in the way of business (local councils pricing car parks too high, etc), with the clear message: Let’s get government out of the way of business – why should governments be making the decisions firms are best to make?

        Now, is there any decision firms are better placed to make than who is best for them to employ?

        Isn’t it the case that the most efficient and productive firm is able to choose the best person for the role they are seeking to fill?

        If so, why then does John, and clearly you also, support restricting firms heavily in who they can employ? Woe betide those firms if they happen to decide the best person isn’t British! How dare they be so unpatriotic?!

        The fact is you both (and many other readers here) want to ratchet up further the red tape and difficulties in employing foreign workers, and for what end? So that government can get in the way of private sector decisions.

        Clear, blatantly obvious contradiction, and to suggest otherwise is really rather bizarre.

        1. Edward2
          December 31, 2013

          I understand the point thanks James and I realise you were trying to be ironic in your original post.
          Whilst there are several million unemployed in this nation the only immigration required is of those who have skills we desperately need and do not have.
          We should listen to the requirements of businesses but they should understand that they need to try to train those that are unemployed in the UK first, before asking for someone from outside the UK to fill the position.
          Every sovereign nation has an immigration policy based on it needs as decided by a Government elected on a manifesto which states their policy.
          Its time we in the UK decided what ours is.

  37. Lindsay McDougall
    December 28, 2013

    The only thing ‘extreme’ about Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 speech was the proposal for financially assisted repatriation. Enoch himself recognised that, for second and third generation immigrants, there would be nowhere to be repatriated to. The repatriation option ceased to be practical in 1985. In any case, we are broke and shouldn’t be throwing money around.

    It remains practical politics to end the practice of importing brides and bridegrooms from the Indian sub-continent and elsewhere. It is also practical politics to aim for zero net population growth in the UK and to return decision making on immigration matters to the Home Secretary, without the interference of the Courts.

  38. Sir Hamish McCretin
    December 30, 2013

    As a former Glasgow Labour Councillor of the 1970’s Dr Cable runs true to form with statements designed, as he thinks, to appeal to his support base. Never mind the facts, tell them that all ills are the fault of “they wicked Tories”, meanwhile keeping the majority in poverty and ignorance, sustained by a hatred of political opponents. This policy kept Labour in control of Glasgow for more than 60 years, destroyed a wonderful tram system, and allowed the Glasgow Empire to close. I should not like to work with or for Dr Cable.

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