Dave Hill's Big Britain

Talking Immigration

In the wake of Monday's undercounting disclosure, there was an informative debate about immigration on the Simon Mayo programme yesterday (listen again). The participants were the ubiquitous Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch, the Tories' Damian Green, immigration advisor Charles Kelly and Danny Sriskandarajah of the IPPR. Two from the left(ish), two from the right and, intriguingly, more consenus than might have seemed likely. All agreed that workers from overseas have both brought benefits and posed challenges, and that more efficient counting and monitoring mechanisms would be helpful. The differences were largely about degree: numbers, long-term effects and the desirabilty and likely efficacy of various possible measures to control immigration more closely. Many of these came down to how big we want our economy to become, though Sir Andrew, as ever, was fretful about "the nature of British society" and so on. (I fret about that too: but I'm a good liberal who is prepared to tolerate the presence of Sir Andrew in my country so long as he pays his taxes, respects the law and behaves in a civil fashion). But the strongest impression the debate left on me concerned the practical difficulties of slowing or stopping immigration. Can it actually be done? Which brings us to another question. Should a freedom-loving nation even try?

Just asking

Blogging Brighton

An excellent Brighton blog informs me that:

"The Booth Museum was created by the Victorian ornithologist Edward Booth. It was built in 1874 to house his collection of stuffed British birds, but the collection expanded to cover over half a million specimens from around the world, collected over the last three hundred years. Currently on show there is Life in Death: The Victorian Art of Taxidermy, an exhibition highlighting the popularity of taxidermy in the Victorian period."

Taxidermy is considered a bit wacky and weird these days, but in the 19th century it played an important part in bringing natural history to the masses. Edward Booth, it seems, would go to extreme lengths to sketch a new bird species in its natural habitat. The stuffing part came later. Now read on.

Smacking Ban

There's a long tradition of child-hating in Britain, but at least we seem to be smacking, whacking and beating them less than we did. That's why I'm content that there won't be a new law against it, as I explained for The Guardian as follows:

"The government has been 'listening to the British people' again. We all know what that means: a cover for selective deafness or Gord code for sounding the retreat. No citizens' jury is going to change the PM's mind, and when the verdict of the polls suggests a need to stand and fight, recent history predicts panic under fire. Following the headlong flight before young Osborne's inheritance tax charge, we yesterday had two smaller examples.

One saw No 10 cry 'duck and cover' over refuge-collection charging because Middle England fears Big Brother lurking in its wheelie bins. And then there was the 'smacking ban' that's not to be: children's minister Kevin Brennan said a review of laws tightened three years ago to outlaw physical chastisement of children that leaves physical wounds had found that most parents - "about 70%" - didn't want it totally outlawed. Do I smell the familiar New Labour terror of someone screaming 'political correctness'? Probably. But in the case of smacking I think the right outcome has been achieved.

Angel Of The North: A Tribute

My nine year-old has yet to see the Angel Of The North but he obviously knows what it looks like. Hence his spontaneous re-creation of it in shadow form a few weeks ago on Hackney Downs. Hope you're flattered, Antony Gormley. Look here to discover the boy's technique.

Putney Debates, Henry Porter & Jack Straw

Call me Mary, but I'm an atheist who wakes early on Sunday mornings and often listens to Radio 4's Sunday programme. I find it highly educational. F'rinstance, on yesterday's edition I learned that Islam is significantly more permissive about birth control and abortion than the Christian pro-life set, and also that it was the 360th anniversary of the start of the Putney Debates. Held at St Mary's Church after the first English Civil War their protagonists were, on the one side, representatives of the New Model Army and, on the other, The Levellers (as others called them). These extraordinary occasions kicked off with five hours of praying followed by long and learned arguments about the Bible, the people and democracy.

The Sunday programme piece included Jack Straw marvelling at the "sophisticated political ideas" the debates dealt in. Justice Jack is, of course, the man Gord has put in charge of rustling up a UK bill of rights and duties. Henry Porter, The Observer's Mr Freedom, yesterday likened this to "turning over a campaign against prostitution to the head of an escort agency." Very droll. And probably very true. But the problem with Henry's brand of libertarianism is that it doesn't really respect why some people's freedom might be enhanced if that of everyone else is constrained in certain ways: the freedom to indulge in hate speech for example. There's been a fine old tiff about that running on Crooked Timber following Oliver Kamm attacking Steven Rose for his attack on James "DNA" Watson. My tuppence on Jimmy-boy is here. My take on hate-speech laws is that in theory I'd rather not have any, but that in reality - as Chris Bertram further argues at CT - there's a pro-freedom case for them that needs answering.

Does Henry Porter understand this case? Doing so requires an appreciation of power inequalities and how language can aid and abet the abuse of power, reducing the freedom of the less powerful. On the Sunday programme presenter Roger Bolton remarked that the Levellers insisted that all people are equal in God's eyes and therefore entitled to vote, but actually meant only male people - despite Biblical text to the contrary. In his latest piece Henry Porter attacks the government for undermining the principle "that a man cannot be punished without a court deciding the law has been broken." I'm sure he means "a woman" too, but this failure to use the language of sex equality suggests that much of the debate about freedom and fairness over the past forty years may have passed Henry by. He's made a good job of tracking Labour's dubious record on civil liberties, but his wider analysis has some important bits missing. In that respect he's not much better than Jack Straw.

Italian Harrogate

I've just heard on Five Live that in Harrogate there are more Italian restaurants per head of population than anywhere else in the country. Lucky Harrogate. But why?

Multiculti Kitchen

Here's a shot of my kitchen extension. The new floor has just been screeded, transforming the space from the scene of complete devastation it was this morning. There is dust all over the house - and all over me - but the dirtiest part of the job is now over. The builders have been great. Let me tell you a bit about them: the boss is Portuguese; his first mate is an Irishman from Derry, the screeder is from the Republic, and they are both called Mick; the labourer is from nearby Homerton and A Girl; the roof will be put on by two local Muslim guys; the bricklayer is from Glasgow, and the electrician - revered by the others - is Columbian. East London, England, 2007. There's no place like home.

Kevin Maguire's Blog

Inspired by Iain Dale I yesterday visited the Daily Mirrror blog of its politics reporter Kevin Maguire. In his post about Gordon's discomfort at PMQs yesterday Iain linked to Kevin's in a disrespectful manner, suggesting that the Mirror man was glossing over the spanking from Cameron that Brown received. I thought he had a point. So I a posted a jolly comment on Kev's blog to that effect. Nothing rude or offensive - I've no bone to pick with Maguire and enjoy his radio appearances. Anyway, they pre-moderate at the Mirror. Twenty-four hours later my terribly mild comment hasn't appeared. No one else's has either, assuming any others were submitted. Indeed, apart from an item about a play he saw the Maguire blog in general seems to be pretty much a comment-free zone. Why so, given the online Mirror's reach? Are our finest tabloid's moderators too protective? Or is the truth that almost no one cares?

UPDATE, 19.57: Aa-ha! My comment has now appeared, followed by four others! Pure coincidence I'm sure.

Art Hustler

From a walkway at the historic - yes, historic - Brent Cross shopping centre.

Tunbridge Wells Blogs

I've stumbled over two of them. One has a lot of bleating about "political correctness". I hate to intrude on private victimhood fantasies, so let's visit this one instead. It seems to have been dormant since March - a shame because it looks like a proper local blog. I've emailed to ask why.