There are new revelations about the Home Office cleaners who were illegal immigrants (it appears that they had in fact worked their for some time and not been stopped before they started).I was amazed to hear Jack Dromey on the news this morning arguing that we should be granting an amnesty to all illegal immigrants in the country - some 500,000 approx (this is an estimate because actually the Government does not know how many there are).
At the same time a Government Minister (former Labour Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong) argued that 1m people in the UK are socially excluded. Is it likely that these numbers are connected? Are half of the socially excluded in the country illegal immigrants?
We really do need to do something for the most marginalised in this country. As this report indicates it is the children who are most vulnerable to social excluson and for many of them it is not because they chose this path but because their parents fell into problems. We cannot blame children for the problems of the parents. But sadly much of the action to battle social exclusion is targeted to the wrong areas and in places like Kingston relatively small areas of deprivation are hidden amongst the wealth of the Borough.
During the local elections the Lib Dems made a lot about how much more Government grant Kensington & Chelsea received in comparison with Kingston and how this was unfair. The used average earnings between the Borough's as a comparator when of course in an inner city area you will inevitably get a very diverse range of employment and thus very high averages. Well, this makes good fun when you are trying to justify the reasons why you have put up Council Tax so much. However, K&C suffers from some of the most deprived areas in London. One school I know is on one of the three most deprived estates in London. The Local Authority and the PCT spend more on mental health in that school than Kingston spends on school books! I do not believe that members of the local Lib Dem party really believe that money should be taken from deprived areas to give to Kingston. I do believe though that residents expect a Council that will do more to tackle the inexorable rise of Council Tax rather than blame it on the supposed wealth of other Borough's.
I agree with Camilla Batnanghelidjh of Kids Company when she says: "I think the government's intentions are really good but I hope this doesn't turn into a Mickey Mouse ministry
."
4 comments:
I think that Jack Dromeys comments are right. All these people did was to 'get on their bike' - as per Norman Tebbitts advice and in the majority of cases find work and hopefully a better life. Capitalism likes to advocate free trade and movement of capital for advantage - but still wishes to impose mainly racist controls on the movement of people.
I would ask people to consider what happens when a family that has been here some years and has settled into work and children at school are suddenly told that they must leave the country and go back to where they came from.
Many businesses are highly reliant on illegal labour. Thai restaurants would be just one example which I do know a bit about. Granting an amnesty would make it harder to exploit people. And consider the hardship that some people are escaping to come here which results in the extraodinary risks taken into for many the unknown, and for some slavery in the sex trade for example.
On Council Tax we should certainly not be taking money from other boroughs who have to deal with far more problems than us. BUT given that I think a 1% rise in Council Tax only results in about £400,000? to the Council if a more concerted programme on social exclusion were undertaken it would have to be paid for.
I can see your point but as they are illegal and not assylum seekers we do not know whether they would be going back to untold problems in their home country.
A 1% rise in Council Tax gives us nearly £700k.
The claims circulated in Lib Dem leaflets regarding Kingston and Kensington & Chelsea were particularly ridiculous, even by their usual mendacious standards.
Just the briefest of research on the ONS website shows that Ken & Chel is the 116th most deprived local authority area (of 354) while Kingston is well in to the top hundred least deprived.
Taking the average wage sounds good but for measuring poverty or inequality the median is more significant. Similarly, measures such as employment, levels of housing need, and so on, all show that Ken & Chel suffers more from these social problems than RBK.
I suspect that the Lib Dems cited Kensington & Chelsea as the place from which Kingston's funding should be taken due to one simple statistic, and that is the number of Lib Dem Councillors in that borough - zero.
An amnesty should be offered to New Labour to hand over their seals of office and let Cameron lead the country to the sunlit uplands and sylvan glades.
In turn we could promise not to prosecute any N/Lab MP for reckless endangerment of the Economy,NHS,Pensions,Defence,Education etc.
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