Today the Telegraph announces apocalypticly that whites will be in a minority by 2227 in Birmingham .David Cameron has made some measured and contextualised remarks about immigration putting a strain of services and suggested that the true costs and benefits of immigration be totted up and the numbers annually agreed. A better idea I heard was for companies wanting skills to bid for the allocation and have a market in imported skill . At the moment the rest of us pick up the costs and difficulties but I would argue the real costs is cultural .This recognises the truthfulness of that much maligned remark “ I `m not racist but .....” My remarks were following Iain Dales article in the telegraph which had some waffle about “Triangulation” in them the words we need are Cultural Capital.
The subject of recast migration fears has already been dealt with in the New Statesman in an article which got a lot of response ending with the words “” They “(economic migrants ) should have as much right to live and work here as the rest of us and if that means building more homes and roads to accommodate them so be it “( Brendan O`Neill) .. This was the end of an article in which he claimed the BNP were wrapping themselves in a Green cloak and that’s the sort of attack you can expect , its racism thinly disguised . The association of the BNP with the Conservative Party is the subliminal message . Even this Brownite mag`s readers were spluttering ant the naivety
Cameron`s weakness to this sort of accusation is that he is not telling the truth he is only telling a more acceptable story. The reason for slowing immigration is not because of the pressure it puts on public services , although it does , or more to the point on housing ( 1,000,000 of the proposed 3,000,000 new homes will be occupied by immigrants not here yet ) it is to do with a concept now gaining currency that he should import into his vocabulary and that is Cultural Capital. All socially conservative people across the spectrum believe that there is a value in communities and coherence between otherwise atomised individuals. You do not shoot your friends and brothers, prescription can be light because voluntarily engaging in socially beneficial behaviour becomes the norm. This is the resolution between the Libertarian and prescriptive ideas in Conservatism. .
Take schools ;Dianne Abbot David Cameron, Tony Blair Emily Thornberry and many more took one look at the multicultural heaven and sent their children elsewhere. This is because schools struggling to cope with eight languages and twenty traditions are overloaded and the necessary esprit is elusive. We instinctively know that this understanding built up over time has a value and that many new elements once dilute it particularly to the cost of working class communities who rely on a more public expression of social coherence.
Now when we look around at where we are going to live like Billy Bragg ( in all white Dorset) Political correctness disappears from the hallowed sanctuary of the car. When we see a lot of black or Asian faces we think “Oh dear this doesn’t look good “. We are not thinking about Public services of even housing we are making assumptions about class but chiefly we are seeing what we imagine correctly to be an atomised and alien environment where you know little of you neighbour.. That is because it would be entirely reasonable to assume that it is far more likely that cultural capital was built up in the person of whites as they were likely to have been here longer . This will sometimes be unfair , there has a been much comment ion the phenomenon of the “ Coconut”...brown on the outside but all assumptions are unfair to exceptions.
As long as Cameron cloaks what is a defence of the culture and integrity of the English with whatever clothes are lying in the shop he is vulnerable to the accusation he is sugar coating racism. If he admits the truth about immigration and its problems ...as well as its benefits, then he can cast of racism as a category and open the new front of ‘Cultural capital ‘ accessible to any race if we retrun to 'monoculturalism' albeit with great toleration of difference . It is this above all that new Labour have shown unrelenting contempt for and it is the difference between the Conservative instinct and the National Socialism of Brown and the BNP.
I understand the dangers but when the Telegraph announces white will be in a minority in Birmingham in twenty years people are concerned and it is not because they are Nazis it is because they fear the cost to the community and the values that make it work.
Cultural Capital Cultural Capital Cultural Capital
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21 comments:
I pity anyone of any race who has to go through life living in Birmingham. What cultural capital is there to be had at Villa park or at the Bull ring?
What defines West Bromwich or Droitwich?
Birmingham is a large blot on the M6 that all sensible people avoid at all costs.
Shame you use this as an example because the rest of your article is really rather spot on......
CU you are such a bad fellow !! GFood job prarguetory is not around to be cross
N, I can't work out whether you think that a city with no Caucasian majority is a bad thing or not.
It's not the colour of someone's skin that defines whether they are a "good citizen" or not, and remember that lots of the current wave of immigrants are white!
It's hard enough trying to live in one culture, let alone this multicultural theme park Britain foisted upon us.
This post parlays into a point I make on my post, featuring race as a central issue. Please feel free to stop by and comment. I would love to hear your opinion.
Anyone who uses race as a method to create public policy is a Nazi in the making--case closed.
N, I can't work out whether you think that a city with no Caucasian majority is a bad thing or not.
I think it is likely to be if it happens to quickly Ed because of the fragmentation of the cohered society that was built up. That , i am saying is the real reason to control the rate of immigration abandon mutliculturalism value the indigenous people .
Its not a racial thing its an ethnicity thing
Lucy I looked at your blog and it seems to be about being a stand up comedian ?....which is interesting but ...
I `ll have another look I`m a bit thick in many many ways
CU is right. Birmingham is crap.
I know because I used to work there.It's not just Brum in which whites are soon likely to be a minority. Leicester's half-million population is likely to follow the same path in just four years time!
Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said that "tough decisions" will have to be made as some more areas become "plural cities" where no one race holds a majority. WTF does that mean exactly???
I am angry. But powerless.
*Lucy is one of my regulars, Newmsie. She is a rather astute and charming libertarian.
Its not a racial thing its an ethnicity thing
Then why raise it as a race thing? Surely to worry about non-whites is to
a) miss the point that many non-British residents are white
b) play into the hands of those who say that "Tories are closet racists".
Billy Bragg should have been shot back in the '80s when we were running things. I would rate the failure to do so as one of the Blessed Margaret's greatest errors.
One advantage of having no ethnic majority is that the positive discrimination people might finally be given the flick.
No comment! Have a great weekend!
Then why raise it as a race thing? Surely to worry about non-whites is to
Because your ethnicity and your racial type are very often but not always related. That why tyou have to tease it apart. I `k afraid people will say Tories are closet racists whatever you do or say especially as i am piitiong to a value in the white indigenous people .
The Book "The Likes of Us" about the white working class is quite good on this
Well it would have been a service to music and the Daily Telegraph Stan
Are white English worth preserving ? In many cases not: boarish, arrogant, overweight, foul mouthed, undeducated, tattooed, welfare dependant ...
The recent transfusion of Poles has raised service standards here in the South West and they must look in dismay at what our people are like.
I'd quite happily exchange our scum for decent people of all races - the issue is that too many of the incomers are scum too.
The immigration issue can be argued on numbers alone.
I think it an as numbers are all you can effect
plus if you ever ask anyone about Brum all they go on about is the legs eleven strip club and the curry mile.
Is that the culture to defend. I am with E-K where Brum is concerned!
You are not talking about Brum CU you are talking about "Working class people"...I `m afraid I cannot share your condescension and those who work in the City are equally amenable to parody( along similiar lines really)..in my case it was fair enough
cityunslicker 3.58PM, newmania 4:29 - praguetory may not be around but I am around to be cross!
Birmingham should, in fact, have won the Cultural Capital nomination a few years back. It - and the wider conurbation - is a fusion of British (all four, with quite a few Irish), Jewish, Indian, Pakistani, Caribbean, African (most recently Somali), Eastern European etc cultures.
Alas there are some areas where there is racial segregation, but parts of Wolverhampton (e.g. Penn), Smethwick, Birmingham (most notably Handsworth), and Walsall, are a real melting pot with people from different cultures living side by side. One of the jewels of the conurbation's crown is the towns of Stourbridge, which has a proud history and culture. Upper and lower Gornal have long histories as Black Country villages and people are proud to be from there.
'Birmingham' (in the wider sense i.e. the conurbation) was the cradle of the industrial revolution, too, upon which the UK's Wealth was built. Its Victorian architecture, industrial heritage - old factories, canals and the like - is second to none.
Brum's had a hard time under Labour, but if you are going to the Tory conference in 2008 you'll see what a gem Birmingham really is.
Well said Mountjoy ..I `m sceptical about the melting pot idea but Brum is a locale I deal with at work all the time and I love it . I will return to this but your comment is apreciated
(CU is probably...ie certainly not being serious...don`t take it personally )
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