Withering glare of the week

Pathetic rebuttal of the week

From today's FT:

Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, defended his criticism of the body’s decision to issue unscheduled population statistics last month. The ONS press release, highlighting a 290,000 increase to 6.5m in overseas-born UK residents in the year to June, prompted front-page headlines...

Mr Woolas insisted on Wednesday the data on overseas-born residents could create a misleading impression, citing the fact that the statistic included 370,000 undergraduates and about 300,000 people born to British armed forces personnel serving overseas.

“The fact that one in nine people in this country were born overseas does not tell us anything about immigration,” Mr Woolas stated.

OK, so excluding foreign students (many of whom overstay their visas or were never legitimate students in the first place) and children of armed forces who have served overseas, it's only one-in-ten residents born abroad (ignoring a margin of error of several hundred thousand), what's the big difference?

Revenge of the nerds

The Office for National Statistics released a report saying that "one in nine British residents was born abroad." Big deal, you may think, either it's true or it isn't, and to me that figure seems about right. Whether we draw any further conclusions from this nugget, and what those conclusions may be are a whole 'nother topic and not something on which the ONS opines.

However, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has got himself all hot and bothered. Showing a mastery of Double-Think, "... Mr Woolas said he tried to block the release of the figures, which he claims are "neither new nor informative". He says they resulted in the government being accused of "whipping up anti-foreign sentiment when it is the independent ONS who are playing politics"."

So who's playing politics here? The politicians or the ONS? Are they independent or not? And if they are, why did he try and prevent the figures being published, which by his own admission are not "new" although I'd hotly dispute his assertion that they are not "informative"? I'm a big fan of the ONS as it happens, even though their website's search function is rubbish - it's easier finding stuff on their website by going via Google.

So what's behind the ONS' newfound uppitiness .... ah, I see.

Said is said (6)

"We threw the pie because we didn't want to engage in debate with him ..."

Internet on the blink again

Although there are loads of good stories at the moment - for example the gummint's immigration policy moving towards what UKIP have been recommending for years, if it's good enough for Sir Andrew Green, it's good enough for me - but Ye Olde Internet Connection has been really slow since yesterday evening and keeps shutting down again, so I can't do proper posts at the mo'.

The cost of commonsense in a dying government

Of all the riff raff and dross in the Gummint, there are - bear with me here - a couple who occasionally think and speak clearly:

John Hutton, at the recent Labour Conference: "Tories say no to new coal and have sent mixed messages on nuclear. The Liberal Democrats say no to new coal and new nuclear. But no coal plus no nuclear equals no lights. No power. No future."

Phil Woolas, Environment Minister, explaining why imposing a windfall tax on energy companies was a bad idea: "[There is] no guarantee that a windfall tax would not be passed on to the customer. We can only regulate in the UK; we can’t regulate Saudi Arabia.”

Guess what. Hutton and Woolas have been reshuffled out of their posts.

Hutton has ended up as Secretary of State for Defence. Possibly a huge mistake, as there is more than a slim chance he actually knows what he is talking about: His hobbies include military history and he recently published a book on the experiences of King's Own Royal Lancasters during the First World War.

Woolas is now Immigration Minister. Oops! He actually knows a thing or two about this and is one of the few MPs* who have had the nerve, gall and temerity to point out:

... that marriages between first cousins are a factor in birth defects and inherited conditions. "Part of the risk, I am told by the health service, is first-cousin marriages. If you are supportive of the Asian community then you have a duty to raise this issue." It is estimated that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins. The likelihood of unrelated couples having children with genetic disorders is about 100-1, but it rises to one in eight for first cousins. British Pakistani children account for as many as one-third of birth defects, despite making up only three per cent of all UK births.

... so I doubt whether either of them will last very long in their new posts.

* It's just him and Ann Cryer (Lab, Keighley), actually, AFAIAA.

How times have changed ...

Today's wizard wheeze is giving under-18s a criminal record if they are in possession of alcohol in public, which will no doubt be extended to over-18s in due course.

It only seems like a few days ago that they were going to clamp down on bottled water.

Oh ... it was only a few days ago.