Militant Moderate: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Is A Stupid Moron

Monday, March 13, 2006

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Is A Stupid Moron

Yes, I know, I'm winning this year's award for stating the bleeding obvious with my headline. But really, if she's going to get paid handsomely for writing bollocks for the Independent, I can offer my services too - cheaper, and, I would hope, a fair deal more sensible too.

Today she turns her attack to the new immigration points system proposed by the Home Office. I can't say that I've looked at it in particular detail - it doesn't bother me too much, and I have other things to be doing with my time. Although it does seem to be pretty close to the sort of system that Michael Howard was advocating in 2004. Yet he was criticised by the Labour Party for playing the race card. Still, hypocrisy isn't much of a barrier for promotion within this government of ours.

What I do know is that Alibhai-Brown's reasons for opposing the new system, as outlined in her article today, are bullshit of the highest order. She asks us who we would have lost to Britain under the new system - and gives us the names Benjamin Zephaniah, Michael Portillo, and Chai Patel.

Benjamin Zephaniah is a native of that great British city, Birmingham. He would not have been rejected as a "Rastaman" because he would have been entitled to live in this country by his birth.

Michael Portillo's parents were political exiles from Spain. No-one sensible (and no-one from the government, either), as far as I can see, is arguing that we should refuse to grant asylum to genuine cases. Moreover, with Portillo's parents being Spanish, they would be entitled to come and move to Britain to work anyway under current EU law.

Chai Patel's parents were exiles from Uganda. Again, their reasons for coming to Britain had nothing to do with economic migration, and everything to do with the need to flee from political persecution. You would expect that someone like Alibhai-Brown, herself a Ugandan exile, would understand the difference.

But, alas, no. The fact is that none of the people she claims would have been kept out of Britain under the current system would have been - because their reasons for coming here are totally different. If she wants to criticise the system, she should deal with the system on its own terms. And not insult the intelligence of the reader by resorting to specious, vacuous, demonstrably false arguments.