The most difficult job in the world

The newspapers don't seem interested in this, but one job is sticking up two fingers at the word 'crisis', and the little people are paying for it.

Imagine you land a job where you get paid £161-50 a day for each day you turn up (even if you stay for, like, 20 minutes) plus £86.50 a day for food, drink and taxis, and an additional £75 for office costs, without producing a single receipt. And you can't resign even if you wanted to. What sort of workplace would let you do that?

Some people would tell you that your boss is either a saint or an idiot of the highest degree. Everyone at work takes the piss and the whole shop functions like a joke, with average attendance rates standing at just over 50%.

Until one day, under pressure from auditors, the board, or sheer financial hardship, your gaffer decides to see sense and announces he's going to tighten the belt.

'Course you'd expect the "reforms" to bring in more scrutiny on costs and expenses (i.e. producing receipts) as well as a wage freeze or even a pay cut.

But no. You turn up to work (it's not even compulsory, there's no attendance levels, you see) and, much to your delight, you find out that the dreaded toughened up rules are so tough that you wage is actually higher - from £161-50 a day to £200!

More, you also get £140 a night for accomodation expenses and you'll still be spared from submitting receipts, as long as you declare you've performed "appropriate duties", whatever that means. Sure, now you'll be required to clock in, but a couple of hours will do, so no worries if you get bored or your colleague's annoying voice is getting on your nerves.

Dream job, right?

Well, welcome to the world of Unelected Peers in the House of Lords. And you know what the Senior Salaries Review Board people said (those who drafted the reforms)? “We are sending a strong signal: if you’re swinging the lead, don’t do it.”

Keep your heads down, little people.

Also see: "Scrap the House of Lords".

Fascists just LOVE the Daily Mail

The love affair between the far-right and the Daily Fail continues.

Same old crap in today's Daily Mail:

"Record number of people leave Britain as Poles head home- but new arrivals increase to half a million". Amongst the best rated comments:

"Only the BNP has ANY intention of sorting this shambles out
- john, france, 26/11/2009 17:59

"roll on elections - BNP your time is coming!!!!!!"
- ymmot, england, 26/11/2009 22:01

"the workers leave, the shirkers arrive"
- rob, an irate taxpayer, chesham, bucks, 26/11/2009 16:46

Countdown begins for Central Library

The government turned down the application to turn John Madin's library into a listed building.

After a long deliberation, Culture and Tourism Minister Margaret Hodge decided against granting Birmingham Central Library listed status.

This means that the demolition squad are one step away from being given the go-ahead, paving the way for the £600m redevelopment of Paradise Circus, which so far has been fiercely opposed by both the Friends of the Central Library and English Heritage.

It's not yet know what is going to happen at the site. According to the Birmingham Post, "bulldozers won’t be able to move in until the summer of 2013, when the Central Library will be replaced by a £193 million library in Centenary Square", right next door to the REP theatre.

The most likely outcome is that Paradise Forum will be converted into an outdoor mixed development of shops, offices and apartments to link together Chamberlain Square and Centenary Square.

Immigration myths (4): "EU=net migration"

The perception is that it's a one-way issue. It's not a problem if the Brits do the same in reverse. Because they're not migrants. They're EXPATS.

Labour aside, the daily negative bombardment about immigration is also centred around the European Union. Widely frowned upon for its unaccountability, the EU is also routinely slammed for allegedly contributing to wild migration patterns into Britain.

Indeed, it is undisputable that being part of Europe has made it remarkably easier for migrants from the continent to seek work and live in the UK. Since a number of Eastern European countries joined in 2004, hundreds of thousands of workers came in from Poland, the Czech Republic and so on.

But as always, the perception is that it's a one-way issue. It's not a problem if the Brits do the same in reverse. Because they're not migrants. They're EXPATS.

When you read that Britain should put up barriers at the Channel, or indeed leave the EU altogether, as often advocated by tabloids and at least one political party (the UKIP), no-one bothers to explain the repercussions it would have for millions of Brits in Europe.

In 2001 around 771,000 citizens from other EU countries (excluding Republic of Ireland) lived in the UK. No doubt the figures went up significantly since Eastern European countries joined. Sadly there aren't any reliable numbers, especially as most are here temporarily. We know that 56,000 people from eight key Eastern and Central European countries went back in the year to September 2008 and the trend continues in that direction.

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, "a total of around 1 million people had moved from the new EU member states to the UK by April 2008, but that half this number have since returned home or moved on to a third country".

But let's ignore all that and assume that 1 million Eastern Europeans arrived since the 2001 census and never left. That would mean 1.771 million EU citizens currently live in the UK.

Still, that just begins to resemble the number of British migrants to other EU countries.

The figures speak for themselves.

A survey published by the BBC in December 2006 revealed that between 1.7 and 2m Brits live and work permanently in the EU. Spain alone is home to a staggering 761,000 British citizens, and the figures doubled in the last decade. The Brits are "outnumbered as an immigrant population only by Moroccans, Romanians and Ecuadorians", and bear in mind many don't register with the local town halls but still peruse local public services.

The irony is that the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Sun and the Express all have "printed in Spain" editions available. They are the most popular papers amongst expats, so that many can read about the UK being swamped and taken over by migrants while they themselves can swamp and take over (literally) entire areas in Spain with very little levels of integration.

Many are doing exactly what they believe migrants to Britain are guilty of: living together, owning shops and not learning the language.

About 291,000 Britons live in the Republic of Ireland, 200,000 in France, while 115,000 live in Germany. Many more permanently live and reside in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, the Netherlands and so on. The figures are available here.

So what would happen if the tabloids or the anti-immigration lobby had it their way and the UK decided to erect immigration barriers with the EU? Do you ever hear about it? Would 1.7 to 2m Brits suddenly have to rush to embassies or local councils to apply for work permits, visas and various papers in the hope of being spared illegal status?

And, realistically, would the new British regime back home provide for such massive numbers to return home and place a strain on services, the housing system and the job market?

Immigration myths (3): "Overcrowding behind BNP rise"

Part three of our analysis of tabloid-led misconceptions about immigration. Apparently, the far-right is growing because Britain...oops, I mean England, is packed.

When anti-immigration campaigners are presented with comparative figures showing that other EU countries are host to a much higher number of migrants than the UK, they then often resort to the "density factor".

Interestingly, suddenly the focus switches from Britain to England. "We're only a small country", we hear, and the headlines are often accompanied by a picture of a crammed street, better if in Central London. Aside from very small states like Malta, and also the Netherlands, England has the highest density rate in the EU. If you consider the UK, however, Belgium's also more densely populated, while both Germany and Italy are just a little behind.

Yet a man from Düsseldorf will point out that North Rhine, his hugely overcrowded state, is twice more densely populated than Germany and way more than England.

An Italian could say that if you consider Northern Italy only, then the country's density is higher than that of Bahrein. And that if you discount the Alps, which are objectively quite difficult to inhabit en-masse, population density will reach Singapore-levels.

Similarly, a Catalan will tell you that their density is six times higher than Spain's, and so forth. Yorkshire counts more people than Cumbria. Where do you draw the line?

But I'm diverging. The argument you hear is that, while France and Germany have more room, England is overcrowded. Therefore, the rise of the BNP can be explained by this alarming, simple, visible fact.

So let's have a look. Are far-right anti-immigration parties a direct product of high population density? If tomorrow England woke up the size of Russia, would Nick Griffin retire from politics and the BNP die a sudden death?

France, a nation four times the size of England, has long boasted one of the most successful far-right parties in Europe. In 2007, the Front National tallied 11% of the national vote. Its leader Jean Marie Le Pen notoriously qualified for the second round of the French Presidential elections in 2002, netting over 17 per cent of the votes.

Their figures are similar to those of Vlaams Blok, the far-right Flemish nationalists in super overcrowded Belgium.

Italy, the cradle of fascism, is also home to a thriving far-right anti-immigration movement. The country may be getting increasingly densely populated now, but Mussolini's political heirs have regularly won a fair share of MPs since WWII, averaging 6% of the vote at each national election- and that's before, during and after inward migration began in Italy.

Sweden has an incredibly low population density, but with 7.2% according to the latest polls, its far-right party, Sverigedemokraterna, can currently piss all over their German colleagues of the National Democratic Party who scored a rickety 1.8% at last September's general elections.

Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom may have netted 5.9% at the 2006 Dutch national elections protesting that Holland is packed, but Vladimir Zhirinovsky's far-right party in humongous, sparsely-inhabited Russia managed 9.3% at the Presidential elections in 2008.

And back to England (or Britain, depending on the data you're expected to swallow), the BNP gained 192,000 votes at the 2005 general elections, the same as the National Front in 1979, when there were less people and less immigrants around, the EU didn't exist and builders from Eastern Europe were kept in by the iron curtain.

The picture emerging, therefore, is one where overcrowding, population density, centre-right or centre-left governments, the EU and the Muslims all matter very little when it comes to justifying the far-right racist vote.

Read "Immigration myths": PART ONE and PART TWO.

Immigration myths (2): "Immigration is Labour's fault"

Part Two of our myth-debunking series on the tabloid-fuelled anti-immigration hysteria.

Another typical remark you hear is that Labour is almost single-handedly responsible for Britain's overcrowding as "the population has grown by 1.8 million because of immigration since Labour came to power in 1997".

According to Migration Watch UK, one of their SIX KEY FACTS is that "net immigration has quadrupled since 1997 to 237,000 a year".

So let's look at population figures and growth rates in the same period around other advanced countries.

France. In the last ten years, France has overtaken the UK in the ranking of Europe's most populated countries. It is now third. Migrants continue to come in from both former French colonies and other EU countries. From 59.3m people in 1999, the total population surged to 62.2m in 2009. That's 3m people since Labour came to power in the UK. For the record, during those ten years, France has been almost exclusively ruled by centre-right administrations.

Italy. Italy's population went from 57.4m in 1997 to 59.6m at the end of 2007 (also see this), almost an extra 2m people since Tony Blair won the elections back in Britain. 488,000 people alone arrived between 2007 and 2008. The figures don't account for illegal immigration. In the past twelve years, Italy has been run by both centre-left administrations and Silvio Berlusconi's openly anti-immigration coalition.

Spain. According to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística de España, under both the conservative Aznar government and the current socialist one, the population of Spain has seen a massive increment of 5m people in less than ten years (2000-2008): from 40m to the current 45.8m. Large-scale immigration from North Africa, Latin America, Britain and Eastern Europe accounts for the significant increment: five times more than the population growth in the UK.

The Netherlands. Despite being one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, Holland has seen an increase of almost 1m people since 2000, but out of a total population which -at 16.7m- is a quarter that of the UK.

If comparative figures from other EU countries aren't satisfactory enough, we can also take a peek at the population trends in other prosperous nations across the planet.

Australia, for example. With their "point system" often cited as a model to imitate, the Ozzies have seen their population increase by 13.6% in the last nine years, mainly under the expert watch of John Howard's ultra conservatives. In 2000 they had just over 19m people. In 2009, the figures stand at 21.6m. That's over 2.6m people since Labour came to power in the UK.

New Zealand, with an open immigration policy, has experienced an annual increase rate of about 1 per cent. In 1997 there were 3.7m people in New Zealand. The current total is estimated at 4.3m. Apparently a new migrant arrives in New Zealand every 17 minutes and 55 seconds.

The United States of America boasts one of the highest migration rates in the world. It is currently home to 308m people. In 1997 there were 276m people. In the twelve years since Labour gained power in Britain, the USA experienced a population growth of 32m people (also see this) - under the watch of both Republicans and Democrats.

Canada, also known for being home to a very selective immigration policy, has seen a population growth of 5.4% between 2001 and 2006. That's an extra 1.6m people. It sounds reamarkably similar to the UK figures "since Labour came to power in 1997".

[Read "Immigration myths PART ONE" here]

Immigration myths (1): "They All Come Here"

How many people know that Britain is actually 10th in the EU league of immigrants as percentage of national population?

A couple of weeks ago, a member of the audience on BBC Question Time (it was the edition from Weston-super-Mare) said something we've heard time and again: "why do all immigrants come here? Can't other European countries chip in and do their bit to take their share?".

Whichever your views on immigration, statements like the one above need challenging in the strongest, most unequivocal way. Simply, because they are ridiculously false.

Like Unity wrote yesterday, "[i]t’s not racist to talk about, and debate, immigration as long as you’re putting forward an honest and truthful argument". And what good can possibly come from perpetrating myths aimed at reinforcing the BNP-friendly notion of a beleaguered little island with hordes of "enemies at the gates"?

And yet the amount of people who think like the chap on Question Time is spectacular. I will never forget the look of shock in one of my colleagues' eyes when I cracked her the news that both Italy and France are home to a vast number of migrants. And yes, as much as -if not more than- the UK. And if you think responses like "REALLY?" and "IT CAN'T BE" are remarkable, surely the following beats them all: "Yeah, but they all want to come here eventually, don't they?"

So, let's just look at the plain facts.

France. Figures published in 2006 indicate that about 5 million people (8% of the country's population) are foreign born. In metropolitan areas the percentage approaches 17%. And no, they're not just walking through France with their evil sight cast on poor little Blighty. About 6.7 million current French citizens were born from immigrant parents.

Spain. Immigration to Spain since 2000 would have caused the Express and the Daily Mail severe apoplexy. In the last few years, foreign population has gone from just over 900,000 in 2000 to 5,268,000 in 2008. That's over 4m extra people in less than a decade. In the same period, the number of Spanish passports granted to foreign-born residents has gone up by 600%. 12 per cent of residents in Spain were born abroad. These include an estimated 761,000 Brits (according to the UK Foreign Office).

Italy. Similarly to Spain, Italy has attracted an enormous amount of migrants in recent years. Between 2007 and 2008 alone, an estimated 458,000 people moved to Italy. The number of legal immigrants in 2008 totalled 4.5m people (7.5% of the population, around 15% in metropolitan areas), yet it is widely accepted that the real figures are much higher due to a significant number of illegal or non-regularised migrants.

Germany. In 2007, just under 9% of German residents were foreign passport-holders. According to official figures, from 1995 to 2004, about 1,278,000 foreigners obtained German citizenship by naturalization. This means, that about 1.5% of the total German population had been naturalized during that period.

According to the International Migration 2006 UN report, Germany is by far the European country hosting the largest number of immigrants (10.1m), with France second (6.5m), the UK third (5.4m) and Spain fourth (5.2m).

If instead immigrants are viewed as percentage of the whole population, at 8.9% Britain is actually well behind Austria (14.9%), Ireland (13.8), Germany (12.3), Sweden (12.3), Spain (12), the Netherlands (10.5), and France (10.1).

This is not to deny the significant increase in migration to the UK in the last decade. There's no question. However, the phenomenon is perfectly in line with migration patterns across Europe, and the population at large could do with things being put into perspective as opposed to hysterical scaremongering.

But chances are the Sun, the Daily Mail & co will be too busy with their headlines about asylum seekers stealing British swans to mention any of the above.

Also read:
Immigration myths PART TWO.
Immigration myths PART THREE.

You cheat, you win

They say football is a reflection of society. It certainly proved so last night.

I made a vow that Hagley Road to Ladywood shouldn't be about football. As tempting as it may be, it just wouldn't particularly fit in with the blog.

Today, however, there's going to be an exception. As you may have overheard already, following yesterday's play-off match against France, Ireland didn't make it to to the World Cup. A blatant handball by French striker Thierry Henry proved crucial.

Henry owned up to it and apologised, which is commendable. Too late, however. France's goal left Ireland little time to reply and proved decisive.

Now, given that the video evidence is blatant and that Henry himself said it was handball, FIFA should take heed to what the Irish FA are saying and order a replay of the match. Surely the French too would rather qualify in less controversial fashion.

Above all, if the result stands and cheating gets the official stamp, any future 'Fair Play' campaign as sponsored by FIFA or UEFA would simply look like an absolute joke. Just look at the official FIFA Fair play webpage.

"The generic concept of fair play is a fundamental part of the game of football", it says, adding that: "The Fair Play Campaign was conceived largely as an indirect result of the 1986 FIFA World Cup™ in Mexico, when the handball goal by Diego Maradona stimulated the admirable reaction of the England coach, Sir Bobby Robson".

Also: "Children need strong values to grow up with, and football, being a team sport, makes them realise how essential discipline, respect, team spirit and fair play are for the game and for life".

Well, then?