A friend of mine owns a high-tech electronics production line and I recently visited his factory for the first time. I was extremely surprised to discover that the majority of his staff – production workers and office staff alike - are Polish. When I asked him why he didn’t recruit locally, my friend said that he had originally employed English staff, but found that they weren’t sufficiently reliable, diligent or hard working.

Jacqui Smith has barred Phil Woolas from being on BBC Question Time tonight, because of the asylum and immigration controversy he stirred up, and his predictition of the eventual disestablishment of the Church of England that the Ministry of Justice had to contradict.

Pretty good going in just three weeks! Seems like Tony McNulty Roy Hattersley is on as his replacement.

It's about time we had immigration policies such as these coupled with a Minister who has the courage to speak out about what is going on inside some areas with regards to asian muslim women, hijabs and forced/'arranged' marriages.

I know his 'patch', it's in my back yard and it's about bloody time people started calling a spade a bloody spade and stopped being scared of the PC 'Hampstead Liberals'.

The article:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4965568.ece

The trouble with common sense, is that it's not very common.

It seems to be 70s a go-go at the moment with reverberations of that decade all over the place. But despite its recent denigration perhaps there is something to be said for the decade that taste forgot?

http://fairdealphil.blogspot.com/2007/10/camerons-cap-doesnt-fit.html#links

Dave on regurgitated announcements

Has Cameron done enough to ditch the Tory's 'nasty party' image that he can talk about core-vote issues without it scaring away the centrist voters?

IPPR is arguing that an amnesty for illegal immigrants would bring in £1bn in extra taxes, and save the Treasury up to £4.7bn.

There is no official estimate of illegal immigrant numbers. Unofficial estimates vary from 310,000 to 870,000. Jack Dromey, deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, has argued in the past that it would be "impractical and immoral" to deport the thousands of illegal migrants, stating "The time has come for the government to be brave, distinguishing between deporting the few who commit serious crimes and allowing the many undocumented migrant workers to remain. They are good men and women, essential to our economy and pillars of their local churches and communities."

But can you even contemplate an amnesty without first having an ID card system? Surely the UK would become a magnet for illegal migrants if the government were to announce an amnesty before ID cards are in place?

What do you think?

Margaret Hodge has appeared once again, making some comments regarding housing and immigration.

I certainly can't see that being the case.

Applications down 9%

Removals UP 16%

Since 1997 removals have risen 127%

So somebody please tell me why it has been open season when it comes to the governments immigration policy?

The last time the figures were this low was during the Major economic disaster, whereas we have achieved the same progress with a completely healthy economy.

Today's  pronouncements  by Brown   on community  service  for  imigrants ( as aired  on Today programme) are truly shocking.

I read today that Hazel Blears is warning that immigration is going to become the biggest issue that Labour must address.

Well at last the warnings from Frank Field and others have been listened to.   Other Labour MPs have spoken about builders daily pay rates being halved.