What’s incredible about the Gurkhas is that they’ve enjoyed near universal support for their cause across the political spectrum – except for the Cabinet, of course. Putting right the travesty – and backdating it – is incredible news, and this footage on the BBC is, I think, is Nick Clegg’s finest moment – made all the more delicious for the thorough upstaging of David Cameron. Oh dear oh dear, there will be trouble ‘t mill.
In fact, compare and contrast – Brown’s finest moments are when disaster strikes. Nick’s finest moment has been celebrating something really good. I’d like to remember this as the one brief shining moment in 2009 where something good happened in politics. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be cheered up by a political story in the news.
In fact, it seems so obvious that this is ‘a good thing’ that you can’t quite believe Brown handed such a gift to the opposition – pointlessly opposing something universally popular seemingly without any possible justification or reason. I’ve been searching for an answer as to why all day, not really able to understand until, suddenly, it hit me:
This is like the manager that doesn’t want to employ the ‘black guy’ – not because he’s racist, he’s definitely not racist, oh no – but the customers, well, they might not like it. What can you do? It’s nothing personal.
See, it’s the Nationalism, stupid. British Jobs for British Workers, and all that. Brown and Labour in general is desperate to avoid handing the BNP – it always comes back to the BNP these days – any soft targets to kick. They’ve already changed so much of their strategy to tackle the threat from the BNP, why should we be surprised that this process continues?
Specifically one can imagine BNP leaflets being shoved through the door announcing, “see! they can find the money for these furriners but nuffin for the indiginous whites!”
What’s baffling is that while this particular reason doesn’t make much sense, the only other explanations are too horrible to contemplate: Brown deliberately wanted his Government to be seen as mean to foreigners, directly competing with the BNP with dogwhistle racism.
Or worse still, he will eventually begin accusing the Lib Dems and the Tories of ‘putting foreigners first in a time of national crisis’ himself. That could get very nasty indeed.
Anyone willing to defend the Government’s position on this? Care to put forward some other reason that I might have overlooked?
Eyes Only said...
29 Apr 09 at 8:03 pm
“Anyone willing to defend the Government’s position on this? Care to put forward some other reason that I might have overlooked.”
This government has been getting away with duplicitous programs ever since it was elected. ie an announcement that seems incredibly warm hearted and community spirited, but with the devil in the detail.
This was actually a typical ruse, but with totally the wrong sort of constituent. It shows how much the Brown cabal is out of touch. I even think I can detect members of his own front bench wincing and trying to hide behind lowered gazes.
Kudos to Nick Clegg.
Bunny Smedley said...
29 Apr 09 at 8:38 pm
Interesting insight, Charlotte – you may well be right about Brown’s motivations.
For what it’s worth, though, I’d assumed almost the opposite of what you did! Rightly or wrongly, settlement rights for Gurkha ex-servicemen and their dependents had struck me as being, insofar as such distinctions are ever in any sense useful, a conservative [with a very small 'c'] cause, with the Gurkhas seen less as ‘foreigners’ than as hard-working, loyal, patriotic legacies of Empire, a traditional adjunct to our armed forces and hence all-around good eggs. So I’d simply assumed that Brown, having very little patience with Empire, tradition or the armed forces at the best of times, didn’t want to lavish funds on what he viewed as a vaguely reactionary hobby-project for e.g. the delightful Ms Lumley, daughter of a retired major in the BIA, with a soft spot for organic farming and on good terms, bless her, with HRH the Duke of Edinburgh.
And by the same token, I’d assumed – almost certainly unfairly – that Nick Clegg saw in this project not only ‘decency’ (and incidentally I do truly believe that Clegg WAS trying to do the decent thing here – he’s certainly invested plenty of energy in the issue over past months) but a way to build bridges with the sort of traditional Tory voter, or even soft Blairite voter, who might be looking for an alternative this time around, c.f. his earlier statements regarding tax cuts.
Either way round, though – hurrah! What happened was, clearly, a victory for decency – although, now that we have more than 7,000 foreign citizens serving in the British armed forces (not including nearly 4,000 Gurkhas) it’s clearly time to consider regularising and even extending settlement rights for those who offer up many years of exemplary service in defending Britain’s interests.
Nick said...
29 Apr 09 at 9:26 pm
With the army connection, one would imagine that Gurkhas might be the one group that the BNP couldn’t make much political capital out of.
Stu said...
30 Apr 09 at 10:03 am
I’m not sure anyone – even Messrs Miller, Hilton or Hundal – is standing up for the Government’s position on the Ghurkas. I haven’t spoken to anyone who supports the Government on this – and even Tom Harris justified voting with the Government more on party loyalty terms than as a matter of morals.
Left Outside said...
30 Apr 09 at 11:55 am
I don’t understand why this Governemnt would change the habit of a life time and be nice to immigrants. We have had decade of the Labour party reacting to every anti-immigrant dog whistle going. In the logic of the last decade when has it ever been a good idea to be nice to immigrants?
The Gurkhas are not a group that need an exceptional amount of protection when you look at the people we have deported to Nigeria, Pakistan etc. Our Government was doing what it has been trained to do, beat down on immigrants, not because it’s popular with the BNP but be
Leon said...
1 May 09 at 12:39 am
If there’s any truth in this how the hell he become PM with political judgement this bad I’ll never know…
Roger Thornhill said...
1 May 09 at 8:40 am
I don’t buy this analysis, Charlotte.
I think even the BNP are not stupid enough to come between the public and the Gurkhas and I would be surprised if Labour were doing over the Gurkhas to score points over the BNP.
This, to me, is about the basic Lefty/Socialist/Marxist/Trot hatred of all things to do with our nation’s history, achievement, honour, military. Anything to bring dishonour to the Nation is good in their eyes and in balance, anything that can bring pride to the people that was not created directly by the Left is hated and torn down.
The Gurkhas for them are a Happy Meal of delightful, entropic, Fabian political goals, with free toy.
Bunny Smedley said...
1 May 09 at 9:10 am
The Gurkhas for them are a Happy Meal of delightful, entropic, Fabian political goals, with free toy.
I hope the free toy’s a kukri! Top sentence btw.
DR Leeds said...
2 May 09 at 8:39 am
Could Clegg arrange for the arriving Gurkhas to be offered Neighbourhood Watch patrol responsibilities in the districts in which they are settled?
Dave said...
2 May 09 at 9:11 am
This, to me, is about the basic Lefty/Socialist/Marxist/Trot hatred of all things to do with our nation’s history, achievement, honour, military. Anything to bring dishonour to the Nation is good in their eyes and in balance, anything that can bring pride to the people that was not created directly by the Left is hated and torn down.
That’s absolutely correct. Nothing to do with being anti immigrant. Something which this government has never been. In fact their pro immigration policies have led to support for the BNP that Nick Griffin could only have dreamed of.