Re: Immigration and your “At the crossroads” issue (TNW #449). According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK needs net immigration of 350,000 per year for the next 50 years to avoid bankruptcy. The birth rate is declining, and without immigration communities, especially rural ones, may become unviable. An ageing population will also place an increasing burden on a diminishing population of young people, who are likely to go elsewhere. And all this is before we get to the sectors of our economy that need labour.
Immigration may not be liked, but it is necessary, and anyway, “illegal” migration is only illegal because we will not provide legal routes. The only reason people don’t want immigration is because they think people arriving on our shores look different. They cling to a nostalgic vision of how they think Britain should be and see it being diluted by new arrivals. This is racism, and it prevents us from accommodating the new arrivals we so desperately need.
Mark Grahame
With the catastrophic economic failure, social corrosion, disruptive, divisive, destabilising effects of Brexit screaming in our faces and with the ever-deepening horrors unfolding in the US, the soft follow-the-hysteria media and the not-paying-attention public thinking “things will work out” is epic delusion.
Underestimating the lengths the rabid right will go to indulging what they love most – XXL xenophobia, with a side dish of misogyny, regardless of how society and the economy are trashed – is a mistake that has been made so many times in modern history we already know it’s going to end horribly.
Amanda Baker
Edinburgh, Scotland
Re: Your article on Labubus, by Olive Pometsey (TNW #449). Labubu might be a good name for Corbyn’s new party, if it isn’t subject to copyright?
Stuart Andrews
Patience Wheatcroft’s call for a United States of Europe (TNW #449) felt very prescient – I’d had the same discussion with my daughter just before reading it, and we agreed the idea now feels inevitable. I just hope and pray it doesn’t take all-out war to achieve it!
Richard Debonnaire
Europe can only prevail against the superpowers if it is itself a superpower. A fragmented Europe, with each country competing with, and suspicious of, its neighbour, can only leave us all open to exploitation. The mutual hostility that surfaced at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, in the scramble for PPE and then the early vaccines, was not exactly encouraging.
Europe should be (as it could be) self-sufficient in energy. We are quite a way off. If you run a diesel car it probably has some Russian diesel in it (albeit mixed with some Indian distillate). Same with human energy – food. And medicine. Defence: having each country build its own design of tanks is beyond silly. There must be far more coordination and integration.
But perhaps most importantly, the EU must evolve into something more than what it is now – a club of governments. We need a European story that we can all take pride in and feel connected to. It’s hard to feel much for a bureaucracy.
RSP Zatsen
I sympathise with Marie Le Conte after her tube encounter with the Rupert Lowe fan (Dilettante, TNW #449). It appears that it was her fellow passenger who initiated the conversation with her xenophobic opinion, and Marie felt justified in challenging that opinion, as I would have done.
As a retired person, spending most of my time at home, I rarely speak to strangers. However, I keep in touch with local news through a community chat site called Nextdoor. The most common topics for discussion are complaints about housing, transport, the NHS and the police.
As each new topic begins to attract comments, it won’t be long before someone comes up with “we all know why this is happening, don’t we?”, which is followed by numerous “likes”.
I tried, on a number of occasions, to counter these with common-sense statements and factual evidence. In each case, I was met with insults and foul language. Sometimes the senders of these abusive comments even admit to being Reform/Farage supporters. Go figure.
Andy Wright
One of the reasons I think Marie Le Conte is one of the best commentators around is her insight and clarity of expression when describing everyday life as experienced by most people and her philosophy of treating people of whatever background or viewpoint with respect.
It would have been easy to get into a row with the woman on the tube, but by listening to others you learn. Who knows, the responses could create a spark of uncertainty.
That chat Marie had revealed a degree of agreement, something that can be developed and worked on, to allow greater understanding and less division and hostility. It is an example of there being more that connects us than divides us, but to discover it we have to be open to what others say.
Nick Moss
Never mind Rupert Lowe – of whom I am 100% not a fan – I would rather chew my own arm off than have “a proper debate” about anything with a random stranger on the tube.
I imagine the Lowe fan was desperate to end a conversation where she had misjudged the other party, ie Marie, so badly. I agree we need to keep speaking to each other – just not on the tube.
Jane Clemetson
Lucy Reade’s “The great university rip-off” was informative, sobering and disturbing.
The model of tertiary education for the majority has not worked as intended.
I did not know that post-Covid remote exams, non-compulsory attendance and online classes were still prevalent. Why is this so?
The article focused on gaining employment. The elephant is student debt. If the average debt is £53,000 then those earning enough to start paying off the interest (not capital) will have £4,100 deducted from their salaries each year (RPI plus 3%). The capital debt remains, I believe.
James Walker
Kathy Moyse tells us (Letters, TNW #448) of a man saying “there are so many foreigners here my son has had to move to Spain”. Whatever we may think of his views, readers of the erstwhile New European must surely compliment him on his acknowledgment that other Europeans are not foreign.
Richard Burnett-Hall
London W11
Below the Line
Alastair Campbell’s suggestion (Diary, TNW #449) that Trump accepts the Nobel prize on behalf of USAID has got to be the cruellest idea ever, but somehow a thing of beauty. Maybe the presentation could be co-hosted by a previous recipient from the USA. If only someone could think of a suitable candidate.
Mike Gogan
If there was a new Nobel prize for best con man, Trump would win it every year, no question!
Keith Hobbs
When printed in TNW #449, my comment on Donald Trump and religion contained a “not” which I did not use and changed the meaning of my comment. The correct version should have been: “The use of religion by cynical individuals cannot be avoided, but this does not mean that people who do have a religious belief should be tarnished because of this. Trump and many others have adopted the ‘cloak’ of Christianity for their own purposes, but the words Christian and nationalism are mutually exclusive.”
David Irwin
Elaine Sciolino’s “The ultimate pyramid scheme” (TNW #448) made me want to go and experience the beautiful pyramid outside the Louvre. Thank you!
Mary Epke
