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Local houses for local workers by Dan Dare When Gordon Brown cynically hijacked the BNP’s slogan “British Jobs for British Workers” and featured it so prominently in his keynote speech to the 2008 Labour Party Conference, he could not have had the dimmest inkling of how much grief that would eventually cause him. And yet now, amazingly, and despite all the aggravation he suffered as a result of the “British Jobs” fiasco, he’s been caught out once again trying to steal the BNP’s thunder. This time the theme is “Local Houses for Local People”, a catchy title for a brand-new wheeze intended to defuse the controversy which has grown-up around the vexatious matter of how social housing (publicly subsidised rentals) should be allocated. The BNP has enjoyed considerable success in promoting the notion that immigrants obtain an unfair share of the limited amount of social housing that is actually available. Predictably enough, Brown’s announcement proposing to modify the allocation rules to favour ‘local people’ over newer emtrants provoked howls of outrage from the usual suspects. Ironically it has even been denounced as illegal, being apparently in direct conflict with the key sections of the raft of Race Relations and Equalities legislation that NuLabor has painstakingly introduced into law since coming to office. A little late out of the gate, the taxpayer-funded race ‘watchdog’, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued a press release on July 7th releasing details a study it had serendipitously commissioned on the very same subject from the self-styled ‘progressive think-tank’, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). Somewhat predictably, although deeply embarrassingly for Brown & Co., the EHRC aggressively touted its findings with the MSM, stimulating the Guardian to headline its coverage thus: Claims that immigrants prioritised for social housing a ‘myth’. In similar vein, IPPR and EHRC talking-heads were wheeled around the telly studios to cement the message in the minds of the public that there was nothing to be seen here, it’s all much ado about nothing. This segment on the Channel 4 6 O’clock News is typical [IPPR interview starts about 6 minutes in]. The message comes through loud and clear. There is no systemic bias against ‘local people’, it’s all just a simple matter of clearing up a few unfortunate misconceptions on the part of the Great British Public, cynically planted in their minds by the wicked BNP as part of its ongoing effort to undermine ‘community cohesion’. The MSM have been perfectly content to accept the EHRC’s proposition at face value. Few if any in the media have asked any probing questions about the validity of the conclusions drawn, and none at all have subjected the study itself to critical analysis. That has been left to the BNP, which lands a number of telling blows in its critique found here, most notably in observing that much of the present study has been lifted verbatim from an older IPPR report issued in 2007, and from which radically different conclusions can be drawn. Much more could be said about the IPPR study, but for now I will simply characterise it as a fraud. I would much rather focus instead on the EHRC press release and the media soundbites that have been generated as a consequence, since it they that have now become the ‘official story’. The Channel 4 News interview included a background visual which encapsulates the key claims, more or less as follows:
So, to deal with each of these in turn, I can’t have been alone in detecting the sleight of hand by which the EHRC fashioned its response around an answer to a question that nobody has ever actually asked. Nobody, to my knowledge, and certainly not the BNP have ever been concerned themselves solely with the number of recent arrivals alone. Far more important is the macro picture, ie: what is the total number of recent (post-1948) immigrants and their offspring that occupy social housing today? The EHRC does not dwell on this statistic for the obvious reasons, but instead chooses to create a diversion with its ‘Only 1.8% of social tenants arrived in the last five years’ non-answer. Neither the EHRC nor the IPPR provide any verifiable backup for the 1.8% figure; in the report it is said to be derived from Labour Force Survey (LFS) statistics and unpublished ‘IPPR calculations’. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that 1.8% is a valid number, that is: in 2007 1.8% of social housing tenancies were held by migrants who had arrived in the preceding five-year period 2002-6. It doesn’t seem to be that many on the face of it, but what does it really mean in terms of what people are actually interested in? In other words, of all the new households created through immigration during the period in question, what proportion of those were provided with access to social housing, compared to the indigenous population? The number of ‘new’ immigrant tenancies is easy to establish. According to the 2006-7 English Housing Survey (p. 11) there were 3.8 million social renters in 2007; 1.8% of that figure is then around 68,000. The other necessary data point – the number of new migrant households who would have become eligible for social housing over the period in question - is a little more challenging. However taking the EHRC’s own criteria for eligibility as a basis:
... we can refer to the Home Office’s own statistical report statistical report. Summing the number of principal immigrants (excluding dependants) granted permanent leave to remain in the UK from 2002 through 2006 gives a total of around 337,000 potential new households, all of them in theory eligible for social housing. We know that 68,000 tenancies were awarded to this cohort (the 1.8%) which therefore means that 20% of new migrant households benefitted. That puts an entirely different complexion on the matter than the 1.8% that is being broadcast. The second ‘headline’ number being trumpeted is that 87.8% of social tenants are British-born. The IPPR purposely does not distinguish between British-born and indigenous British, this being of course an important distinction if one is interested in learning how much social housing in toto has gone to immigrants and their descendants. However empirical evidence gathered using the good old Mk. I eyeball in any of the major conurbations in the UK will soon lead to the conclusion that ‘British-born’ and ‘indigenous British’ are poles apart when it comes to totalising the actual inhabitants of social housing. Suffice to say that, according to English Housing Survey cited earlier, 27% of ethnic households are housed in social housing, compared to 17% of ‘locals’. With regard to the ‘10% moved to the UK over five years ago’ figure, I’m uncertain what this is meant to add to the argument. Is it supposed to be added to the 1.8% and 87.8% to make 100%? Possibly, but then we have a awkward few tenths of a percent unaccounted for. Rounding error? Or just an irrelevant red herring included simply to divert the punters? The final bullet point, ‘No evidence for bias’, is the one which seems to have resonated most with the opinion-forming class and scribblers in the MSM. You’d think that even schoolchildren would start to smell a rat on being told to accept that something did not exist simply because no evidence had been found, let alone highly-paid and supposedly naturally sceptical journalists. Did anyone in the media ask the IPPR where they had looked for this evidence, and how hard they looked? Of course not. As it happens, IPPR explains itself in the report. It reached its ‘no evidence of bias’ conclusion: after examining the published, official allocation policies of fifty or so of the 400-odd local authorities that still provide subsidised rental housing. The futility of such an exercise seems not to have been appreciated; it is hard to imagine an activity less likely to turn up evidence of bias (one way or another) than examining the official rule books which have been specifically designed to preclude any hint of bias. Far more productive, one would have thought, would have been to conduct in-depth interviews in the field, particularly in those authorities where ethnic minorities form a significant proportion of the tenants, or where ethnics are able to exercise control over the allocation process, as will certainly be the case in boroughs where migrants have historically clustered. The IPPR seems not to have discussed the matter either those responsible for allocating social housing nor with those entitled to claim it. However there is an even more glaring flaw in the methodology. Over the past twenty years – since the time that Margaret Thatcher first made it is easier and financially attractive for sitting council tenants to buy their homes – the number of rental dwellings owned by local authorities has decreased from just over 5 million in 1981 to 2.2 million today (English Housing Survey 2006-7). But what these figures obscure is the even more dramatic increase in rental properties owned by not-for-profit Housing Associations (HA), which has gone from from a couple of hundred thousand to 1.6 million over the same time period. Much of the increase in HA-owned housing stock consists of properties (often whole estates with hundreds or thousands of rental dwellings) transferred from local authority ownership. Another remarkable feature of the HA phenomenon is the creation of so-called BME (black and minority ethnic) HAs whose principal role is to provide subsidised public housing to minority tenants. The total number of BME-HAs is not made public, but probably is well in excess of 100, with at least 25 in London alone. Examples include Tung Sing which caters to the Chinese community in Manchester and has 650 properties for rental, the Afro-Caribbean-focused Tuntum HA with 1,200 properties in the Nottingham area, Aksa which has 650 properties and caters to the Asian community in East Lancashire, and the LHA-Asra Group which concentrates on serving the Asian community with 12,000 properties in Leicester and London. There is no indication whatsoever that IPPR examined the allocation policies of any Housing Association in reaching its conclusion that there is no evidence of bias in the provision of social housing. To ignore a sector that controls 42% of all such housing and includes dozens if not hundreds of organisations that are specifically chartered to cater to the needs of ethnic minorities is bizarre to say the least. UPDATE: Since compiling this report there has been a quite startling development which has cast a significant critical spotlight on the validity of the IPPR/EHRC report. On July 20th, the independent think-tank Civitas released an academic assessment, prepared by Professor Mervyn Stone, of the Department of Statistical Science, University College London. According to the press release from Civitas:
Professor Stone’s full report can be downloaded in pdf format from here: How Not to Beat The BNP – A critique of the EHRC report on social housing allocation
Comments:2
Posted by Rhys on Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:06 | # James, excuse my ignorance, but why is it only the BNP that you suggest should adopt this citizen’s dividend policy. What about nationalist parties in other countries? 3
Posted by Orion.Blue on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:27 | # None of this surprises me. The “Labour” Party has been systematically pro-ethnic since before 1948 - remember the slogan “If you want a mugger or rapist as a neighbour; vote labour”? (Ok, it wasn’t “mugger or rapist”, but it amounts to the same thing). I heard on the radio a few weeks ago, the snivelling grovelling around this report that - contrary to the evidence of our senses - ethnics do not receive preferential treatment in “social” housing adnd this is before we consider the buy to let schemes, which give ethnics unearned “yuppie” status on the basis of their cosy sinecures in public sector employment. It is obvious to anyone with any intelligence that the Labour Party favours ethnics and actively and viciously despises the so-called “white working class”; this is endemic in their whole philosophy. The probelm is - do we have a viable and credible political party with the inclination to do anything about it? My initial view is that the Conservatives are simply not up to the job. 4
Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:47 | # OB: My initial view is that the Conservatives are simply not up to the job. Move the slider to 2min 50 sec and enjoy Ian Dale’s comprehension of the word “indigenous”. 6
Posted by Bill on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:38 | # This is a hybrid post made up from a previous entry. The left speak with forked tongue. No matter where housing applicants originate from, I would suggest that where you register and apply is considered by the authorities as to where you’re from. ie. - local. Therefore all applicants are considered local. Simple really. Social housing I would imagine is, by now, all used up, available stock must be near exhausted. The recent explosion of build to buy and let property has resulted in a huge stock of available housing, and it is to this sector the government and local authorities are looking to fill the availability gap. I have anecdotal evidence that the social services are placing clients in such property with the taxpayer footing the bill. This is another huge transfer of public (taxpayers) money being transferred to the private sector. IOW’s, this private property is being purchased for the private buyer by the government - nice work if you can get it. Migration Watch say that present immigration figures requires a new home to be built every eight minutes. The government’s previous announcement for a housebuilding programme of three million additional homes (by 2020?) ain’t gonna happen, which begs the question where is the addition capacity to come from. Alan Johnson the recently appointed new Home Secretary calmly announced the other day that he was cool with a continuing unlimited immigration and really wasn’t concerned to what heights the population increased, in fact he reassured us all that he would not lose any sleep over it. Such a public pronouncement by cabinet minister indicates all too clearly to what depths we have sunk, but hey ho, nobody gives a monkey’s anyway. Mass indiscriminate immigration is to continue until it has completed it’s task. It is clear to me (and I’ve said all along) that as the immigration housing programme stalls to a halt through lack of availability, then the government of the day will start and appropriate private property, starting with little old ladies being escorted from their lifelong home by a goon squad - and don’t think it can’t happen. New Labour, of course, will be long gone by then, but left unchecked, the blue team successors will have stepped seamlessly into the breach. Anyway, I should imagine by this time, Britain will have long been anonymously absorbed into the EU-SSR. Aside. Another prediction I made many moons ago is that the next coming election will be the last of its kind, Cameron’s Conservatives (LOL) will stall and spin out of control leaving a huge political void, which will be filled by what? whom? 7
Posted by Bill on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:34 | # This may seem a tad O/T but it is all intertwined with the big picture. I’ve opined that Britain’s economic woes are the worst in the Western world due to unrestricted indiscriminate immigration, of which housing is an integral part. This post was prompted by the following - when skimming down the morning press online. It is from the Daily Mail, (don’t laugh) it caught my eye and thought it worth pointing out. When such people are saying stuff like this it must indicate something. Whatever it is it ties in with my notion that immigration is bankrupting this country but Brown and new Labour seem cool with this - Why? My stab is they are cool with this because they are obeying instructions from above and will get bailed out by the big boyz and well rewarded later (Blair). “Sentencing McClearley, he added: ‘People like you, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people like you, come to these shores to avail themselves of the generous welfare benefits that exist here.” Whilst I’m on this subject, what do you think of Sir Andrew Green and his Migration Watch? (Which I mention above.) Like most things we talk about, I can’t fathom this setup, it’s all very Littlejohn. Is Sir Andrew with us or is he just another stooge? Are there any contributors here who could take a crack at what the economic effects of indiscriminate immigration are on this country? I’ve already hinted that they must be huge to the point of bankrupting the nation, but we are officially regaled with spin, lies, obfuscation, smoke and mirrors, so much so, we disappear up our own backsides. Any takers? 8
Posted by Dasein on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:13 | #
Darby mucks it up a bit though at 3:59 when he calls Dale’s definition of English a point of view. It would be good if each BNP member who’s going to be interviewed, especially those in higher-up positions, knew some rudimentary genetics. GW, have you ever contacted anyone in the BNP to see if they were interested in learning the basics of EGI? 9
Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:25 | # Dasein, Griffin referred to EGI in a speech he gave at the Amren conference just a few years ago. So Salter is not totally unknown in the party. I doubt that many others in the leadership group will have read him. Andrew Brons perhaps. But most of these guys are long-time party members, going back to the old NF days. Many if not most will align with some view of European Man which reifies his “spirit” or commits him to some “destiny”. Would they listen to someone like you or me? No, we are not obedient to the rules of their political game. Would they listen to an ontological point of view at all? No, they are expressing their faith gene. It has no ears. 10
Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:45 | # Rhys, any party within any system that allows minor-party representation is in a position to take over their government by following my simple advice to focus solely on a citizen’s dividend as replacement for all other transfer programs. Of course, since a citizen’s dividend would take from the clients of the politicians their public benefits and give them back to the country’s own people who have been deprived of their substance by the government, it will be attacked as “populist”—as though the population of a country is the enemy of its government. But then that is the reality of the situation! I don’t know how much more there is to say about this idea. It is that simple and obvious. 11
Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:15 | # The only thing to say is that “citizen” is definable by government, which is a weakness. 12
Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:47 | # Bill, Sir Andrew Green, while we are on the subject of brave men, has done what nobody else - not even Enoch - has succeeded in since 23rd June 1948: speaking truth to power. I don’t know whether he is educated in the politics of race-replacement. I doubt that. But then I don’t really expect it of him. The thing is, he knows race-replacement is occurring and he never offers a single syllable of praise for it. That’s not nothing, given his access to Westminster. He is a definite plus in my view. 13
Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:18 | # GW: Then perhaps there is more to say about the strategy since what might not be that simple and obvious is that when the people have a clear ownership stake in the government, not just a “vote”, they will be “empowered” to defend their “entitlement” to a land of their own—just as are the current recipients of public transfers “empowered” to take as their “entitlement” the land of the people. I’ll write something up to clarify this and post it. 14
Posted by Englander on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:37 | # GW:
They wouldn’t have to let you speak for the party. They could just use some coaching from the more informed and intellectual dissidents so that they fare better in televised debate. I don’t understand why you consider yourself or your views as all but anathema to the BNP. 15
Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:08 | # OK, yes James, I’ll look forward to reading that. Englander, I don’t know what I’ve done to merit your opinion. But I really wouldn’t consider myself in any sort of position to coach seasoned nationalists. I’m sure they would be thinking mighty hard about sucked eggs, and with one or two obvious exceptions they would be only too right. Norman Lowell made the very apt point in his speech to the New Right forum in London last September that the nationalist is intrinsically an independent-minded and anti-conformist type. He also tends to be - has to be - much more tough-minded than the run-of-the-mill political animal. Trying to herd this sort of guy into some pre-determined mode of speech would be difficult for anybody, I would think. Yes, if he could work out for himself why certain nationalist truths are more fundamental than others, and why certain argumentational models more telling, then he might take them and call them his own. But every one of the seasoned guys has won his Weltanshauung for himself ... really carved it out of the bedrock ... and you can’t just walk in and say, in effect, “No, you are not doing this well enough - here’s how it should be done.” As for unwelcome views, I talk to Islamophobes about the JQ and folk-spirit enthusiasts about Darwin. Political nationalism in this country is full of Islamophobes and folk-spirit types. They are passionate, and they don’t much welcome disagreement. I criticised the party leadership over the EiE affair, and supported the call for a proper constitution and for normalising the way the party is run (ie, splitting party management from political leadership). I’ve called for the party leadership to move away from its Mondeo Man image and appeal to the educated middle-class, which is where the political class arises (and whose involvement would automatically solve the intellectual and presentational issues). I’m attacked sometimes even here by party members who quite rightly observe that it’s easy to criticise from the sidelines. It is and I do (as well as offer support, of course). So, overall, I’m better off blogging, I think. Nationalism is full of little big men dreaming of power and influence and a place in history. That’s never going to be me. 16
Posted by Bill on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:04 | # Upbeat The thing about the emerging political sea change that is taking place here in Britain is - it must be unique. History has already declared the winner but we just don’t know it yet. The reason Britain’s situation is so unique is the BNP, (Nationalism) is in a win win situation. No matter who or what will shape the coming change, nationalism (bond and nature) will succeed. The present political system has created an upside down world in which, despite more than a decade of experiencing, 90% plus of our population still haven’t got a clue of what it’s all about. Hence they are confused and disorientated - made all the worse through lack of direction and traditional leadership. It is interesting to see the term ‘upside down world’ being used as standard now, I remember when first starting out, I contacted a household name broadcaster and talking head - I described in detail how my life had been turned upside down and could she shed any light to give me a clue as to why this was so. She thanked me kindly for my email and wished me well, and that was that. I will not dwell on the reasons for this lack of public awareness as it has been well aired here. I am referring mainly to the oppressive power of the political class aided by a compliant politically correct media. The world that liberalism is forging is so grotesque and unnatural that it requires suspension of belief that as a billion people slowly connect the dots and realise what is/has taken place will reject with revulsion the very essence of what it all means. So you see, it doesn’t matter how Nationalism (family and nature) eventually win through, whether it takes months or decades or who or what shape emerges, it may be bloody or otherwise, any which way, normalcy as Fred says, will win through. Nick Griffin and the BNP are pioneering a unique win win path to the future. I stir and open my eyes, my dog is telling me it’s time we were gone. 17
Posted by Frank on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:49 | #
It should be full of men dreaming of winning honour by serving their people as best they can. To Hell with fame and power. 18
Posted by Armor on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:06 | #
We can also use the image of a pressure-cooker: the anti-white forces have our institutions on lockdown, but social pressure is building up. The result is uncertain… 19
Posted by Frank on Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:52 | # “We can also use the image of a pressure-cooker: the anti-white forces have our institutions on lockdown, but social pressure is building up. The result is uncertain… “ I like that. So it’s no longer a frog being boiled slowly. The frog has been thrown into a pressure cooker - albeit a unique one hopefully with some sort of escape hatch. Post a comment:
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Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:29 | #
So, the BNP is going to sit by and let guys like Brown steal their thunder when all the BNP has to do to take over the entire government, including Brown’s office, is run on the simple, single-plank platform of a citizen’s dividend as a replacement for all of these politically doled out “public benefits”.
Someone should start up another party if for no other reason than to wake up the BNP.