Still not talking about immigration?

"...this may backfire by pushing at least some voters to the BNP and other small parties, as well as contributing to large-scale public resentment..."

In last night’s debate, the first question put to the three main party leaders was about immigration. Based on the responses, the differences between the parties on this issue are likely to be perceived as relatively marginal.

All three argued for controls on migration. Gordon Brown emphasised the recent controls that his government put in place based on a points system and pointed out that net migration had already been declining in the past couple of years. David Cameron claimed that immigration was still too high and needed to be reduced further and that his party would introduce an immigration cap, as well as reforming the border policing system. Thus, while his approach is more restrictive than Brown’s (Brown is opposed to an arbitrary cap), there is also no (or little) attempt to appeal to potential far-right voters in any of what he said.

Perhaps ironically, Nick Clegg’s policy – to allow migrants only to go to regions that need them economically – is an approach with the potential to be the most restrictive. Spain’s 1985 Foreigners’ Law, which introduced similar additional regional/provincial bureaucratic processes for legal entry into Spain to work, has been claimed to encourage illegal migration because the legal procedures were so onerous. It also potentially resembles old guest-worker policies in places like Germany, where labour migrants were tied to a particular job and were not allowed to work for other employers once they had been granted entry into Germany.

Despite this early discussion of immigration in the debate last night, it is clear that, as predicted, none of the three wished to make immigration a key issue. It was not mentioned in any of their opening or closing statements. Rather than ‘playing the immigration card’, Cameron in particular (but the other two leaders as well) focused on the technical details of immigration policy, with none arguing for an immediate halt to migration.

Yet immigration was the second most important issue after the economy mentioned by British citizens in the March Ipsos Mori poll. As argued previously, ignoring the issue like this may backfire by pushing at least some voters to the BNP and other small parties, as well as contributing to large-scale public resentment at a political class that seems unwilling to address one of the issues that has been of major concern to the British public in the past decade.

Dr Lauren McLaren

Sun worshippers let us lead you

The front cover of Labour’s election manifesto - launched this morning – features a bright sunshine. Given that Labour are in the ‘future business’, it’s a strange choice – because it was a common image before 1945, but not since.
Before 1945 party political imagery would often feature the sun, promising a brighter future. Before the First World War and during in the inter war period, Gerald Spencer Pryse was at the forefront of poster design for the Labour Party. In his work the people could be seen stepping out of the dark and into a brighter future. Most notably in “Forward the Day is Breaking”

and also “To-morrow when Labour Rules”

Although not by Pryse but even more striking use of the sun-visual metaphor is ”Greet the Dawn, Give Labour it’s chance” (with the apostrophe in the wrong place), which was used by the party in the elections of the 1920s, and which Labour’s modern image most obviously resembles.

But it is not just Labour which historically has used the sun within its propaganda. The Conservatives “Sun-ray treatment” utilised strikingly similar imagery in 1929.

This has not been unnoticed by one prolific blogger, although it should be noted that he got the date wrong.

Christopher Burgess

David Owen on hung parliaments

He may, as Ben Brogan argues, have been rather over-selling it, but news that Vince Cable has discussed Lib Dem policies with Treasury civil servants to help them prepare in case he becomes Chancellor in a post-election coalition government has added fuel to the current bonfire of speculation about the likelihood of a hung Parliament. The latest polls suggest that Labour and the Conservatives are currently both short of winning a Commons majority.

Lord Owen knows a thing or two about hung Parliaments and the politics of cobbling together agreements with third, fourth and even fifth parties. Owen was a member of the Cabinet during Jim Callaghan’s 1976-9 Labour government, when Callaghan fought to balance the budget during a severe recession while depending on deals with the Liberals and various Nationalist parties to retain a Commons majority.



In this interview, given at Nottingham’s Centre for British Politics, Lord Owen (now a cross bencher) reveals that this experience has led him to support the creation of Charter2010. This seeks to promote a ‘stable and more representative government capable of dealing with Britain’s economic plight’ should the country fail to give either of the main parties a Commons majority, one which they will need if they are to deal with the deep dark hole into which the recession has thrown government finances.

History never repeats itself, but sometimes it has a damn good try, and historians have already examined this period in detail. If the 1970s have any lessons for our own times, Owen believes one of them is that should there be a hung Parliament then politicians have to work together over a sustained period to reduce the deficit. How likely is this? History cannot predict the future but it suggests we might be in for a bumpy ride.

Professor Steven Fielding