These mysterious “bog people”

Often I hear of an event and think: that might be worth seeing. And then the day arrives, and I almost never want to make the effort to go. Especially if the weather is cold and the journey long, and the time of day inconvenient.

However, I have missed so many opportunities that I now force myself to put the newspaper aside, get up from my armchair, and go (“just do it” as the marketing people at Nike would say).

So a couple of weeks back I drove to the north-east of the county to a village where an ancient sporting event takes place at the beginning of each year. The event is a mixture of pub crawl, primitive rugby scrum, and half-forgotten superstitious ritual. The origins are nominally medieval (associated with a local legend), but are probably prehistoric.



Arriving in the village I parked my car well away from where the event was to be held (the proceedings involve a general melee in which cars have been damaged in the past). Streams of people were walking purposefully along the road in the direction of the centre of the village. It reminded me of the streets around White Hart Lane when Spurs are playing.

As I walked further along the High Street the atmosphere changed. Instead of moving people, more and more groups were stationary, spilling out of the village pubs and standing drinking in the street. A shop advertised hot venison casserole (with chips) as a special dish of the day.



As I got closer to the village church (the event began just outside) the crowds became very dense - about a thousand people with more arriving all the time. I got up onto a low wall where I could see back down the High Street (above) which was becoming packed with people. The air was becoming noticeably colder, and the sun was getting lower in the sky.

After waiting about forty minutes (in the cold) I saw a small, colourfully dressed group threading its way through the crowd, disappearing for long intervals into one or other of the pubs where they were given free drinks and everyone sang traditional folk songs - John Barleycorn, Drink England Dry and The Farmer's Boy. The group consisted of fourteen people: twelve “Boggins”, a “Lord” and a “Fool”.



When the group approached the church wall (on which I was standing - I was in a very good position) the Fool made a ritual attempt to escape and was captured by the Boggins (in red) who carried him back (apologies for the slightly blurred photo - they were moving quite fast).



The Fool was placed on a big block of stone (locally regarded as a mounting block for getting on horses, but Pevsner identifies it as the stump of an ancient cross). He made a speech (which I couldn’t hear) and waved around a tightly rolled leather hood. A small heap of damp straw was set alight and the smoke encompassed the Fool (in the past the straw bonfire was much bigger and the Fool would actually be thrown onto the fire and have to scramble off - obviously this would today violate Health & Safety guidelines).



After giving his speech the Fool led the crowd along the High Street to the edge of the village (not very far) and onto a big area of rough ground (supposedly uncultivated since the Middle Ages). During this walk he is allowed to kiss any girl he likes. Many people came up to shake hands with him (for luck).



Above: The ribbons on the Fool’s costume are similar to other traditional characters in English folklore (this is a photo of the cover of a book - not sure which character this is).

The contest begins with the Fool throwing a number of rolled up sack hoods, which children try to catch and run with off the field. The rough ground is extremely difficult to run on, and most of the youngsters would fall over before they had gone very far (“you can easily break a leg”). When the hoods are taken off the field they are returned for a small cash prize.

The main game consists of a gigantic rugby scrum (called “the sway”) in which about two hundred (mostly) men try to manoeuvre the leather hood from the centre of the field and into one of four nominated pubs. The game goes on for hours, sometimes all night. When the hood is finally pushed into one of the pubs it remains there for one year (beer is poured over it, it’s hung up behind the bar, free drinks are given out).



The Lord and the Chief Boggin. They are wearing traditional costumes of hunting “pink” and top hats decorated with flowers, feathers and badges. They act as referees during the “sway” (which can sometimes get out of control).



I am extremely disappointed with this photograph which was taken during the children’s meleé (when they are competing for the hessian hoods) - at the time it seemed a maelstrom of running and shouting figures, but in this picture it looks relatively calm. The sun was going down rapidly, so I wasn’t able to get any photographs of the “sway” itself. It was also becoming bitterly cold, so that my hands could hardly work the camera.



Co-incidentally, on Saturday there was a documentary on BBC2 about William Marshal and his mastery of the “meleé”.

The traditional interpretation

The game is supposed to date from medieval times. A great lady was riding through the village when a gust of wind blew off her silk hood. Farm workers in a field chased after it and eventually one caught it, but was too shy to return it to the lady. He gave the hood to another of the farm hands who brought it back to its owner. The lady called the worker who brought it to her a “Lord” for his courtesy, and the one who had actually caught it a “Fool” for his bashfulness. On a whim she ordered that the field be kept in perpetuity as a venue for re-enacting the event on an annual basis.

The anthropological interpretation

The field lies adjacent to bogs where the prehistoric mummified bodies of hooded people have been found. These mysterious “bog people” have been found all over northern Europe. They are thought to be human sacrifices, carried out by the Celtic peoples at mid-winter to ensure the return of the Sun (vital to growing the crops).

More on the bog people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body

Tom Paulin

Above: Tom Paulin on Newsnight Review some weeks back (apologies for the quality of the picture which was taken with my mobile phone from the television screen). Tom Paulin used to be an habitué of Newsnight Review, appearing with Germaine Greer and Tony Parsons. Although all three have separately appeared on Newsnight Review over the last months, they have not done so together.

Tom Paulin appeared on the Today Programme earlier this week, talking about poetry. Although he is a controversial commentator, his views always make you think. He is a lecturer at Oxford and author of (among many other works) Thomas Hardy, the Poetry of Perception.



I am currently working my way through Paulin’s The Invasion Handbook, part of a multi-volume epic history poem on the Second World War. Comparisons have been made with TS Eliot (and there are Eliot references in the poem/s). I have to read poetry very slowly, so this book could take me a couple of months to get through.



The Second World War did not produce as much poetry as the Great War (I’m afraid I despise WH Auden, especially his bloody clocks). Probably this was because the First World War marked the end of romantic culture (in it's thousand-year continuum) whereas the Twenties marked the beginning of a new "modern" culture. And someone needs to analyse the industrialisation of poetry (through mass media, politicisation and the influence of propaganda).

Romanticism continued, but it was no longer mainstream. In second hand bookshops you sometimes come across sections of old poetry books, by forgotten authors, selling for 20p or 30p each. I usually end up buying a couple as they are often well produced and the writing is fine.

I don’t know much about Theodore Nicholl. A Google search only reveals that he was born in 1902, died in 1973 and wrote six volumes of poetry - five before the war and The Immortal Ease in 1948. I wonder why he stopped writing poetry?



Although I don’t know anything about his life I am sure Theodore Nicholl was an RAF pilot during the war. The writing is too accurate to be entirely fiction. He is obviously writing from the heart.

Not sure…

I’m not sure which I prefer.



Bakewell tarts (which have a delectable almond frangipani filling).



Or Eccles cakes (buttery pastry dissolving as you bite into them, so that you are almost overwhelmed by the succulent current filling).



And clotted cream always makes things nicer (as my old manager use to say at board meetings: “You are the cream of the company’s management, which is why the clots rise to the top…”).

More on Bakewell tarts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakewell_tart
More on Eccles cakes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccles_cake
More on the vernacular use of the word clot: http://www.yourdictionary.com/clot

Try a bit harder

I was not impressed at Gordon Brown’s announcement that the law is to be changed to presume everyone has consented to be an organ donor unless they specifically decide otherwise.

Just because the official campaign (to persuade people to become organ donors voluntarily) has failed doesn’t mean that the law should be used to compel people by force. It means they should dismiss the people doing the existing information campaign, appoint new people, AND TRY A BIT HARDER. Can you imagine any commercial company complaining that their advertising wasn’t working and therefore they should have the force of law to compel people to buy their service?

Either people want to become organ donors or they don’t.

If they do want to become organ donors then it MUST be possible to persuade them voluntarily through an information campaign (especially if they use experts who know what they are doing rather than the usual cabal of civil servants, hack politicians and quango-filling placemen/women).

If people don’t want to become organ donors then using the law to “presume” consent and seize the body parts is unethical and disgusting.

And what about the isolated elderly and vulnerable hovering at death’s door - is some arrogant medical consultant going to “presume” their quality of life is not worth preserving and their parts would be better off in someone else?

Jeremy Clarkson

The shelves of WH Smith at Kings Cross supporting a row of books by Jeremy Clarkson.

Jeremy Clarkson is a larger than life media personality, incredibly popular, enormously influential. You cannot understand twenty-first century British popular culture without reference to Jeremy Clarkson. He bestrides television and newspapers like a cultural colossus (the analogy is deliberate - in many ways he is a modern equivalent to Cecil Rhodes in bombastic certainty and will to dominate).

The laws of physics tell us that every action has a reaction. Only an insipid, politically-correct, furtively hypocritical society could produce Jeremy Clarkson. Not that I would call him a reactionary (I wouldn’t dare).

Overheard

On a crowded Northern Line train, pausing in Bank station, I overheard two senior City types discussing the shortcomings of a junior.

"Typical of young people now - he confuses movement with progress."

They tutted and shook their heads, and these little signs indicated the offender was to be cast into outer darkness.

Everything suddenly became ordinary - the week at work

Monday, my first day back at work after the holiday. I sat at my desk and made a half-hearted start to all the things that needed to be done. I looked through the papers I had left (neatly for once) on the alcohol-infused Friday afternoon when everything had been “winding down” (that phrase put in parenthesis, as the process of winding down involved a complex mixture of holiday expectation, end-of-work relief, wine-soaked fatigue… and just the faintest hope that something would turn up in the vacation interim as to make all these requirements superfluous).

I worked my way through the papers and e-mails, buoyed up by cups of tea, until 11 o’clock when everything suddenly became ordinary, and it was as if the Christmas holiday had never been. Disturbingly, this sense of the ordinary continued to intensify, so that by the time noon arrived I had reached a sense of hyper-ordinariness, and by the afternoon had entered a state of bland nothingness. When I left at 5.30 I stepped out onto the cold grey street feeling oddly betrayed, depressed, abandoned (but only slightly - even in my neuroses I am denied the real deal).

Tuesday. Endless press releases to be written, and rewritten, and rewritten a third time (so that I was dangerously close to the “if you’re so smart you can do the bloody things yourself” stage). Late afternoon and the first of the year’s new business meetings. This was a lacklustre event, with Kate outlining her plans to bring in more clients (basically an extension of the 2007 strategy) and directors Ian and Alan saying how well she was doing. It always surprises me the way in which I am automatically included in these meetings. Perhaps I am just making up the numbers?

The new business meeting went on until 6, after everyone else had left. Ian suggested a drink, so we all went to the Heroes wine bar (the walls covered with black and white photographs of boxers). We were still there at 7.30, although I kept saying “I really must go”.

Ian had a bit much to drink and started gossiping about the staff (not something an MD should do). It was as if he were afraid of some of them. In particular he told us he thought Stuart (who heads up the photographic studio) was trying to steal some of his clients.

“He thinks because he hasn’t got anything to do he’s going to lose his job” said Alan about Ian (and in front of him). “He forgets he’s a director of the company. He’ll be last to go.”

We all laughed. Kate rolled her eyes and gave one of her dazzling smiles, as if we were all good friends. Privately I knew she would be fuming, as she has often said that Ian and Alan don’t do very much.

Wednesday and a flurry of excitement when it was revealed that the contact at Rocket, one of our medium sized clients, had been made redundant. Decisions about marketing were now being taken at the Rocket head office in Kensington. It is awful when this sort of thing happens, as it always makes the Account Manager look out-of-the-loop, with the likelihood that the new decision maker is going to want to change agencies. Happily Rocket was not one of my clients. They were handled by Angela (Ian’s PA) which meant they were actually one of Ian’s old clients. A small crisis meeting was held, and Kate and myself were delegated to go to see the new decision maker - an appointment made for Friday.

In the afternoon I went to check on a photo shoot at the photographic studio. The image being taken was of a flautist, to be used on the front cover of a software brochure (headline: Exceptional performance). A beautiful model, her skin completely flawless, was standing in front of the infinity curve wearing a high-waisted evening dress. No-one knew exactly how she should hold the flute. They had wasted almost an hour trying various angles. Eventually I looked at flautists on Google Images to get the position right.

Thursday a new client (Sealion) walked through the door. Just like that, with no effort made at all. He was a bit of an egomaniac and didn’t stop talking (the sort who is going to want his portrait in the brochure) but you mustn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

A crisis in the afternoon over some original artwork that couldn’t be found on the system (which is supposedly fool-proof). Angela (senior PA) and Paul (graphics designer) were working themselves into a bit of a frenzy, blaming each other for the loss. It was nothing to do with me, but in the end I intervened and told Paul to recreate the design (a two-hour job). He meekly complied, which made me very thoughtful. Up until that moment I had not been sure whether I had the authority to give orders (and have them carried out). I began to wonder what other commands I could give (“Do this”, “Don’t do that”, “Go down to Costa Coffee and bring me back…”).

Friday, and at 8.30 I met Kate at the entrance to Holland Park Tube. We were early so we went into a café called Tootsies and sat in the window drinking coffee until 9. Then to the Rocket head office, only to find that Samantha, the new marketing decision maker, had not arrived yet. We went back to Tootsies and waited around until 10, drinking more coffee at the table in the window. Once again to the Rocket offices where we waited in Reception until Samantha came out to meet us. Rather than taking us into a meeting room, Samantha said she hadn’t had breakfast yet, and suggested going to a local café she knew - leading us right back to Tootsies.

Samantha was tall, slim, and had black hair artfully piled up. She said “Yah” a lot. She told us there were no immediate plans to change anything, but said it in such a way (off-hand, absently, with no interest in the current work-in-progress) that immediately made us suspect the worst.

After this meeting Kate led me along Holland Park Avenue to an Irish pub behind Notting Hill tube station where we had whiskies and soda and she talked about her boyfriend troubles.

The Plough Jag

Plough Monday is held on the first Monday after Epiphany (which this year was Sunday 6th January). In the past ploughs were taken into the parish churches to be blessed in a special “God speed the plough” ceremony. This is still kept up in a few villages in the county (see order of service above) but mostly it has lapsed, mainly due to the replacement of horse-drawn ploughs with mechanised equipment (occasionally you come across ploughs kept inside churches - there used to be one at Scarning in Norfolk).



Above: At 11 o’clock the mummers appeared.

Also associated with Plough Monday are the Plough Jags - mummers plays formerly performed by the plough boys. Very few of these plays are still performed, but I managed to track one down last Saturday, in a town to the north-west of the county. I got there early as the play is only performed once and lasts about twenty minutes, so if you miss it you have to wait another twelve months until it comes round again (or try and follow the mummers on the subsequent pub crawl).

The day was cold and damp, but with some sunshine. The play was held in the Market Square, a small and rather claustrophobic space, surrounded by three-story buildings (some were 19th century, others were post-war but built in a traditional style). The market consisted of a few stalls selling cheap clothes, cheap DVDs, fresh fruit and vegetables. The square was very busy with shoppers passing through (hardly anyone stopping at the stalls). Remnants of Christmas decorations were still applied to various buildings, looking a bit forlorn. There was a very light sprinkling of litter underfoot, and the cold air had a lardy smell to it (possibly coming from various cafés and chip shops).

At 11 o’clock the mummers appeared in front of the central Christmas tree. There were twelve of them, all men apart from one woman (obviously they are no longer plough boys - I would guess these were the members of a local folk group). Mummers plays follow a fairly standard format with traditional costumes (blacked faces) and characters. They arrived in a procession, and each gave a speech in rhyme. A fiddle-player and an accordianist provided music and some of the characters danced about (when a song about sowing barley was sung several of the audience joined in). The woman did not act in the play but brought round a pail to collect money from the on-lookers.



Mummers plays always include a duel, followed by the death of the central character and his revival by the “Doctor” (the man in the black hat and frock coat, carrying a leather bag). Sir James Fraser, writing in The Golden Bough, traces the origin of these plays to the fertility of the soil and security of the food supply. As well as the Plough Jags, mummers plays were performed at all the festivals of the year, including Christmas (there is a fictionalised account of a mummers play in Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native - in the film version Catherine Zeta-Jones disguises herself as one of the mummers).

There were several modern touches in this Plough Jag. For instance, one of the soldiers has gone off to “Afghanistany”. And when Beelzebub appeared to one of the female characters (played by a man) she launched into a Catherine Tate “Am I bovvered?” speech.



After the performing the Plough Jag the plough boys would take the money they had collected and go to a pub. When they had drunk the takings they would perform the play again to obtain funds for the next session, and then move on to a new pub. With each round of drinks the Plough Jag would become more boisterous and irreverent.



This pub sign shows a plough boy dressed in a sheepskin, leading the horses.



A plow-wright was a maker of ploughs. This marriage of a ploughman dates from the 1920s - the fact that the surname matched the man's occupation suggests a strong family connection going back generations. Because of the importance of ploughing in the agricultural cycle, ploughmen had a fairly high status in village life. In the medieval period they would be members of the Plow Guild, one of the great trade guilds of the middle ages. These quasi-religious societies would have their own section of the parish church and meet once a year for a religious service and feast. As well as overseeing the rituals and ceremonies associated with ploughing, they would also register apprentices, and act as a self-help friendly society.



I took this photo at the end of autumn last year (the soil is so rich in the county that you can get at least two crops a year). Farmers are famously taciturn, and are impossible to “interview” in any formal way. You have to get to know them really well and then ask your questions in a very conversational and understated way. Often however, I have managed to get them into an almost mystical mood when talking about the land, especially the uncovering of the earth during ploughing. The consistency and texture of the soil would be noticed, and the appearance of earth worms etc. The medieval poem The Vision of Piers Plowman is an indication of the sacred link that formerly existed between “earth” and heaven.

More on the Vision of Piers Plowman: http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/langland.html

Joey Barton’s arrest and incarceration

Above: photograph of Joey Barton illustrating an article about the player by Daily Telegraph journalist Sue Mott. For some reason this picture has a quasi-religious caption (“Awaiting a visitation..”). Like most of Sue Mott’s writing, the article was very perceptive.

All through the Christmas and New Year holiday period the news bulletins and newspapers have reported footballer (soccer player) Joey Barton’s arrest and incarceration following his involvement in a brawl in a fast-food outlet on 27th December. He was held in a cell until today (surely a ridiculous over-precaution) when he was granted bail. Joey Barton plays for Newcastle, and has also played for the England team.

The circumstances in which he was arrested are familiar to anyone who has walked through a British town or city centre on any Friday or Saturday (and increasingly Sunday) night. But you would be foolish to actually go into a town centre at night at the weekend - they are becoming no-go zones for ordinary people. You can get an idea of what they are like from the “reality” series Booze Britain (a salacious look at excessively inebriated young men and women fighting, vomiting and urinating in public - reported in a self-righteous tone that would not be out of place in The Guardian).

Anyway, I had been following the career of Joey Barton as a possible candidate for endorsing one of the upstairs PR clients (I am helping Rachel with the campaign plan). Their product has a brand personality that includes “edgy abrasive newcomer” with a prospective target audience of early-adopters, risk-takers, males aged 25 to 45. Plus there is a chance we might have negotiated a competitive rate all factors considered (the budget for this campaign is not huge).

His arrest meant we had to take him off the short-list, but there is a lingering sense that he is being treated unfairly.

In interviews he comes across as someone very intelligent, but who has been failed by the education system, so that he has lots of sophisticated things to say, but no real means of expressing them (which I suppose explains the frustrated violence). In one television interview he said he didn’t care about media opinion but referred his conscience to a higher power - this was a surprisingly independent line to take (even though it is never wise to dismiss the media, whatever you might privately think). Despite all the (many) set-backs he has experienced his character exhibits incredible levels of self-confidence, indicating he is either very stupid, or has an exceptional degree of personal integrity.



Above: one thing I have noticed is that Joey Barton has an unusual tattoo (a bleeding gash) on the right side of his chest. It looks like he has the stigmata (“a sword shall pierce your heart also” etc). Does he have tattoos on his hands and feet as well?
Apologies to the photographer - this is not my image but one I found on the web and didn’t note the url (if you send me your name I’ll put in a credit, or alternatively I’ll take it down if you object).



Above: Christo muerto sostenido por un angel in the Museo del Prado. Despite the sombre subject, this is one of the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen (one of the Paintings That Changed My Life) - this photo of a postcard doesn’t really convey the impact the original will have on you. Notice the stigmata wound on the right side of the chest.

Approach to Christmas 3 - a religious holiday

In these three “approaches” to Christmas I have tried to record different aspects of the Christmas holiday as reflected in my life (which I stress is not meant to be in any way representative - I’m just saying how things look to me).

So Christmas is a social holiday in which I make an effort to see friends and family (Approach to Christmas 1). It’s a commercial holiday in which the working year comes to a “jolly” end and I get a week to loaf around doing nothing (Approach to Christmas 2). And it’s also a religious holiday - Approach to Christmas 3.

This religious aspect has been particularly in the news this year with the publication of a survey (front page in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, half a page in this morning’s Independent) that recorded more Roman Catholics attending church services than Anglicans. The conclusion drawn is that England is no longer an Anglican country, and is mostly secular with a small but growing community of Roman Catholic religious extremists (as the Independent described them) on the margin. This might make good headline news, but from an historical and anthropological sense it is completely inaccurate.

The whole point of the Reformation that created the Church of England is that the English people do not need “a ministry of black coated men” to intervene between God and themselves. The ploughman in the fields and the cottager in his home were all equally endowed with the ability to read the Bible in English, say prayers in English (using Cranmer’s magnificent Prayer Book) and commune directly with the Almighty - with church attendance reserved for the sacraments. Therefore, when 25 million adults describe themselves as “nominally” Anglican, they have done all that is necessary to qualify as members of the (still) Established state religion.

From an anthropological point of view, this commitment to an abstract idea of Anglicanism is critical to the sense of identity “ordinary” people have. The religious dimension to a sense of identity goes far deeper than most people realise (or even suspect about themselves). It’s a fusion of (dazzling) literary heritage (especially the KJV), profound ancestor-worship (ie the current obsession with genealogy) and an innermost conviction that “we” are better than “them” (Cromwell’s proclamation of the “Elect” or chosen nation echoes still - even in the 1930s RF Delderfield was telling us God is an Englishman).

The reason there has not been any religious friction in this country since the seventeenth century is because Anglicanism has been so triumphant. Ordained, established (sorry, I mean Established) and literally crowned (the Coronation ceremony is a sacrament of the Church of England) nothing has been able (thus far) to shake the Anglican supremacy. And what would happen if the supremacy was ever shaken?

Psychologists advise that it is extremely dangerous to challenge someone’s self-identity. Miners riot when they are threatened with unemployment, “hard men” become violent when their sexual orientation is questioned, the divorce courts are notorious for the bitter recriminations that ensue when one partner in a relationship unilaterally decides to bring it to an end (thus changing the status and identity of their partner). You only have to look at Northern Ireland to see that British society is capable of throwing up its own religious ayatollahs.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to digress so much.

Returning to my own religious experiences in the run-up to Christmas, I have attended one (small) carol service last Friday, one (much bigger) service of Lessons and Carols yesterday, and will attend Midnight Mass (an Anglican mass) at 11.30 tonight.



Above: the carol service on Friday was at a small wayside chapel in a very remote part of the county. It was notable because it included a performance by a group of hand-bell ringers. I realise I am inviting ridicule by revealing I had attended such an event (the sort of thing that Billy Bragg would sneer at). Normally I would run a mile at any suggestion of amateur musical entertainment. But I have seen in the county’s churches many glass-fronted cases of hand-bells clearly unused. When I heard about this service I felt I ought to record it as an example of “living” history.

And as a musical event it was actually very good.



Above: the group started when two of their members found a box of hand-bells wrapped in old newspaper. There was a story that the bells had last been used at services during the Second World War (when ringing the bells in the church tower was only to be used in case of German invasion). The bells have been tuned, polished and completely restored and are now kept in this plush case.



Above: in many churches you will find cases of hand-bells no longer used. The tradition of hand-bell ringing has almost completely died out in the county. The film The Madness of King George opens with a group of hand-bell ringers performing before the king and queen (with members of the Court barely disguising their boredom).



Above: the Service of Lessons and Carols on Sunday was held at the minster down on the plain, the nave of the great church completely full. Very similar to the more famous service held at Kings College Cambridge on Christmas Eve, it began with a soloist singing Once in David’s royal city. About half-way through the service I found my mood of detached observation falling away, and I (increasingly cynical in my view of the world, no doubt corrupted by years of advertising marketing and PR, privately wicked in those small mean ways of wickedness that we keep hidden from public gaze), even I felt moved by the beauty of it all: “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it” (as the Anglican priest intoned).

Approach to Christmas 2 – office parties (“the horror, the horror”)

I have a Kurtz attitude to Christmas office parties ("the horror, the horror"), but sometimes there is no way of avoiding them. The agency has three types of office party: an evening dinner dance at an hotel for employees, an evening reception for the clients (actually held in our offices), and the final early afternoon informal buffet lunch held on the last day as everybody leaves. I managed to get out of the employees' event by citing a previous engagement, and the last-day-lunch on Friday was fairly harmless (Terry our MD gave out little presents under the Christmas tree), but there was no avoiding the “Client's Bash”.

This was held on Tuesday. All the day preparations were being made. Because the food and drink was going to be laid out upstairs, there wasn't a great deal to do on our floor although we had to tidy up and hide any sensitive information (while at the same time ensuring the agency remained operational).

The mood was not very good as the Christmas bonuses were given out in the morning and most people said they were disappointed. I hadn't expected anything (my contract says I have to be there a year) so I was very pleased to get a “token gesture” of £1,000 (“You'll have to pay tax and National Insurance on that” said Angela in a bad-temper, clearly of the opinion that my bonus had been at her expense). You could tell who had done well out of the bonuses, as they were the ones who kept very quiet and didn't say how much they had got.

Midday I went with out Angela to get some big red poinsettias that had been ordered at a nearby florist. It was good to get out and walk about, despite the cold. We took the plants upstairs where big heaps of holly and mistletoe had been delivered, and decorations were being put up.

A leather-clad bike courier arrived several times during the day, delivering last-minute “essentials” that had been forgotten at the planning stage. He seemed bemused at the extravagance of the preparations, and complained about the difficulty parking outside (“Getting a lot of grief from the police”). None of the “essentials” seemed particularly necessary.

At lunchtime Account Executives (or are they Account Managers? - I'm not sure) Rachel and Caroline took all the tackiest and most kitsch decorations and put them up round Alan's desk with a sign saying “Grotty Santa's Christmas Grotto”. When he came back from lunch Alan played up to his office-misery image with mock snarling, saying “bah humbug” to everyone. Later he took the decorations down, telling Pete his clients wouldn't like them.

A break from four until five, and then a pompous briefing meeting in Terry's office upstairs, with a warning to everyone not to get drunk.

The first clients began to arrive about six. As most of my clients are based outside London only a few turned up, so I helped Rachel look after hers (I do copywriting for some of them). I became trapped by a very boring Dutch manager from an international oil company – I kept trying to introduce him to someone else, but each time he drifted back again.

The food was very good, especially the smoked salmon sandwiches and the honey-glazed sausages. Most of the guests arrived at seven and stayed until nine. I became tired from all the standing around.

By ten o'clock almost all the guests had gone, and most of the staff had taken refuge in the Boardroom waiting for a signal from Terry that we could go. The clients had been given boxes of expensive chocolates wrapped in gold paper, and several of these were left over so we all got one each. It was almost eleven before I finally got away, getting a lift with one of the Account Execs to Harrow where I had left my car (I had been wary of missing the last train home, so had brought my car up).

More on Kurtz: http://www.bartleby.com/59/6/horrorthehor.html

Where’s the sausage? by David Tayor

Above: David Taylor giving his presentation. It was moderately interesting, but did not have any “Ah-ha!” moments. He had been stuck in traffic for about half an hour, so possibly was not at his best.

Dark cold night. I entered a sprawling industrial estate on the edge of a featureless New Town (or rather, the main feature of the town was its featurelessness - I’m not being flippant, I would like to do a proper study on architecture, town planning and the anonymous modern life, using this town as an example). Parking on the side of the road (hardly any other cars about) I went into the Research Suite of a very big company (the Suite was situated just outside one of their main gates, security staff watching the arrivals warily).

Inside I went along a bland white corridor and into a large room absolutely crammed with people - professional people, mostly young, mostly wearing suits. About a third of the people were women. All were members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (as myself).

In the centre of the room was a long table set out with a buffet meal, but because of the crowd you couldn’t move around easily and had to make the best of whatever food you could reach (sandwiches push crisps more pushing cakes that tasted of nothing retrace your steps hot drinks push…).

In the midst of this slow-motion scrum I suddenly found myself facing former work colleague Adrian Taylor. I hadn’t seen him for about three years. Momentary panic as I struggled to remember his name, then relief as it came to me.

We talked for about fifteen minutes. He described his year in Australia, his new job, how he had contacted the old company we used to work for (and not got a good reception, which doesn’t surprise me). He was at the meeting with a party of CIM students.

Then I talked to someone from a local publishing company. We were jammed in a corner of the room and so it only seemed polite to introduce myself. She was vaguely familiar and after a while I realised she had interviewed me for a job some years ago (I didn’t get it).

Finally I talked to a middle-aged marketing manager. When I told him I worked for a PR and marketing agency he launched into a tedious monologue about how superfluous PR was. I think he wanted to be provocative, but I just agreed with him absently.

From the door the CIM president shouted that we should “go through” to the small lecture theatre.

The speaker, David Taylor, was very very late. He was introduced by the CIM president as “one of the country’s top fifty marketing gurus”. He has his own agency (Brandgym), his own blog, and writes a monthly column for the CIM magazine.

David Taylor was very confident, taking us through a Powerpoint presentation about his new marketing book. This talk had been advertised as “a fabulous romp through the world of branding”. As an essential quality of effective brand development is not to over-promise, David Taylor should possibly rephrase this billing.

He began with a case-study:

“I have been privileged to get into Fruit Towers, the headquarters of Innocent… Dan writes all the Innocent packs himself, one a day, two hundred a year… marketing has the image of being a bit complex, but it doesn’t have to be…”

He moved backwards and forwards across the floor of the theatre. Thin, dark-suited, black-rimmed glasses. The things he was saying were individually interesting, but they didn’t seem to fit into any overall structure.

“Everyone’s saying: forget the product, concentrate on the emotion… everyone’s laddering up so that Cosmopolitan goes from being a magazine to becoming a lifestyle brand… but the best brands are doing the reverse…”

He showed us a montage of James Bond clips that seemed gratuitous and unrelated to what he was saying (or perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention).

“Advertising is a tax for having an unremarkable product… the way to solve most marketing problems is to follow the money… the long term is just a series of short terms…”

The formal part of the presentation came to an end. David Taylor took questions from the audience. This question and answer session was monopolised by a young marketing executive from a big company who asked question after question related to a particular problem he was having at work - in the end David Taylor just cut him off and moved on.

The talk came to an end. There was a vote of thanks. As we left two young women gave out copies of David Taylor’s new book Where’s the sausage?



Above: Where’s the sausage? by David Taylor. It’s basically a novelisation of marketing diagnostics. The text is in a sans serif typeface which makes it difficult to read.

Eighteen “attitudes” on immigration

Above: on Radio 4’s Start The Week Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks put forward his view that the multi-cultural “UK” was like an hotel (every community rents their own space and does their own thing with minimum interference). Others describe “England” as a cosy village pub (the sort that goes dead quiet whenever strangers walk into the bar). What do you think?

Business has been slack for the past few weeks. To drum up some activity (and to look busy) I have been suggesting to my clients that they commission panel research on their products and services. This suggestion has been taken up by one of the larger companies (reasonably well-known product) and the forums have been taking place at a central London hotel (the only payment the participants have received is free overnight accommodation - admittedly at a very good hotel).

Although the research was carried out by a third party, I made a point of talking to most of the interviewees (consumers, ex-consumers and potential consumers) myself so that I would “get close to the customer” (to quote Peter Drucker). After the end of each day’s forum the participants would go one by one into another room where I would ask them a series of questions about themselves, with the aim of building up customer profiles. The client’s marketing manager also sat in on some of these interviews.

Right at the end of the interviews (which lasted ten to fifteen minutes each) I asked them their views on immigration. I did this because talking about a mildly controversial subject can often open things up, cause them to drop their guard, and provide extra insights into target audience profiles (the last thing you want is a customer group just telling you things they think you want to hear). And also (I admit) because immigration has been in the news a lot recently, and I was curious to know what “ordinary” people were thinking.

Background - migration has been a recurring news topic over the last six or seven weeks, and shows no sign of dissipating as an issue of public concern. Newspapers, television current affairs programmes, and radio panel discussions have all led with immigration-related items. But this coverage is oddly uninformative, with lots of talking at cross-purposes, talking in code, and a complete lack of coherence about what the issues really are. In the post-war period there have been three distinct waves of immigration - West Indians in the 1950s and 1960s, Asians in the 1970s and Eastern Europeans in the last five years or so. But there has also been a myriad of other, smaller, waves (Africans, Aussies, French etc). This migration is one of the most profound issues of our time, and yet until recently it could not be discussed openly, even though it affects everyone in the country.

So at the end of the customer interviews, when we were at the rounding-off stage, I asked the participants their views on immigration. I made it clear to them that the formal interview was finished and it was entirely up to them whether they continued. About ten percent declined to discuss the subject, the rest agreed.

I have to stress that this survey was unscientific (supposing market research is a science) and the sample was certainly not representative of the wider population (for instance no pensioners, no unemployed, no students). Virtually the only thing the interviewees had in common was that they were consumers of a certain product. But from their answers I have distilled eighteen “attitudes” on immigration, which indicates what a complex and interesting subject it is.

Some caveats:

1 Several interviewees had more than one view, and a few actually held contradictory views.
2 Some of the attitudes overlap, and I am conscious that there is repetition, although I have preserved as many nuances as possible.
3 Many began with a very bland non-committal view, and only when I tried a different approach (“what were your parents’ views on immigration”) did they tend to open up.
4 I have expanded some of the attitudes and added extra information from desk research.
5 Some of the inarticulate views I have interpreted to make them intelligible, although I have tried to retain as many of the original comments as possible.
6 My main concern has been to record as many different views as possible, and no attempt has been made to test how representative a particular view is.
7 I have deliberately removed the emotions the interviewees expressed - I was interested to record coherent arguments, not knee-jerk reactions.
8 I have suppressed my own value judgements (so far as I am aware of them).
9 I have tested the arguments through the prism of two academics (an historian and a social scientist).

Effectively I have approached immigration as if it were a “product” being sold commercially to the population. I have recorded attitudes to this product. I publish the results here because I have nowhere else to publish them.



Above: the Daily Mail has a knack of setting the national agenda - not just on immigration but on a whole range of issues. Not quite sure how they do this, as the paper doesn't go into any depth and is definitely not "high brow". One of their columnists, Allison Pearson, was on last night's Question Time - she dominated the discussion and had more charisma than the rest of the panel put together.

Immigration is good - No 1
“Immigration counters the demographic time-bomb”
The population is aging - not just in this country but throughout the Western world. This has serious implications for future funding of the welfare state. The United Kingdom, almost uniquely, has through immigration been given an opportunity to escape this demographic time-bomb.
* We need to celebrate the fact that the UK has become a beacon for young people throughout the world, and not only will their enterprise and enthusiasm be economically very valuable (for instance, enterprising people tend to form new businesses), they will also pay taxes that will go directly towards supplying pensions for the aging British.
* It is an elegant solution - we offer migrants living space room and opportunities, migrants pay (when they can afford it) the pensions of our old folks (“it is home equity draw-down on a national scale”).
* From being an old and tired nation we will become a young and enterprising one.
A counter view: won’t the migrating young Poles, Somalis, Indians etc have aging parents of their own that they will want to bring here under the family reunion principle, therefore negating any initial advantage?

Immigration is good - No 2
“The economy needs migrants to grow”
We urgently need immigrants to fill our current labour and skills shortages. In a globalised world the nation state is first and foremost an economic unit (“United Kingdom plc”) with the government forming the Board of Directors. We should see immigration as nothing more than a personnel issue - recruiting more people as vacancies arise, as well as training (and disciplining?) our existing workforce.
* Through the operation of a points system and skills shortage audits we will attract the best people from around the world (brave enterprising risk takers who literally have “get up and go” qualities).
* This will deliver an exceptional competitive advantage to our economy as the new people will bring with them new ideas, new systems, new energy.
* New arrivals will expand our economic capacity and keep the economy strong.
A counter view: in a globalised world of virtually free movement, how do we stop economically active people from moving on when another country attracts them, or even becoming perpetual tourists never paying taxes anywhere (“do we really want this country to become an international transit camp?”).

Immigration is good - No 3
“We should stop pandering to the racists and nationalists”
The idea of the nation state is an outmoded concept and we should get beyond nationalist hang-ups and abandon the idea of fixed national frontiers. In the years since the Second World War the UK has given up the pretences of nineteenth-century nationalism and linked ourselves to supra-national organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and the European Union. We are more than ever citizens of the world.
* Much of the world shares our values - English is a world language, and most countries subscribe to concepts of democracy, free market economy, free press, tolerance etc.
* In this context the idea of “fixed” national populations is absurd and harmful to our relations with the rest of the world.
* Our policy should be to work towards removal of ALL national barriers, and any temporary economic disruption will be more than compensated for by the arrival of the true brotherhood of mankind.
A counter view: far from the nation state becoming outmoded, the world is awash with revived nationalism, and in this potentially hazardous environment we should protect our borders.



Immigration is good - No 4
“The British won’t do the dirty jobs”
Immigration provides a sustained (and apparently unending) downward pressure upon wage inflation, and we need to be “honest” as a nation and accept most of us benefit from this. This is particularly noticeable in the so-called “dirty jobs” (unsocial hours shift work, work in care homes, agricultural labour etc) where British people are often too lazy to do the jobs, and staff turnover has been unacceptably high. Without immigration these essential but unattractive “dirty” jobs would require inflated wages to ensure the posts were filled, making prices of goods and services more expensive and pushing up the general rate of inflation for everyone.
* Dirty jobs are done cheaply and with enthusiasm by migrants - this is no different from in the past when migrants were invited here to work on the transport system or in the NHS.
* In the western world labour is the most expensive commodity, and so we should rejoice that the UK is able to benefit from a pool of cheap labour.
* Don’t forget that migrants become tax-payers, allowing the unemployed indigenous population (the so-called “lazy”) to remain on welfare benefits should they choose to do so.
A counter view: will the immigrants do the dirty jobs permanently, like some caste of untouchables, or will they move on to better things (and if they do move on who will take their place)?



Above: Tuesday is "Curry Day" at The Shakespeare pub.

Immigration is good - No 5
“It has created a vibrant cultural mix”
Immigration has been an overwhelmingly positive cultural experience, contributing greatly to the richness of British society. Our whole life is in any case a melange of overseas influences (chintz came from India, Yorkshire puddings came from Burgundy, the monarchy was originally German). The incredible diversity provided by immigration has taken London from the sterility of a 1950s mono-culture to the cultural capital of the world.
* The mix has been good for the genetic gene pool (“look at how attractive the children of mixed race partnerships usually are”).
* Diversity has created a vibrant creative environment in which diets are more varied, attitudes more relaxed, and the Notting Hill Carnival, chicken tikka marsala and the Polish plumber have all become intrinsic to British life.
* To unravel this cultural construct would be impossible and unthinkable.
A counter view: this thin cultural spread is ultimately shallow and unsatisfying (“wasn’t it Cavafy who said about the diversity of pre-war Alexandria, that when everything is mixed together there is no real depth to a culture?”).

Immigration is good - No 6
“It helps us move on from the embarrassing legacy of the past”
Immigration is a necessary part of our national re-branding and helps us get over the embarrassing legacy of our imperial past. Although we see our imperial record as positive, the majority of the world sees the British Empire in terms of plunder and enslavement. In a world where major players such as India and China were originally on the receiving end of British imperialism we have to take active steps to convince them we have changed.
* By inviting in migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East we demonstrate that the old attitudes have gone.
* The presence of ethnically diverse communities is a bridge between Britain and the emerging world economic powers.
* It is because our record has been so bad in the past that going forward we must actively demonstrate our openness to others.
A counter view: the United States was “on the receiving end of British imperialism” and doesn’t hold a grudge against us - why should India and China be any different?

Immigration is good - No 7
“We live in a global village now”
Immigration is a necessary part of globalisation and this is good for everyone, migrants and host countries alike. We need to attract and encourage movement, not dissuade it (“Those who can ride the globalization rollercoaster will come out as the winners”). If we want opportunities ourselves we have to offer opportunities to others - in the near future you could be born in London, work successively in Tokyo, New York, and Moscow, retire to Spain, and eventually attend a nursing home in South Asia.
* As people become more mobile we will see the end of heavily taxed regimes throughout the world.
* We need to address this fast-growing category of “perpetual tourists”, who don’t pay tax anywhere.
* Once it was the super rich who evaded taxes, now even modest professionals move between homes in the Thames Valley, to Dubai to Florida, “residing” three months or so in each location - we need as many as possible of these people to come here (“we’d have a great future as the world’s premier off-shore tax haven”).
A counter view: if everyone is a perpetual tourist who will pay for the poor and disadvantaged?

Immigration is good - No 8
“It’s karma man, you had this coming”
This argument looks at the record of British interaction with the world and uses the aggregate suffering to justify immigration as part of the remodelling of the United Kingdom (summed up by a letter to the Guardian earlier this year from a student leader saying: you colonised us for years, now it’s our turn). The list of British imperial excesses includes the potato famine in Ireland, the Atlantic slave trade, the genocide in Tasmania, the opium wars against China, the concentration camps in South Africa, the grabbing of land in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, Malaya etc. Giving the people we formerly oppressed a right to settle in the United Kingdom is a form of reparations.
* British crimes are so numerous and so heinous that the United Kingdom has forfeited the right to continue in its old form.
* Like the obliteration of Prussia, Great Britain should be eliminated as a nation state, it’s people re-educated, and the former subject peoples compensated by unrestricted access to the wealth that was created from their plundered communities.
* Many people sickened by imperialism, believe this is the only honourable way to come to terms with the past.
A counter view: how can present generations be held responsible for the actions of people long dead?

Immigration is good - No 9
“We are ALL immigrants”
Everyone is a migrant, so it is nonsense for any one group in Britain to claim seniority merely on the basis of when their ancestors arrived here. The idea of cultural or ethnic purity is a myth. DNA evidence has proved that all ethnic groups are a mix and none can claim to be any more “pure” than the others.
* There have been black people in the British Isles (brought here by the Romans) longer than the Anglo-Saxons.
* The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were immigrants themselves in the fourth century.
* Since that time there have been waves of Norman-French, Danish, Huguenot and Jewish immigrants - the more recent post-war waves of immigration are just a continuation of that process.
A counter view: the previous waves of immigrants occurred in pre-democratic times - the arrival of universal suffrage after the First World War empowered the majority population to decide who they want to share their country with, and they must be allowed to do this without manipulation by political elites.



Immigration is not good - No 1
“There’s a democratic deficit surrounding immigration”
Immigration was originally a series of cock-ups by successive governments and civil servants who then covered up their ineptitude with race relations legislation the draconian nature of which is not designed to protect immigrants but to screen the politicians from any responsibility. This cover up has become one of the famous “dog whistles” that characterises the debate - an agreement among the political elite to silence opposition to immigration by tainting objectors as racists. The failure of politicians to admit their mistakes, and the incessant use of the “they are all racists” dog whistle is hampering any sensible debate.
* Any rational look at mass immigration would realise that the allocation of voting and residence rights to millions of non-indigenous people represents a profound constitutional change that cannot be valid without a major election mandate or a referendum.
* The arrival of non-indigenous immigrants and their continued presence together with their descendants lacks democratic legitimacy (the release of papers from the 1950s reveals there was never any intention of allowing mass immigration).
* The government has placed immigrant communities in a false position by continuing to assure them that they have a valid right to stay.
* The vast majority of people know that immigration has been pushed through without their consent and politicians need to apologise for creating this situation.
* Immigrant communities need to apologise for taking resources they have never been entitled to, and for the enormous impact mass immigration has had upon indigenous people in particular areas (“immigrant leaders have to apologise for what their communities have done, especially to the inner cities”).
* At the very least a referendum needs to be called to regularise the position.
A counter view: migrants were originally invited here to work in the NHS and transport industries, and their presence here has been regulated by successive Acts of Parliament.

Immigration is not good - No 2
“We are being colonised”
England is the last colony of the British Empire. As the imperial class has been in retreat it has consolidated its rapacious practices in the United Kingdom itself, using the old techniques of divide and rule, double-speak and sponsorship of favoured client communities (East African Asians are particularly guilty in this respect, being imperialist agents in Africa before becoming imperialist agents in England). The argument that everyone is a migrant and therefore no-one’s interests are paramount is the exact same argument that was used by racist white South Africa to justify in-coming settlers dispossessing the indigenous inhabitants and taking the country’s resources.
* Colonialism is wrong under all circumstances.
* England is being illegally “colonised”, and it is only a matter of time before working-class English self-determination adopts the resistance ideology of Ghandi (non-co-operation), Mandela (violence leading to negotiations) and Mugabe (violence leading to expulsion of the incoming “settlers”).
* There is evidence that a Mau Mau style insurgency has already begun (nail bombs in West End pubs, inter-racial gang violence, the huge quantity of “racially motivated” incidents recorded by the police).
A counter view: a violent insurgency is likely to have so many casualties that the country will be wrecked for everybody.

Immigration is not good - No 3
“We are sleep-walking to segregation”
There would be no problem if everyone integrated, but there has been no integration. The overwhelming experience of second generation immigrants is one of rejection, a rejection so profound that some of them commit suicidal acts of terror. Against this background it is cruel to encourage people to come here when the best they and their children can hope for is indifference, and the more likely experience will be hostility and rejection.
* The communities obviously do not socialise together and if they are so incompatible what is the point of forcing them together? (a recent report by the CRE says that race relations are no better now than they were thirty years ago).
* Ask anyone how many close friends they have from a different ethnic group and the answer is almost always “none”.
* Immigration has de facto created a segregated society where none existed before (in part this has been due to a misunderstanding of British society, confusing it with America where the culture is more open and absorbent).
A counter view: because integration is not currently occurring does not mean it will not occur in the future.



Immigration is not good - No 4
“We are being swamped”
Modest immigration is beneficial, but the speed and scale of mass immigration is unsettling and alarming, and in the absence of any mainstream political leadership extremists are gaining support from communities who feel they are “in the front line” (“the government has stabbed us in the back” is a common complaint). Even Labour MPs are warning of very extreme (ie violent) reactions in specific localities. The Conservatives are mostly silent on the issue of immigration due to their experience in the 2005 election, and they have not responded to the substantial change in public opinion (“like most generals they are fighting the last war”).
* The people who feel they are “being swamped” are those on the lower rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and for whom housing, food, and security are big issues.
* It is unlikely that people who see themselves as competing in a day to day struggle for resources are going to respond to appeals to be rational.
* The current controversy over Eastern European mass migration is reopening the issue of West Indian and Asian migration - the most disadvantaged sections of the “white working class” do not see their poverty as a result of personal failure, they collectively blame migrants for taking “their” resources.
A counter view: however much one sympathises with the most disadvantaged in society, should they be allowed to hold back the development of the rest of the country?

Immigration is not good - No 5
“England is dying”
England has an homogenous culture that is under threat from post-war mass immigration. The present government does not “own” the country nor do the present generation - they have received it in trust and must hand it on intact to future generations. This distinct culture is religious (Anglican), linguistic, literary, historical, ethnic, temperamental, and legal. Social organisation includes an ancient parliament and a tribal monarchy that goes back in an unbroken line to Egbert first king of the English. “England” is not solely a geographic term but has an ethnic dimension - the land was named after the people (unlike America or Australia where the people are named after the land). This thousand-year culture remained intact until the 1950s, and largely survives today (beneath layers of consumerist and popular culture).
* “New migrants are welcome, but at a reasonable numerical level and should be completely absorbed into the country” (ie there is no trace today of Huguenot culture).
* “Priority for admission should be given to anglophiles, who form a surprisingly large number of the world’s population, and migrants should not come here expecting to keep their own culture.”
* Continued erosion of English culture will inevitably lead to a dangerous crisis of identity.
A counter view: the idea of a distinct English cultural identity is a fantasy that doesn’t match the reality of modern life which is diverse and multi-cultural.

Immigration is not good - No 6
“Orwellian competitive prestige”
This argument was put forward by a post-graduate student who is studying George Orwell, so I have no idea whether anyone else shares this view, but I have included it anyway.
George Orwell’s Notes On Nationalism essay explains the corrosive effects of having several nationalisms competing in the same country - one or other must prevail. In a multi-cultural society micro-nationalist groups are obsessed by the Orwellian concept of Competitive Prestige - it is not sufficient to see one’s own community succeed, other communities have to fail (ie a trivial example are those Scottish people who will support “any team but England”). Multi-culturalism has been a disaster because it is based on the (unworkable) idea of separate development (or apartheid in its literal and ideological sense as defined by Dr D F Malan).
* A universal and uniting force of Competitive Prestige among migrant communities in the United Kingdom is Anglophobia - they are unable to express any positive emotions towards the nation that took them in because the host community would thereby gain competitive prestige (to use Orwell’s phrase) over their own community (“first generation immigrants are usually grateful to be here, second generation immigrants are almost always hostile”).
* Competitive Prestige not only operates between migrant communities and the majority community - there are also tensions between Asians and West Indians, Muslims and non-Muslims, Somalis and Bangladeshis, Romanians and Asians, Celtic supporters and Rangers supporters etc.
* Many of the tenets of present-day Political Correctness can be found predicted in Orwell’s essay including obsessiveness, contradiction, indifference to reality.
A counter view: second generation migrants are Anglophobic because of the discrimination they have experienced.



Immigration is not good - No 7
“Let’s be pragmatic about this” (I have written this up almost verbatim from my notes)
Immigration was a good idea in theory but has failed to work in practice. You only have to look at how the prisons are full of second generation migrants to realise immigration has failed (and no, I don’t accept that the police are institutionally racist - I think there would be an uproar if crime figures by ethnic origin were published). Unrestricted immigration is creating an unstable society and the instabilities could break into severe civil disturbances in moments of national crisis (such as dirty bombs going off in major cities).
* Independent social scientists need to fix a maximum total for integration for each incoming ethnic group (or ethnic group already here), and when the upper limit is reached no more visas issued for that particular nationality.
* Asylum seekers should be given a temporary right to stay, not permanent settlement, so that when their country of origin becomes safe they should return.
* We need compulsory identity cards to identify migrants who are here illegally, and illegal migrants should have their assets seized by the state before being deported.
A counter view: such an inflexible policies are likely to be cruel to individuals who, at the end of the day, are only trying to better their lives.

Immigration is not good - No 8
“Don’t need them, don’t like them, don’t want them here”
Among a significant section of the population (perhaps 20%) the fear of The Other is extreme and irrational. This physical revulsion is often linked with wild ideas (bordering on panic) that migrants are here “for a free ride” and are taking “our” jobs, houses, women etc. Examples of this visceral rejection include: people who wash their hands after shaking hands with someone of a different skin colour; individuals who claim to feel sick whenever they smell curry (satirised in the Little Britain caricature Maggie Blackamoor who vomits whenever she comes into contact with anything foreign); reports that Asian men are routinely targeting teenage white girls for sex (sexual hysteria is a recurring theme).
* These fears are irrational and so can’t be countered by rational argument.
* These attitudes are dangerous because they can easily spill over into violence and mob agitation.
* White Van Man is possibly the most vocal in this group, but evidence that it spreads to all levels of society (including ethnic communities which have their own extreme and irrational prejudices about The Other).
A counter view: the people you describe are obviously mentally ill in some way, and if they are mentally ill are their views valid?



Immigration is not good - No 9
“We must stop migration for the good of the environment”
Our current population is not sustainable, let alone an increase to 71 million as projected. The increase in built infrastructure this will require will be totally unacceptable (is already totally unacceptable). Look at the existing devastation of wildlife and the concreting over of the countryside - very few places in the United Kingdom are truly wild anymore.
* The whole of international migration is just an enormous game of musical chairs, and nothing is more inevitable than that the music will come to a sudden halt, and there will be a scramble to find a refuge - we need to start planning for this now.
* To be environmentally sustainable we need to set a population target of 20 or 30 million - the last thing we should be doing is replacing net migration from the UK by allowing inward migration.
* Employers who are benefiting from cheap migrants need to be taxed so that they pay the full social and environmental cost (ie if the population of Slough rises by thirty per cent then the taxes need to cover a 30% increase in transport infrastructure, housing, schools, sewage, pollution, household waste etc).
A counter view: technology will solve all our environmental problems.

The Last Word:
Immigration really needs a first rate historian (the late Joshua Prawer would have been ideal) to analyse the subject and write a definitive and impartial history. On the basis of the above attitudinal survey, it would also run to a multi-part television documentary. Given the strong feelings I have encountered the audiences would be huge.