Chocolate Men Go Home

Well, here's a thing: the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has produced a report which claims that measures in which New New Labour has no interest, such as "tackling deprivation and boosting social interaction", would be more effective ways of helping immigrants integrate than attempting to implant "a fixed notion of Britishness and British values". Fears about the effects of immigration are more pronounced in "areas people perceived as homogeneous and settled", such as Westminster, where the three main political parties have long since settled into a monochromatic suit-grey mulch. Tensions rise when "poverty and lack of opportunities undermine social cohesion", particularly when abetted by exhortations to Muslims to hunt out the terror within or by attempts to steal the BNP's clothes with such slogans as "British jobs for British workers". How fortunate, given all this, that New New Labour has as much interest in helping immigrants integrate as it does in helping the poor, bringing peace to the Middle East or ameliorating the effects of climate change.