February 12, 2009

"Hate Stats"

To expand up Joe Guzzardi's coinage "hate facts," now we see that the Prime Minister of Britain is on verge of an aneurysm in his rage over the publication in easily-comprehensible form of a few statistics about immigration. From The Times of London:

Statistics chief Karen Dunnell inflames row over foreign workers
ONS highlights figures on jobs for immigrants for the first time

Graphic: imported labour

The UK’s official statistician weighed into the debate about foreign workers yesterday by highlighting the growing numbers of immigrants getting jobs while the British workforce declines.

On the day that figures showed the number of people unemployed at a 12-year high, the Office for National Statistics chose to reveal that the number of foreign workers increased by 175,000 to 2.4 million last year while the number of British workers fell by 234,000 to 27 million.

Karen Dunnell, the National Statistician, sought to focus public attention on the contrasting fortunes of foreign and British workers as the country slipped into recession. Her intervention came as construction workers took part in wildcat strikes at power stations in Nottinghamshire and Kent, angry about jobs going to foreigners.

The ONS, which is charged with collecting data and providing impartial analysis, said that it made the unprecedented release because of the “topicality of the issue”.

Whitehall sources told The Times that ministers were “fizzing” with anger, accusing the ONS of a political act designed to embarrass Gordon Brown over his “British jobs for British workers” soundbite.

MPs warned that the statistics were open to misinterpretation and risked inflaming tensions in many British workplaces.

In January, 73,800 people signed on for jobless benefits, bringing the claimant total to 1.23 million. The number of people out of work reached 1.97 million between October and December, the highest level since August 1997. Jobs were also lost at a record rate. Yesterday the cash-and-carry chain Makro said that 400 workers faced redundancy. The ONS has for years collected details on the origin of those working in Britain. The figures are usually included in the pages of data making up the monthly jobless totals, which yesterday ran to 24 tables. They are also included in quarterly population and migration figures, due out at the end of this month.

Yesterday was the first time that the ONS had highlighted the employment fortunes of foreigners in a separate press release, and the first time it had issued more than one release on unemployment. MPs said that the release, headed “UK-born and non-UK-born employment”, was misleading because many of those born outside the country had since become UK citizens.

The row is the latest dispute between the ONS and the Government over the release of official data. The ONS won independence from the Government last year after claims that ministers were manipulating figures for political advantage.

The figures showed that since the beginning of 1997, the year Labour came to power, the number of foreign-born workers has almost doubled. Over the same period, the number of British-born workers has risen by just 5 per cent to 25.58 million.

However, ministers believe that the figures are meaningless because they fail to distinguish between temporary workers, Europeans and those on indefinite leave to remain.

A senior government source said: “The fact that they highlighted this in this way, in a press release, looks like they are trying to embarrass the Government over the slogan ‘British Jobs for British workers’.”

Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said that he would raise concerns about the release of the figures with the Prime Minister today. “The danger is that such information could be misconstrued or misused by those who do not support the view that Britain should be a diverse and multicultural society,” he said.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

24 comments:

Stopped Clock said...

I'm sure that we all know that for many employers, the recession is all the more reason to get rid of high-wage American workers and replace them with minimum or subminimum-wage illegals and recent immigrants. In other words, we can expect the pressure from lobbyists on Congress to remove restrictions on immigration to increase rather then decrease so long as the state of the economy remains poor.

Anonymous said...

So how long until they do what Mexico did, and start abolishing race/origin/ethnicity/anything else that could upset the indigenous population from these statistics?

Anonymous said...

Who cares? This has been a long time coming for these hypocrites. Every country gets the government it deserves, right?

Now join me, "Never never never shall be slaves..."

Anonymous said...

Labour is full of shit.

"accusing the ONS of a political act designed to embarrass Gordon Brown over his “British jobs for British workers” soundbite."

So? As if lefties ever let an opportunity to embarrass conservatives pass by??


"MPs warned that the statistics were open to misinterpretation and risked inflaming tensions in many British workplaces. "

Yea, like the right conclusion. What's so difficult in this?

Anonymous said...

"All governments are run by liars".

H.L. Mencken

Anonymous said...

This has been a long time coming for these hypocrites

Great, so I've got to suffer because the present and past actions of the British state.

Could say the same about the US old boy.

I assume the choice of Keelhaul is a deliberate reference? Well you find me endorsing that operation, not now and not when I first learned of it as a teenager - long after the event.

Anonymous said...

'...the recession is all the more reason to get rid of high-wage American workers...'
Good morning America.

Anonymous said...

Keith Vaz is not ethically British. Seems Pakistani or Indian. That explains why he says:

“The danger is that such information could be misconstrued or misused by those who do not support the view that Britain should be a diverse and multicultural society,”


Talk about taking care of your own ethnic interests. I think Euros should start invading some nice little ethic country and simply repeat the experiment being conducted on themselves. I wonder how "understanding" the MSM would be?

Hunsdon said...

Anonymous: I make my share of typographic errors as well, but allow me to congratulate you on the felicity of your phrase, "Keith Vaz is not ethically British."

Anonymous said...

That should have read - Well you won't find me endorsing that operation, not now and not when I first learned of it as a teenager - long after the event.

Hope that was clear from the off.

Anonymous said...

Sailer, why aren't you blogging the outrageous Geert Wilders getting barred from Britain story?

Biggest free speech story of the day not your cup of tea?

Anonymous said...

“The danger is that such information could be misconstrued or misused by those who do not support the view that Britain should be a diverse and multicultural society,”

I am not British. But the above quote is morally wrong. Why shouldn't there be a place on earth where ethnically British people have a right to live and reproduce without being overwhelmed by the much more populous populations of Asia and Africa? What does the world gain by turning Britain into another Pakistan? Brits... time to wake up! All the other issues are just distractions.

Anonymous said...

Great, so I've got to suffer because the present and past actions of the British state.

Yeah, that's how history works. Sins of the fathers and all that...

Could say the same about the US old boy.

Absolutely. No argument here.

I assume the choice of Keelhaul is a deliberate reference?

Yes.

Well you (won't) find me endorsing that operation, not now and not when I first learned of it as a teenager - long after the event.

Doesn't matter. There weren't enough of your types to make a difference in that, or any other backstabbing performed by the British govt. over the years. So you - and I, and a dwindling few in the West - must now pay the piper.

Anonymous said...

A random anecdotal interjection which is largely unrelated:

At a local nightclub I ran into some young white south africans. I met them and chatted them up a bit. It was interesting to note the mien or "air" they gave off - it was completely different from the other people there. They seemed frightful, the best description would be they seemed "hunted". So wary, so cautious, even when having fun and dancing at a nightclub. They looked like somebody was going to clobber them at any moment. The thing is, I'm sure they thought they were acting completely natural.

Just a little anecdote like that says a lot about the world.

(dont let the interjection hinder discussion of the topic)

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said

I think Euros should start invading some nice little [ethnic] country and simply repeat the experiment being conducted on themselves. I wonder how "understanding" the MSM would be?

Hitler tried. The MSM response was unfavorable.

Anonymous said...

now we see that the Prime Minister of Britain is on verge of an aneurysm in his rage

Did I miss something? I don't see anything about Brown in this article, except for the accusation that his opponents are trying to embarrass him.

Mencius Moldbug said...

Steve,

While I understand that the original, two-word phrase "hate fact" is Guzzardi's, I know you'll agree with me that it's essential to credit Carter van Carter for reducing it to the leaner, meaner and more Orwellian hatefact. Style is everything - and Carter has it.

Anonymous said...

"“The danger is that such information could be misconstrued or misused by those who do not support the view that Britain should be a diverse and multicultural society,”"

And if the people who happen not to believe that Britain "should be a diverse and multicultural society" happen to be......Britons, well then to Hell with them, he may as well have added.

Members of the BNP are not now allowed to hold many government jobs. Imagine that - you could be banned from holding certain jobs because of your entirely legitimate political affiliations. Britain is not a free country, nor even indeed a British country any longer.

Anonymous said...

Keith Vaz is Indian. He was recently in India reassuring his 'people' that the UK Government's moderate attempts to control immigration would come to nothing.

Richard

Anonymous said...

At a local nightclub I ran into some young white south africans.

If white Americans or any other European-descended people want to know what life is like being white and being a minority in your own country, just ask white South Africans.

Their plight should serve as a warning to the West.

Anonymous said...

Why shouldn't there be a place on earth where ethnically British people have a right to live and reproduce without being overwhelmed

Because they are gentile Whites.

The MSM and the entire culture abominates them as the essence of evil. It's called ethnic cleansing.

Anonymous said...

Here's Keith Vaz on a BBC talk show, fatuously explaining why Wilders should be banned and admitting that he hasn't actually seen Wilders' film (and probably only knows about the man through hearsay): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csKrY1-CneU

And this interesting bit on Vaz from Wikipedia:

In March 1989, he led a protest in Leicester against Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.[1] At this event, Vaz addressed 3,000 Muslim demonstrators, stating "today we celebrate one of the great days in the history of Islam and Great Britain".[2] In February 1990, he wrote in The Guardian newspaper urging Salman Rushdie not to publish the book in paperback because "there is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech".

TGGP said...

Let's hear it for autonomous bureaucracy!

Anonymous said...

“The danger is that such information could be misconstrued or misused by those who do not support the view that Britain should be a diverse and multicultural society,”

Well he wouldn't want people to think about cause and effect. Diversity all all costs! should be this buffoon's motto. Wait, it is.