Rowson on Erdoğan the Bouncer

Far too long since I featured Martin Rowson's genius here methinks.

Speechless

Saudi Arabia has reportedly responded to the growing number of people fleeing the Middle East for western Europe – by offering to build 200 mosques in Germany.

Syria’s richer Gulf neighbours have been accused of not doing their fair share in the humanitarian crisis, with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE also keeping their doors firmly shut to asylum-seekers.

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which quoted a report in the Lebanese newspaper Al Diyar, Saudi Arabia would build one mosque for every 100 refugees who entered Germany in extraordinary numbers last weekend

BBC: Why Germany needs migrants more than UK

Robert Peston:

There is an economic and demographic backdrop to the differential policies towards asylum-seekers of Germany and the UK - to Germany's relatively open door, that compares with the UK's heavily fortified portal (which will be opened just a bit by David Cameron later today).

The two relevant points (leaving aside moral ones) are that:

1. the UK's population is rising fast, whereas Germany's is falling fast;
2. the dependency ratio (the proportion of expensive older people in the population relative to able-bodied, tax-generating workers) is rising much quicker in Germany than in the UK.

So to put it another way, it is arguably particularly useful to Germany to have an influx of young grateful families from Syria or elsewhere, who may well be keen to toil and strive to rebuild their lives and prove to their hosts that they are not a burden - in the way that successive immigrant waves have done all over the world (including Jews like my family in London's East End).

Here are the European Commission's projections from its Ageing Report that was published earlier this year.

It projects that Germany's population will shrink from 81.3 million in 2013 to 70.8 million in 2060, whereas the UK's will rise from 64.1 million to 80.1 million.

As you can see, what is striking is that the UK is set to become the EU's most populous country, ahead of Germany and France, as a result of a relatively high fertility rate and greater projected rates of net migration.

It is probably relevant that the Commission forecasts that the proportion of the German population in 2060 represented by migrants arriving after 2013 would be 9%, compared with 14% in the UK. So Germany would be a lot less multicultural than the UK.

As for the dependency ratio, the percentage of those 65 and over compared with those aged between 15 and 64, that is forecast to rise from 32% to a very high 59% in Germany by 2060.

Or to put it another way, by 2060 there will be fewer than two Germans under 65 to work and generate taxes to support each German over 65.

...

Here is the thing. Wherever you stand in the debate on whether immigration is a good or bad thing - and most economists would argue that immigration promotes growth - right now immigration looks much more economically useful to Germany than to the UK.

That is perhaps one of the unspoken reasons why Germany is being much more welcoming to asylum seekers from Syria and elsewhere right now.

That said, some business leaders and a couple of Tory ministers gave me what can only be described as an off-message critique of David Cameron's approach to the migrant crisis over the weekend.

They said that Angela Merkel is creaming off the most economically useful of the asylum seekers, by taking those that have shown the gumption and initiative to risk life and limb by fleeing to Europe.

Precedent suggests they will be the ones that find work fastest and impose the least economic burden on Germany or any other host country.

By contrast, David Cameron appears to be doing what many would see as the more morally admirable thing - which is to go to the Syrian camps and invite children and the most vulnerable of refugees to Britain....

Ah, the politics of population-replacement...

Here we are in the age of the robot, and yet still we talk of too few workers.  One might think our policies...and our politics might reflect the same...As if !  What they do reflect, as always, are the interests of capital.

The Beeb has a poll out on public attitudes in the UK towards taking in more refugees.  They note that those of a working-class background are much less supportive (24% to 54%) than the middle-classes.  Wonder why that might be ?*


* No, not that they are simply uneducated and/or racist.

Map o' the Day: Europe by Applications for Asylum

Read into this what you will I guess.  European countries mapped according to number of applications for asylum per million inhabitants.

Via Strange Maps, who have details & analysis in English.  Original Source in Dutch.

Adcock on those Immigration Numbers

Gave me a chuckle.

Border Control in Calais

One Calais migrant caught every THREE minutes: New 'secure zone' to protect lorry drivers after 8,000 attempts by immigrants to get to UK in the last three weeks alone

• One immigrant caught every 3 minutes trying to sneak into Britain illegally

• About 11,300 stowaways were captured in three-week period from June 21 

• New 'secure zone' will cater for 230 vehicles, equivalent of a 2.5 mile queue

• Home Secretary said this would provide protection for lorries and drivers

• She said lorries on the open road had become 'targets for migrants' 

One immigrant is caught every three minutes trying to sneak into Britain illegally, figures show.

Around 11,300 stowaways were captured in a three-week period from June 21 – revealing the extent to which the UK’s borders are now under siege.

Some 8,100 illegal migrants were stopped in France by British immigration officers working at Calais, while security staff discovered another 3,200 in trucks trying to sneak through the Channel Tunnel.

In a bid to tackle the growing crisis, Home Secretary Theresa May announced a new ‘secure zone’ for British-bound lorries at the beleaguered French port to stop vehicles being targeted by foreigners desperate to reach the UK.

Able to accommodate 230 wagons, equivalent to a two-and-a-half mile queue, she said it would provide protection for drivers by ‘removing them from the open road where they can become targets for migrants’.

But the secure area, expected to be open in the autumn and monitored by French police, was dismissed by hauliers as too little.

Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, told MPs that the situation in Calais was ‘out of control’ and criticised delays in opening the secure zone.

He said: ‘This isn’t fast enough. We’ve got drivers being threatened with bars and knives. We’ve had an example of a driver being threatened with a gun. This is unprecedented and it’s escalating. We need action now.’

He added that his organisation’s drivers had been ‘let down’ by the Government and also said the French military should be called in to boost security in Calais. 

I don't know how effective this new 'secure zone' is likely to be, and my attitude towards this issue is complicated by the very real (and largely Western-caused) humanitarian crisis in North Africa.  But it is crazy as hell to still be seeing the sort of images we're seeing and reading the sort of stories about lorries being flooded, and migrants attempting to sneak onto trains, given the level of public frustration that we saw at this kind of thing back in the early 2000's.  This isn't exactly a new problem.

---

Tuesday, 6 February, 2001, 18:21 GMT
UK asylum plan: The French view

France may see the UK proposals as an electoral ploy

The BBC Paris office considers the likely reaction from the French Government to proposals from the UK Home Secretary Jack Straw for an EU-wide plan to reduce the number of asylum seekers arriving in Europe.

Last week an Iraqi man became the latest victim of the daily dash for Britain from the French port of Calais. His mangled body was found beside railway lines near the entrance to the Channel tunnel.

A French government is unlikely to take too kindly to an initiative... that looks like the kind of "people-dumping" that Britain regularly accuses France of

"He must have tried to jump aboard when the train was setting out, but he lost his balance and fell onto the tracks," said Alain Bertrand, a spokesman for Eurotunnel.

He was carrying no identity papers. Police still do not know who he was.

The human cost of illegal immigration is not lost on the French, which is why they are certain not to want to dismiss the British government's latest proposals out of hand.

Thursday, 22 March, 2001, 13:01 GMT

Desperate cargo

Ever more stowaways are trying to get into the UK by any means necessary. Prepared to risk life and limb to gain entry, some pay the highest price of all.

Despite the risks - and the tightening asylum rules across the European Union - stowaways continue to cram into planes, trains and automobiles crossing the Channel.

Safe haven

76,040 people applied for ayslum in the UK last year, up from 30,000 in 1996

The former home secretary, Michael Howard, whose Folkestone constituency includes the Eurotunnel terminal and a ferry port, claims there has been a huge rise in the number of people attempting to get in to the UK illegally through the Channel Tunnel.

Each month, as many as 2,000 illegal migrants are caught hiding in - or under - freight lorries.

The refugees, many from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, wait at the Calais terminal for lorries to park. Some rounded up by police are said to have tried at least 20 times.

Wednesday, 26 December, 2001, 15:37 GMT

New calls to close Sangatte

Police used tear gas to dispel 400 would-be intruders

Eurotunnel has renewed demands for the closure of a Calais refugee camp after about 550 would-be asylum seekers tried to storm the Channel Tunnel to enter the UK illegally.

Alain Bertrand, Eurotunnel deputy managing director, said the tunnel operator was "powerless" to deal with the frequent attempts to cross the tunnel by refugees based at Sangatte.

"We demand the authorities take their responsibilities to take control of the situation, to put in place a curfew and decommission Sangatte," he said.

"The French and British governments have taken a passive approach to this problem, saying a lot but doing nothing, and letting the situation deteriorate."

...

Trains were stopped for 10 hours overnight as French police, aided by about 60 British officers, rounded up the intruders, with hundreds of delayed travellers having to be put up in hotels.


Monday, 11 March, 2002, 18:21 GMT

Railways seek tighter Tunnel security

An invasion by asylum seekers halted freight services

French railway bosses are meeting to decide when to reopen the Channel Tunnel to freight traffic, amid calls for added security to stop illegal immigrants.

Container services through the tunnel remain suspended following an invasion by more than 200 asylum seekers.

French rail operator SNCF halted operations from the freight depot at Frethun, near Calais, during the weekend.

UK cargo firms will be unable to move traffic on Monday night, while SNCF - which runs the depot - clears a backlog of about 12 trains, according to a spokesman for rail freight company English Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS).

...

An EWS spokesperson said on Monday: "The French authorities can re-open the Channel Tunnel tonight by taking very basic action.

"They simply need to provide the proper level of security required to permit the running of full rail freight operations 24 hours a day through the Channel Tunnel.

"The fact that one of the most vital trading links between Britain and Europe has been closed, affecting businesses right across Britain is disgraceful.

Saturday, 30 November, 2002, 12:19 GMT

Sangatte's enduring appeal

Nightly ritual: The attempt to break into the port area

By Pam O'Toole  Sangatte, northern France

The issue of Sangatte, the controversial Red Cross reception centre near the port of Calais in Northern France, is far from resolved, ahead of a meeting on Monday between French and British interior ministers.

Under a deal reached this summer the French Government agreed to close Sangatte in exchange for London enacting tougher asylum legislation designed to make the UK less attractive to asylum seekers.

...

Many of Sangatte's inhabitants were gearing up for what's become a nightly ritual - heading off to the port of Calais five kilometres away.

I watched them as they trudged off into the night. Many of them were young men of Middle Eastern appearance.

Most of Sangatte's residents are intent on crossing the English Channel illegally by sneaking onto lorries, ferries or trains.

---

Tony Blair was about midway through his premiership at the time of the stories above.  Jacques Chirac was president of France.  Governments have come and gone in the nearly decade and a half since.  And still the politicians seem to be floundering.

In the United States, we still have Republican presidential candidates running on the promise of (belatedly) securing the nearly 2000 mile-long border with Mexico, by building...a wall.  The border between the UK & France has for the last twenty years consisted essentially of a single chokepoint crossing under the English Channel.  And they haven't been able to secure even that.

New Statesman: The retreat of social democracy

Leader: The retreat of social democracy

Throughout Europe, the populist right is becoming more acceptable to many. Meanwhile, social democrats are failing to adapt to globalisation.

...in Europe and throughout the west, social democracy is in crisis or retreat. The centre left is locked out of power in parliamentary systems in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and, of course, the United Kingdom. On the Continent, the experience is the same for the centre left in Germany, the Netherlands, Portu­gal, Spain, Hungary and now also Denmark, following the defeat of the centre-left bloc, which had been led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

The British left once looked to Scandinavia for inspiration and guidance. “If you want the American dream – go to Finland,” Ed Miliband observed. Yet Finland turfed out its centre-left coalition two months ago; three of the four Nordic countries now face being run by governments of the right. Only in Sweden is the centre left in power.

When Mr Miliband was elected as Labour leader in 2010, he was convinced that the world would turn left after the financial crisis. He gambled his entire leadership on this belief (and it was no more than that) – and he lost. Voters were certainly disturbed by widening inequality but just as important were desires for fiscal rectitude, balanced budgets and tighter controls on immigration.

The mainstream centre left has also produced an anaemic response to the rise of identity politics. It is true that parties of the radical left – such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain – have capitalised on a general mood of disenchantment but, significantly, both are Eurosceptic. More frequently, nationalism has been channelled by the mainstream centre right as well as populist insurgencies. Indeed, it was the rise of the right-wing Danish People’s Party – a Scandinavian version of the UK Independence Party – that contributed significantly to the defeat of the centre-left bloc in Denmark.

Throughout Europe, the populist right is becoming more acceptable to many. Meanwhile, social democrats are suffer­ing from what the political scientist Peter Mair termed “indifference on the part of both the citizenry and the ­political class: they are withdrawing and disengaging from one another”. To many voters, the feeling of solidarity between fellow citizens so crucial to social democracy has become increasingly meaningless in an age of globalised mass migration: parties of the centre left have failed to adapt to globalisation and the collapse in trade union membership. Most fundamentally, they have not convincingly answered the existential question of what the left is for when parties of both left and right are committed to cutting public spending.

Yah.  Which speaks to both the more left-leaning parties' failings on questions of immigration, and the perennial threat of nationalistic appeals against the vaguely defined 'other' undermining more progressive appeals to unite the have-nots against the haves.  Increasingly, Europe, if not the Western world generally, seems poised to re-live the 1930's.  And if you're not scared, you're probably not paying attention.

Blondfire: Where The Kids Are

Oh God, help us all...


Millennials Will Overtake Baby Boomers to Become America’s Biggest Generation

There’s a lot of them: 75 million total, in fact.

Millennials, or individuals born between 1981 and 1997, are set to become the most populous generation in the U.S. this year, eclipsing the baby boomer generation, according to newly-released data from the U.S. Census Bureau cited in a Pew Research Center report.

Baby boomers, or those born from 1946 to 1964, will drop into second place and then third place by 2028, when Generation X (those born between 1965 to 1980) will beat out baby boomers.

The 74.9 million people born as a result of a post-World War II population boom — hence the name baby boomers — are seeing their numbers decline through increasing mortality rates, while millennials are seeing an upsurge in their population from immigration, the Pew findings show.