Let them use Babelfish

Following on smoothly from Margaret Hodge's neo-fascist call that "indigenous" families should be given housing priority over "immigrants" [1], regardless of housing need, in another shameless policy purloin from the BNP's manifesto Ruth "Opus Dei" Kelly today announced that immigrants should be given less help with translation[2] to "encourage" them to learn English, and that translation services should be cut from their present £100m/year (a miniscule fraction of a percent of the £450bn or so UK GDP). Maybe next we'll have a proposal that people should be given less healthcare to encourage them to not get sick, though some might argue, with justification, that this is already NuLabor policy.

The real hoot about this latest 'policy' on translation services is that the State has already cut back on free ESOL provision for immigrants and refugees, so if the stick of fewer translation services does actually drive immigrants into seeking out English lessons, they'll not be able to find any unless they pay through the nose for the privilege, and one marked characteristic of many immigrants (my mother included, in her day) and refugees is a serious shortage of money. Never mind carrot and stick, NuLabor's approach is just plain stick and stick.

I wonder what would happen were a foreign government do the same for English incomers? What if, say, the Bulgarian government were to not help emigrating Brits with translations from Bulgarian (a tough old language, not least because of its Cyrillic alphabet) in order to 'encourage' them to learn Bulgarian, then made Brits pay through the nose for Bulgarian lessons? The petit-bourgeois and sewer Press would be up in arms.

It's depressing listening to the news these days, as every other day seems to bring some new 'initiative' that could have been crafted by a Mail leader writer and/or the BNP's policy committee. I do wonder what the sharp-suited media-friendly neo-nazis think about NuLabor stealing all their policies - are they pleased that their xenophobia and fascism has been absorbed into the political mainstream, or irked at their clothes being stolen? Probably the former, as every racist pronouncement by a government spokesflunky designed to appease White Van Man just further legitimates the BNP's policies. You could argue - hell, you should argue, IMO - that the BNP's rise has been more to do with the State, first under the Tories then more intensely under NuLabor, legitimising their overt racism and xenophobia such that it becomes standard political discourse, than it has to do with knuckledragging braindead lumpens in Booornlay or Oldham or Halifax getting the hump over incomers (though these knuckleheads do form the noisome 'sea' in which the nazi fish swim and feed, and should be held to blame for voting fascist).

Another phrase that made me laugh out loud, when I heard it on the same radio news broadcast, was La Kelly also saying that volunteering should be "compulsory" for immigrants, following on from Big Cheese In Waiting Gordon Brown's declaration earlier in the year that newcomers should carry out voluntary work as a pre-condition of British citizenship [4]. Has the dimwit never heard of an oxymoron, or is she so 'on-message', so up Broon's airse, and her mind so ruled by doublethink that she really doesn't see that the very essence of volunteering is, er, that you volunteer? ?And that, just perhaps, volunteer bodies might not welcome unwilling forced labour?

[1] "Call for migrant housing rethink", BBC News online, 21/5/07.
[2] "Translation help 'should be cut'", BBC News online, 10/6/07.
[3] "Axing free English lessons will 'hit workforce'", Independent Education online, 5/4/07
[4] "Migrants should volunteer - Brown", BBC News online, 27/2/07