Comments on: We can’t turn them away

By: Dan Hardie

Dan Hardie — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 14:46:05 +0000

Robert, thanks very much for this. If you’d like emailed updates on the campaign, or if you have any suggestions, please email me at danhardie.blog@gmail.com . I’m trying to keep all the participating bloggers in touch.

Also, when you do get a reply, could you please blog it and let me, or Justin McKeating at Chicken Yoghurt, know? We need to keep track of MPs’ replies, so that we can knock down inaccurate or dishonest answers and identify sympathetic ones for further lobbying efforts.

By: Clarice

Clarice — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:27:30 +0000

As a general rule, that is.

By: Clarice

Clarice — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:27:06 +0000

Would that be the same short-termism that made it so that there weren’t enough sandbags, or good enough flood defences?

The same short-termism that made us mess with more countries than we can accommodate the people of in this bulging, crumbling nation?

Moral imperatives are well and good, but they become something of a luxury where they entail resources beyond one’s means, I would say.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:22:22 +0000

No-one is saying that long term help in situ is worse than the short term help Dan is proposing. But when the long term help fails or malfunctions or proves inadequate, as is the case here, then we have to revert to short term help to overcome the crisis.

Consider the recent flooding. No-one is asserting that “more sandbags” is a preferable policy to better flood defences and action against climate change. Yet “more sandbags” is precisely what is required this week.

Politicians are often blamed for “short-termism” thinking. But sometimes such policies are required to overcome an immediate crisis.

By: Clarice

Clarice — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:27:12 +0000

Exactly. It’s how you “help” people that’s the problem. If you bring everyone who’s ever helped us to come and live here, that’s going to cause a bit of a problem. Also, you have to ask, what were they helping us to do? Help them, I thought?

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:50:23 +0000

Sure, but that would have required better post-invasion planning. Clearly the optimal solution would be to leave everyone in place to live in peace, but that option is presently not available.

Its nothing to do with whether people are skilled workers or not. It is about the fairness of helping those who have helped us.

By: Clarice

Clarice — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:07:35 +0000

I know! Why don’t we invite the entire population of Iraq to come and live in Britain! We’ve got plenty of room, spare houses, empty hospitals, schools just begging for more children. Or is it just the educated skilled workers we want? What’s Iraq going to do if we do a brain drain on it? What about the people left behind?

The moral imperative is surely to fix the situation in situ. Negotiate. Give resources. Repair the damage. Provide protection in the meantime. Let people stay in their homes.

By: Matt Munro

Matt Munro — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 11:42:46 +0000

You liberate the country and then allow all those who helped you (i.e collaborators to their compatriots) to emigrate to the UK. Leaving a huge army and a load of insurgents as the only populance - how would the country rebuild or acheive democracy in that sceanrio ?