An open letter to Freddie Sayers of PoliticsHome

Dear Freddie,

First of all, I would like to point out that I have not looked at your eye-gouging, pointless abortion of a site since its first week, when I wrote the following:

... having visited the site this morning, my eyes were bleeding so profusely that I have had to go out and get a Braille keyboard. Seriously, I was like a haemophiliac Le Chiffre. With an eye aneurysm. And high blood pressure.

To be honest, what the hell is the point of PoliticsHome? I mean, I've got RSS feeds, and I've willing to bet that most of the other political anoraks that inhabit this 'sphere have got to grips with that technology too.

My sentiments were echoed by Tygerland, who was even more contemptuous.

We need another politics feed aggregator like we need Doughty Street’s acrylic plants back in our lives. Aren’t there enough twatting sites sucking content from other people?
...

Who needs a Bloomberg for politics? Business requires up to the minute information. Minutes lost can translate directly into lost revenues. Politics is an industry of wanky news items about MP’s tawdry sex lives and a never-ending conveyor belt of financial scandals.

And yet, you have continued to send me occasional emails detailing the worthless opinions of your utterly valueless commentators. Usually, of course, I have ignored them but then yesterday I received one of your missives that actively annoyed me.

Never have the views of the Phi100 panel – the daily PoliticsHome survey of senior MPs, journalists and opinion formers across politics – contrasted so starkly with the views of the general public.

Yesterday we reported how across parliament, the media and the think tank community, and across all parties, Hazel Blears’ proposal for a £50 visa tax for non-EU migrants (with the aim of raising £70m over two years for public services) was dismissed out of hand. 70% of the panel rejected the plan - either it was seen as going too far, or not far enough, or going down completely the wrong track.

Results have just come in from the PoliticsHome poll of 1,224 members of the general public, and results could not be more different. An overwhelming 83% of voters support the idea, and the support is almost exactly the same across Labour, Conservative, LibDem and other supporters.

In a new scheme announced today, people from outside the EU moving to the UK to work or study will have to pay £50 extra for visas to help fund public services in areas struggling to cope with immigration. In principle, do you think this is a good or a bad idea?

Hmmmm, let me see...

OK, Freddie-baby, you've asked my opinion, so here it is: not only do I think that it is a bad idea, but I think that it is a disgusting, evil idea. Some will say that your humble Devil is quite unfairly shooting the messenger, but then the last comment on your email was this:

It appears that, as the local and European elections approach, there may have been more sense in Ms Blears’ idea than the experts and political insiders in Westminster appreciate. To voters across the country – and across political parties – taxing non-EU migrants appears to sound like straightforward common sense.

Really.

Let me explain why it is a bad idea, you hideous little turd. And then I shall explain why it is an evil idea. And I do hope that you take this in.

First, it is a bad idea because—with the difficulty inherent in getting here and staying here—those non-EU immigrants tend to be highly skilled. Further, since the new rules came in, employers now have to show—under pain of legal sanction—that there is no native Briton willing or able to do that job. This means that they are not depriving British people of jobs even where I worried about that BNP-pandering, dog-whistle justification.

Yes, I know that Jacqboot Smith's very intention is to "cut in half" the number of "highly skilled migrants coming to Britain from outside the European Union", but that is not a good thing. Why?

Well, first, the very fact that that big-titted fucknuts supports anything should be an indication of its stupidity and ignorant evil. Second, we want skilled migrants: they help to make the industries of this country more productive. And lest you forget, Freddie, you fucking moron, it is the industries of this country that pay the fucking bills; they create the jobs; quite apart from the taxes that the "companies" pay, they pay the wages of the workers who then pay for the public services; they pay for this government's wages, their recearchers, their subsidised fucking bars; they pay for all the fake charities and they pay for the fucking QUANGOs. Making them more productive is the absolute be-all and end-all is this precious social democracy that the Grauniadistas whinge on about.

Second, those immigrants get paid in pounds; then they pay their income taxes, and their National Insurance Ponzi Scheme Contributions (which, since they are skilled workers, are higher than the average); in return, they get restricted access—defined in their Leave To Remain documents—to taxpayer funds, to these public services that you and your ilk hold in such fucking high esteem.

And then, finally, the vast majority of their wages—which, since they are skilled workers, are higher than the average—are spent in this British economy.

The final insult was that you did not see fit, when framing your question to the idiot masses whom you polled, to point out that non-EU skilled migrants already pay far more than a £50 migrant tax. Their leave to remain is some £450, their work permit costs them another £350—is £800 in migrant tax not enough for you gannets?

Further, they are further crippled in finding a job; they must be especially skilled because it costs a business that wishes to hire a non-EU migrant a further £800 to become a sponsor of said migrant.

So, in total, a non-EU migrant nets the state an extra £1600 on top of all of the usal taxes which they pay. And you want to add another £50 to this? Out of £1600, an extra £50 may not seem much, but it will be the final nail in the coffin of some; they will leave and the British economy will be the poorer for it.

So, yes, this measure is stupid; but is it evil? To answer this, I think that one needs to look at one's opinion on apartheid: I, personally, do think that it is evil. You, of course, may not: do you think that apartheid is evil, Freddie-baby?

Despite the stories that I have heard about you, despite your alleged attempts to break private contracts, I am sure that you do. However, you are almost certainly a pig-ignorant moron, so I shall spell out to you why it is relevant.

There are two classes of migrants to this country: the EU and non-EU migrants. The EU migrants can come here, settle, take benefits, have jobs (and send money home if they wish—and many do) and pay no tax and suffer no restrictions—they do not need to fill in pages of forms showing that they have skills. In fact, under EU law, it is actively illegal to discriminate against them. Anything that native Britons can have, so EU migrants can have too.

And then there are the non-EU migrants: they pay a migrant tax, and they have to prove that they have skills. They contribute to the economy and to the Welfare State, but are severely restricted as to what benefits they may derive. They stay here at the whim of the Home Office: did you know, Freddie, that you have to to send your money in advance to the immigration control bureaucrats but that, if they arbitrarily decide that you cannot remain, they keep the money anyway?

And so we create social apartheid: on one hand we have EU migrants—whose rights are enshrined by a court whose opinion trumps that of our elected government; on the other we have the non-EU migrants—whose rights exist on the whim of the Home Office.

And this disgusting state of affairs is one that you would like to exacerbate: this pathetic, arse-about-face, piece of idiocy is what you call "straightforward common sense".

It is not: it is, however, entirely typical of this government's divide et impera strategy. And it seems that you and your gormless master, Stephan Kukowski Shakespeare (whose family were themselves immigrants to this country), are supporters of this apartheid; it seems that the two of you are supporters of the mediocre over the skilled, of the looter over the producer, of apartheid over the equal potential worth of every human being.

To describe my feelings towards the both of you as "contempt" simply doesn't convey the depths of my emotion. And I cannot even begin to describe my feelings towards your respondants, despite your deception of them through your hiding of the actual circumstances. Furthermore, you have put me on the same side as the spivs, weasels, poiticians and media whores of your Phi 100 panel: something that makes me feel dirty frankly, and even less well-disposed towards you.

So here's what I think, Freddie Sayers: fuck you and the horse you rode in on (Stephan Shakespeare). Fuck you right in the face.

Regards,

DK

I shall, of course, let the loyal readers of The Kitchen know if young Freddie responds.