Dogwash

This recent piece in the Daily Mail reacts to the publication of the statistic that 1 in 9 people in the UK is now foreign-born by pointing out that the figure understates the issue as it excludes people born in the UK of immigrant parents, "second-generation immigrants" to use a convenient if contested term. When discussing the social and cultural impact of demographic change, the Mail's mild correction is perfectly reasonable. If I am walking along the "wrong" side of Narrow Street and I am challenged by Mohammed and his posse for being in "their" territory, then in all probability Mohammed and Co will be UK-born and therefore excluded from the above statistic, but it is their immigrant origin and the racist attitude that has stemmed from their incomplete assimilation -- whoever's "fault" that may be -- that is the source of the problem.

This barely seems like "rocket science", at least to the non-hysterical, but of course it has generated predictable outrage in the usual corners of the media and the blogosphere. Posts and commenters take their usual, predictable positions, usually at one extreme or the other. Threads on Pickled Politics, Liberal Conspiracy and Conservative Home are typical: read them if you have the patience.

But the most interesting, and chilling, quote to emerge so far is this one, actually tangential to the original topic, from Sunder Katwala. Writing on the Next Left blog, this staunch upholder of Fabian freedom appends this to his comment on the Conservative Home thread:

There are a couple of decent Tory voices protesting the discussion - thank you Sally Roberts in particular for her challenges to a "dreadful thread". Of course, moderating open sites is difficult but I hope this will be something the ConHome site editors will look at and sort out tomorrow.

So then Sunder, free speech for all, just so long as they hold "decent opinions" and agree with me, is it? That Sunder is a no-platformist doesn't surprise me in the least, but you don't normally see this sort of explicit blatancy outside the loonier reaches of the ANL/SWP/UAF. And, you know, I don't suppose Sunder sees anything wrong with it.