DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Ed can't wriggle out of the migrant issue

By DAILY MAIL COMMENT

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Wriggle as he may, Ed Miliband cannot escape the devastating truth about his party’s official guidance to candidates on how to handle voters’ concerns about mass immigration.

Outlined in a leaked document from Labour HQ (which the leader claimed not to have seen) the advice can be summed up in three words: change the subject!

Indeed, the 33-page briefing admits that Labour has no coherent plans for curbing migration, urging candidates challenged on the doorstep to focus on ‘moving the conversation on to issues where we have clear policy’.

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Yesterday, Mr Miliband tried once again to convince voters that he shares their concerns on immigration

Yesterday, Mr Miliband tried once again to convince voters that he shares their concerns on immigration

With fastidious disdain for the views of the public, it also warns canvassers to try not to sneer when they hear opinions ‘that may not gel with their own’.

Isn’t the truth that Labour has progressed no further than at the last election, when Gordon Brown dismissed Gillian Duffy as a ‘bigoted woman’ for daring to raise her worries over the issue?

But what can we expect of the party that threw open our borders to ‘rub the Right’s noses in diversity’? No wonder Ukip is making headway in Labour seats.

Yesterday, Mr Miliband tried once again to convince voters that he shares their concerns, naming curbs on migration as his second election pledge after tackling the deficit (the two issues he ‘forgot to mention’ in his conference speech).

Mr Miliband yesterday named curbs on migration as his second election pledge after tackling the deficit

Mr Miliband yesterday named curbs on migration as his second election pledge after tackling the deficit

Yet where policies were concerned, all he had to offer in a speech lasting less than seven minutes were weak echoes of Tory promises to limit benefits for migrants and a reheated pledge to clamp down on gangmasters who pay less than the minimum wage.

As for anything likely to make a real difference to the numbers coming in, there wasn’t a peep. 

But then until David Cameron’s recent speech acknowledging public concerns, wasn’t the same true of all three traditional parties?

Meanwhile, in poll after poll, the public consistently put border controls among their top two priorities, alongside the state of the economy.

Each of the mainstream parties now has less than five months to come up with a convincing plan to address immigration. Changing the subject isn’t it.

 

Be fair to England

William Hague is preparing to unveil proposals on home rule to English MPs

William Hague is preparing to unveil proposals on home rule to English MPs

As this paper warned, panic-stricken politicians opened a constitutional can of worms when they promised to devolve sweeping new powers to Edinburgh if Scots voted to preserve the UK in September’s referendum.

Today, as William Hague prepares to unveil proposals for offering similar powers of home rule to England, the Mail makes only one plea.

Yes, inevitably there will be furious rows over the details. 

But in the debate ahead, it is imperative that MPs lift their sights above narrow party-political advantage to seek a settlement that is fair to every part of the kingdom.

Indeed, it seems an increasing possibility that Scottish and Welsh MPs – both Labour and nationalist – will hold the balance of power after next May.

If so, it is simply unthinkable that they should be able to impose their will on matters that concern only England.

Democracy demands we have an agreement that makes this impossible – and that we have it before the election.

Dodging the penalty

After dodging £42,550 in commuter train fares over five years, fund manager Jonathan Burrows is banned for life from working in the City.

One question: will a similar punishment be handed down to the bankers who brought the western financial system to the brink of collapse?

Or does the City watchdog consider fare-dodging more serious? 

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