Understatement of the Month,- Theresa May on Immigration.

It is "unlikely" that David Cameron's unwise and almost certainly unresearched 2010 General Election promise that immigration would be brought down to 10,000 a year will be met. So said the new Iron Lady, the formidable Theresa May.

It was never remotely possible, EU or no EU. Mouth engaged before brain when Dave said it,- and not for the only time.

Now the man himself has followed up with an immigration speech designed to UKIP-proof his Party. He'd probably do better to leave the issue alone and concentrate on more positive things.

One nonsense in the immigration figures is the Conservative Party's absurd insistance that students are included in the total. They are not immigrants.They are coming here to spend a lot of money buying a British education.They will also buy accomodation, food, entertainment, transport and a host of other things while they are here as will any friends and family who come to visit them. With luck, unless they are made to feel unwelcome and received with hostility, they will become lifelong friends of Britain and continue to spend money here and on British goods throughout their lives. Most will then go away again. Those who rise to positions of power or influence in their home counties may also be able to influence all kinds of decisons in Britain's favour or at least give the UK a headstart. Those who do eventually stay on and apply for residence would mainly also be assets to Britain's talent base as well as contributors to its exchequer. OK, there are some who try to abuse the system by signing up for, shall we say less reputable schools or "colleges", but there is no reason why those should not be robustly dealt with and escorted to the airport for their flight home regardless of protests on their behalf by sundry activists.

Another problem Britain has with immigration is that it has no idea who has left the country. John Major abolished the outward bound passport check as an economy measure . Since then the UK, probably uniquely in the world, has no idea who has outstayed their visa unless they pop up on the radar for some other reason. Even then they know that their chances of deportation are minimal. The 1997-2010 Labour government encouraged mass immigration because it knew that the bulk of recent immigrants tend to vote Labour and the current Tory/LibDem coalition hasn't got to grips with it, partly because EU-wise it can't and non-EU wise the multiple appeals system makes rapid removal of those who should not be in the country almost impossible.

It's a mess and no political party, least of all UKIP, seems to be able to think straight about it. 

An American Twiga's view of the Mid Terms.

Our American Twiga (giraffe) has been in an excellent position to look down upon the Mid Term elections. He would shake his head if he could but that's not so easy at the top end of a long neck. Rolling the eyes will have to do instead.

Firstly though let's just consider the strange world of the American democratic process. The President is elected for a four year term and, all going less than disastrously,- can expect two terms. That's a total of eight years. After that it's game over.  He or she may not stand again. So far so good .The British experience is that towards the end of two terms, ten years here, the incumbent really should take a long holiday anyway. More than that is dangerous from almost everybody's point of view. Exhaustion or hubris have taken their toll and there is no gratitude from the waving crowds who cheered victory on Day 1. They've gone, moved on.

In the USA, even if the new President steps into the White house with a majority in both Houses, he or she has got just two years ,- that's eighteen months max before campaigning begins once more,- to make a favourable impact and get the important stuff done. After that come the mid terms at two years from "Go". Once those are over there is the risk of the President losing their majority in both Houses twice more before the end of the 8 years. Life is tough if one of them goes to the opposition and potentially dreadful if both do. That's what happened last week. President Obama, not looking as youthful as he did six years ago, has lost both Houses. Inevitably the label "Lame duck President" is stuck on him at every opportunity by a hostile and frequently gloating media. He can't feel wonderful about that.

So how does American Twiga see it? He says.

Ludicrous is the word for what is happening. Unfortunately the order of priority for pretty well all American politicians is first and foremost to get re-elected 2-4 years down the track. Way behind that comes supporting the base of the party and almost out of sight behind that there comes the idea of doing something for the country.

(That's not only true across the Atlantic is it?)

Some say we shouldn't blame the politicians. Blame the Voters. There's some truth in that. The USA has become more polarised than ever .Election strategies are no longer about persuading voters to switch allegiances but more about getting your own supporters to come out and vote and those of the other party to stay at home. That looks like the rationale behind the new laws requiring a photo-ID in some states. The poorer people don't have driving licences so need to go and get an official one. That costs $75 and they may have to travel 30 miles to get it, so they don't bother. These laws have been pushed forward in spite of the fact that there have only been a handful of cases of proven voter fraud in the past 50 years. No surprise that voter turnout was only 37% and down to 13% for the under 30s. Obama was on a hiding to nothing and yet these same people who hung him and his party out to dry by not turning out to vote are the ones who complain that the Republicans have prevented him from implimenting policies which would have helped them. Politics is a hard game that usually ends in tears. There is no gratitude to Obama for having at last brought in health care for millions of the previously excluded and having extricated most American troops and military expenditure from the disaster of Afghanistan. He promised those things and they were very much part of the wave of enthusiasm that swept him into the White House six years ago. He's gone almost white haired in delivering them and how is he rewarded ? The loss of both Houses for the final two years of his Presidency. One could forgive him for saying " ---- this for a game of soldiers,- I'm off". But he can't. Not audiably or visibly anyway.

It's hard to say what will happen now. Democrats in the Senate can still stop anything from passing by using filibusters, just as the Republicans have been doing very effectively. Or Obama can just veto anything he considers too drastic. Among those will be the sorts of things the Tea Party might push. The repeal of Obamacare would be the highest profile and designed to deprive him of any kind of legacy so he's not likely to sign that one. Unless therefore the Republicans decide to adopt a statesmanlike cooperative approach in the interests of showing the electorate that they are positive people who can get things done, expect more gridlock,and name calling inside Congress. Outside just rising disgust with Washington and politicians of all hues. The outcome of the 2016 elections may depend on which side makes the least errors of judgment. Again, some similarities with the eastern side of the Atlantic.

EU hands UKIP a win at Rochester.

The UK's right wing UKIP,-UK independence Party, have been handed a massive gift in the form of the EU's demand that the country pays in an additional and unbudgeted £1.7 billion into its coffers for, along with a number of countries including laughably Italy and Greece, outperforming the EU norms.

To add fuel to the fire the biggest beneficiaries are France and Germany, the two core countries for whose peace and security (ie to keep them from each others' throats) and benefit the "European Project "was originally dreamed up.

 In comparaison the largest contributor, the UK, which has taken the pain of so called austerity (actually nothing of the kind and not enough) and  has the most liberalised and open trading policies in Europe along with the least regulated and most flexible labour policies, has taken the hit.

What a bonus for UKIP. The timing of the EU's demand is just right for Nigel Farage's party and their merry men down the pub.

It's just the right time for the EU heavies and armies of  Eurocrats too. It couldn't be better.

For Mr Junker and his fellow superstate federalists the prospect of a few right wing anti-EU MPs in the British parliament doesn't matter in the slightest.

The big prize which will bring one of those smiles to Brussels faces is that a Rochester win for UKIP will strengthen the party at a crucial moment. It will not just help them to win maybe eight seats in the May 2015 General Election but much more importantly it will help boost the UKIP votes in a large number of  the more conservative Conservative seats. Those are predominantly the ones with an older age profile and where dreams of golden ages that never were flourish and abound. The maths of all this could ensure that with the right of centre vote split even where it has a clear combined majority, enough seats will be lost to a lower polling Labour party to give the leaders of the left a clear overall majority.

For Brussels it's a dream result. It would mean the end of David Cameron, his referendum and the threat of the UK leaving their socialist dominated authoritarian and financially incontinent club. In his place would come a supine Ed Milliband- led left wing government willing to go along with the rest for the sake of not rocking any boats and being one of the commune. Labour would not even have to go into a coalition with the hand wringing illiberal LibDems .What could be better for the advance of the unreformed, undemocratic Franco/German bloc?

 In reality it's a nightmare for Britain.

From their own point of view, the EU machine could not have timed their demand for more cash better. 

Scotland,- just when you thought it was all settled.....it's business as usual in the SNP.

The confirmation of Nicola Sturgeon as the new leader of the Scottish National Party came as no surprise.

Nobody stood against her.

Nor should it be any surprise that her appointment brought an abrupt end to and southern,- ie English,- notion that the independence referendum had settled that little matter for "at least a generation".

As a democrat in the true EU, -for that is who Scotland seeks to bow to rather than the lot in England,-mould, Ms Sturgeon's theme is that having got the wrong answer on this occasion it's only a matter of time until the electorate is invited to vote again and this time get it right. Right that is for her party who only won in the heavily populated but geographically tiny Glasgow, western Clyde-Forth Valley and Dundee enclaves. 

This time she is up and running with the theme that if the wicked English don't  unconditionally deliver whatever she interprets as them, under the ad hoc default leadership of the Scottish giveaway maestro Gordon Brown, having promised in the chaotic runup to referendum day, there is a real prospect of a unilateral declaration of independence.

This wasn't a good start for Scotland or anyone else. She is saying that if a party (SNP) were to declare in its manifesto that independence is their objective, then win that election and then hold another referendum, that's it, the deed is done. Presumably she is talking about the Scottish parliament here. She fails to understand that this august body has no more power to declare independence from the United Kingdom than does the smallest Parish Council. It is simply not in the list of devolved powers. Apart from anything else the lady has some reading to do. If she's no time for that she could just ask a first year Scottish university law student for guidance on this constitutional point. 

Clearly Ms Sturgeon's offering to the people of Scotland is aggravation as before. She and her party don't love the English and never will but to obsessively persue the separatist goal is debilitating to both Scotland and the larger entity of which it is part. If  the SNP were to get on with the business of using the extensive powers the country already has to make it a glittering example of the socialist paradise it promises, the nationalists might have a better chance of persuading those who voted "No"that there might be something in "Yes" after all. Until then...................

Where are we this wet Monday afternoon?

Not in a very good place.

Ebola, ISIS, UKIP,-What's there not to fear? Hysteria surrounds the first and last of those. "We will check the travel history of arriving passengers" says some government spokesperson. Oh yes? Have they ever seen the Immigration queues at airports on a good day never mind a bad Sunday evening with hundreds of stags and hens lurching over the place and now shrieking "I've got ebola" to add to the fun. Even the organisers of the checks say they won't achieve anything except that "they will raise awareness of the symptoms". As many of these closely resemble influenza expect some fun. Sneeze or a train or bus and you will be out the window.

ISIS: This band of appalling sadisitic thugs who loathe all other people, especially women unless they come posthumously in the form of 72 virgins and who would disgrace the SS, continue to do well on the Turkish border at Kobane where the Turk army and massacre tourists are amassed to watch the final wipeout .They are close to Baghdad too.Thankyou Tone.

UKIP. OK, the big 2 parties have earned a kick in the rear for having no vision, no plan with which to enthuse voters and instead setting out their stalls in terms of who is going to chuck the most money into the clinically often excellent but otherwise bloated, over managed, inefficient, dysfunctional and too often non patient orientated NHS. They also continue to demonstrate a continuing lack of  real consciousness of anywhere north of Hampsted or Islington while their leaders are visibly incapable of normal human interaction outside their immediate circles. To register disapproval of all this it's fine to vote UKIP in the current round of by-elections.To ever believe that this negative, backward looking, anti many things and pro very little bunch could be the answer to anything is a huge mistake.

FORECAST FOR NEXT MAY.

Ebola forgotten. ISIS in Syria crushed by the Turks once they've done Turkey the favour of wiping out the Kurds who want their own state partly on a bit of Turkey. Labour/LibDem (if there are any left) or Tory/UKIP coalition unless UKIP have undermined more Tory than Labour majorities, so letting in Labour with an absolute majority, leaving Ed as our Dear Leader.

Talking of Dear Leaders, where is he of North Korea? In bed with bad ankles eating Swiss cheese or in the big Dictatorship,- otherwise known as Democratic Socialist Paradise,- In The Sky with his deceased uncle and others previously personally selected by him? That at least would be some belated justice.

LibDems freed from Glasgow,-or are they still there?

You have to feel sorry for attendees at the LibDem conference in Glasgow. Not only had they been incarcerated since Saturday,- a long time ago,- but on finally leaving they were faced with an awful dilemma.

Not the choice of which of their future coalition partners to be rudest to and about. Much worse than that.

Fresh from just having voted to hobble further growth of Britain's thriving aviation sector by rejecting any ideas of further runways, and being almost religiously opposed to emissions  of any kind (difficult on a lentil and beans diet) they had to get home without polluting the environment. Flying was obviously out. That left the trains. But some of those use planet choking diesel and the others electricity made from all sorts of things transported across the world to avoid it actually being Britain who chucks nasties out into the atmosphere.Coaches? Yes, OK for some but they do take a long time to reach the deep south. That left the most inefficient polluters of all,- cars.

We really don't know the answer. Nick and friends were seen heading north in a (standard class) train so maybe they returned to inside the M25 comfort zone the same way. The rest? If anyone sees forlorn figures standing by the exits of M74 and M6 service stations clutching bundles of conference goodies, do give them a cheery wave.Extra weight in the car means more pollution. Sorry folks.

Footnote: Among LibDems demands of a future coalition bedmate is that they should be allocated a couple of LibDem only ministries to do more or less what they want with. The ones they are said to want are Transport and Business. May all deities preserve us. 

Hong Kong Teeters. Different views of democracy.

Hong Kong Plc. is teetering closer to an edge than its pro-democracy and Occupy Central protesters may fully realise. Whatever the merits of their campaign which is now seriously affecting at least some businesses in the Central district , the outcome will not be decided locally. It will depend on conclusions reached and decisions made in Beijing. Apart from balancing domestic and future Taiwan implications they will also be influenced by events and experience in other parts of the world.

For now things are calmer than when the police used tear gas on some of the crowds on Sunday. That was a public relations disaster and to many of the activists literally a red rag to a bull. The visibly heavy handed tactic has been put aside at least for the moment and the police presence scaled back. The protesters, whose average age appears to be around 22, remain in place though and that means disruption, something most Hong Kongers do not like. Two public holidays, on Wednesday and Thursday could see even larger crowds on the streets but the hope is that after that the affair will then subside with both sides able to claim some honour, the protesters having made their point and the authorities having acted with restraint. If calm does not return by the end of next weekend the pressure on both the Hong Kong and Beijing governments to "do something" to restore normal life in the former colony may become iresistable.

The outcome isn't all about Hong Kong, China and Asia though.

 Beijing is faced with enormous pressures in holding together a vast and disparate country. Its first priority has always been to maintain a central grip on law and order above all else. It will therefore  be looking at other pro democracy and separatist movements, notably those in the Middle East and Ukraine. The analysts and decision makers won't be too impressed with what they see and their conclusions are likely to run along the lines: "Just as we thought,- street demos get out of hand, vehicles and buildings get burned out then wrecked, cities and villages converted into heaps of rubble, infrastructure destroyed for decades to come, business stops and runs and what was championed as democracy turns out to be unworkable anarchy and the only movement is fast backwards. Enough is enough. This must stop".

Regardless of the merits of the case and the high profile enthusiasm of the young, it is likely that a large majority of Hong Kong residents would also say "Enough is enough". They just want to get on with their lives, -and making money. They are not generally impressed with things that get in the way of those activities. Predictably but unfortunately this democratic reality is getting scant attention from even the more serious parts of the global media. The demos are so much more exciting. The downside of the unbalanced coverage is that it encourages the protesters to continue disrupting Hong Kong life at a time when they would do better to also say "Enough is enough"and quit this battlefield with honour and face intact, realising that continuing is dangerous.

The effects of the "Go for it" tone of the media have been seen all over the world many times before. Come the day when the complained of authority bites back and clips its or other peoples' citizens around the ear, the journos, cameramen and the rest head for the airport, leaving the unfortunate residents to take the hit. Never mind, another opportunity will come along somewhere else soon so why should they worry about what they have left behind? Governments have been guilty too but that's another (sorry) story.

Despite Beijing slowing down progress towards democracy, the Special Administrative Region ,- aka  city state,-  remains conspicuously ahead of all of its regional rivals in almost every respect. Above all people are free to go about their daily lives and businesses without fear, hindrance or adverse government intervention while all the elements of the well planned and organised infrastructure work 24/7/365. The protest movements have done a good job in sounding alarm bells about Beijing's political interference and that may have some effect. Now they need to pause and take stock of how good things really are for most of Hong Kong's people most of the time and what they risk losing for everyone if they push Beijing just a fraction too hard. There's another hard fact they should remember. They've never asked the electorate, especially those older than themselves, what they really want and what they are prepared to risk in this particular spat. The democratic answer would probably not be what they expect.