# Gordon Brown "bigot" remarks **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 29, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698 "2010-04-29T01:32:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/21 "2010-04-29T11:37:41Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. What effect it might have on Labour’s re-election Hopefully those who voted them in will now realise that their ‘betters’ hold them in contempt. It also shows why Labour has had such an open door policy. In their universe any questioning of immigration = moral pariah. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/22 "2010-04-29T11:43:24Z")
Question… I thought the UK wasn’t part of the Schengen border control protocols? If so, how are all these immigrants entering the UK? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/23 "2010-04-29T11:54:04Z")
It is part of the EU however; all EU citizens have the right to work in any EU country. Lack of Schengen basically just means they need a passport to actually come in. But anyone with EU citizenship is allowed anywhere within EU. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/24 "2010-04-29T12:47:35Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I thought what hurt him the most was what a pussy he was afterwards about it. Going to her house and apoligizing. Should have said, “Yes she a bigot and that’s why I **don’t** want her vote and shit.” I’m with that, I semi loathe him and can’t wait for Labour to get booted out, but his remarks didn’t bother me at all. Frankly regardless of politics, listening to that interaction, I can see myself saying something damned similar. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/25 "2010-04-29T12:49:59Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > Question… I thought the UK wasn’t part of the Schengen border control protocols? If so, how are all these immigrants entering the UK? Two kinds of “immigrants.” EU residents / citizens, who have right to work throughout the zone (and K and Ireland have been the least obnoxious of EU zone in putting up barriers to that) and Immigrants (outside of EU). Of which many are upset about the second more than the first (if they make the difference. Also UK has rather more liberal - long-standing tradition - asylum policy, so UK gets lots of illegal immigrants cum ‘asylum seekers’ ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/26 "2010-04-29T12:56:08Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > And the reason they’re working as cleaners is … because they have no English language skills to actually successfully They speak better English than me. Care to bring some actual knowledge to the table? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/27 "2010-04-29T13:05:43Z")
Care to bring any hard data to the table, other than anecdotes? My office mate owns a hotel: the cleaners are all Eastern European and can’t speak English with any level of proficiency. _Oh no! Conflicting anecdotes!_ I’ve already posted statistics from the New Europeans Report commissioned by the Human Rights Council on how Eastern Europeans employees are overwhelmingly clustered in the lowest paid positions, and on average are willing to earn 12.5% less than their British counterparts (not least because many of them are being exploited by employers): > [@](#): > > “This report highlights the need to provide help for the most vulnerable, with evidence revealing that many eastern European workers may be in precarious employment circumstances and suffering exploitation in some industries. But, again, whether they speak English perfectly (though I contend that there’s some reason that doctors are being employed as cleaners that you aren’t exactly being forthcoming with), the fact remains that this massive influx of Eastern Europeans, orders of magnitude more than the government predicted, are having precisely the effect that I described in my original post: > [@](#): > > The fact of the matter is for fairly obvious reasons large populations of immigrants flock to ex-mill and mining towns, places where services are already underfunded and jobs are scarce, but housing and living expenses are cheap (that’s why they move there). The effect is services get stretched to breaking point, there’s increased competition for what little jobs there are, there’s downward pressure on wages as Eastern Europeans are happy to take jobs at lower rates of pay, racial tensions rise, people start voting for political parties promising “British jobs for British people”, i.e. the BNP, and rioting ensues (see Oldham, for instance, another ex-mill town with similar problems). ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/28 "2010-04-29T13:07:32Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > They speak better English than me. > > Care to bring some actual knowledge to the table? That is what is so great about anecdotal evidence, **Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party** can’t compete because he’ll never know what that specific guy who had that one girlfriend who saw her buddy do that thing that time. Care to bring actual evidence to the table? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/29 "2010-04-29T13:14:25Z")
I should point out: I’m not anti-immigrant. I’m the grandson of an Irish immigrant from Mayo who came to the Lancashire coalfields looking for work down the mines. But we also need a rational immigration policy, where “ghettoes” aren’t formed by concentrating large populations of immigrants into already incredibly poor areas. The ascension of the new European states to the EU was a complete clusterfuck on the part of the Labour government. They predicted something like on the order of 10,000 new immigrants would enter the UK as a result of the new states joining. In actual fact, 1.5million entered the UK in little over a year. How could there possibly have been any sort of rational discussion of community cohesion, analysis of whether vital services could cope under the strain, how to make sure immigrant populations are evenly spread etc. etc. when these figures were so catastrophically wrong? It was just plain incompetence. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/30 "2010-04-29T13:39:02Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > They’re still competing with indigenous workers and depressing wages This is a highly contentious statement. E.g see [here](http://www.iza.org/index_html?lang=en&mainframe=http%3A//www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers/viewAbstract%3Fdp_id%3D2352&topSelect=publications&subSelect=papers) (my bolding): > [@](#): > > Immigration to the UK has risen over time. **Existing studies of the impact of immigration on the wages of native-born workers in the UK have failed to find any significant effect.** This is something of a puzzle since Card and Lemieux, (2001) have shown that changes in the relative supply of educated natives do seem to have measurable effects on the wage structure. This paper offers a resolution of this puzzle – natives and immigrants are imperfect substitutes, so that an increase in immigration reduces the wages of immigrants relative to natives. We show this using a pooled time series of British cross-sectional micro data of observations on male wages and employment from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s. This lack of substitution also means that there is **little discernable effect of increased immigration on the wages of native-born workers** , but that the only sizeable effect of increased immigration is on the wages of those\*\* immigrants who are already here\*\*. It may seem obvious that it’s Anglo-Saxon true-bred Brits who suffer from Polish immigrants coming here and taking their jobs, but lots of things \*seem \*obvious. Ask yourself this - before your mate hired Poles to clean his hotel, was he employing Brits? Or were the cleaners Nigerian, Portugese, Serbian…? There was certainly an unprecedented wave of immigration in the last decade, and the impact on services has been significant. But the idea that this has driven down wages for Brits isn’t backed up by the evidence. Two other points to consider on the economic impact of immigration: 1. If immigrants are earning 12.5% less than the average worker in the same job, that labour cost saving counts as a reduction in inflation. Which is generally a good thing. If food prices had risen in line with indigenous Brits wages over the past decade, for example, then we’d all be poorer by virtue of spending more of our income just on eating. The fact that they haven’t risen so fast means that we get to both buy food and go down the pub in the evening - so getting more for our money and increasing the value of the local economy. 2. If all these cheap Poles had stayed in Poland, how many jobs would have followed them there? Capital is a lot easier to transfer across borders than labour is. And while there are some jobs (e.g. construction) that are location specific, there are more that aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/31 "2010-04-29T13:52:50Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > … The effect is services get stretched to breaking point, there’s increased competition for what little jobs there are, there’s downward pressure on wages as Eastern Europeans are happy to take jobs at lower rates of pay, racial tensions rise, people start voting for political parties promising \*\*“British jobs for British people”, \*\*i.e. the BNP, and rioting ensues (see Oldham, for instance, another ex-mill town with similar problems). Of course this just what Gordon Brown [promised at the Labour Party Conference](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jobs-for-every-briton-says-brown-in-crackdown-on-migrant-workers-401873.html) in 2007! ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/32 "2010-04-29T13:57:34Z")
Part of the reason this gained traction with the UK media is that it’s the first time the general public have had a chance to see what the reporters have known for years… i.e that Gordon Brown is utterly two-faced and a real sh\*t in private. So on that basis this gaffe played against an established stereotype of Brown’s. Cameron needs to watch for any similar remarks around social class, as it would fit the established image of him as a toff. Brown made things worse by offering a pretty disingenuous apology on Radio 2 afterwards, and the image of him with his head in his hands as the call was played back is a powerful one. FWIW as soon as she said “what about all these immigrants” I knew it would turn into a standard Daily Mail “coming over here, taking our jobs and living on benefits” rant, so I can understand why Brown thought she was bigotted. Unfortunately once those kind of views gain enough support across a population they move from being bigotted to “what everyone is thinking”, as though that makes it OK. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/33 "2010-04-29T13:59:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Most of our witnesses agreed that there is some negative effect of immigration on the wages of low-skilled workers. However, there were disagreements over the extent of the effects and the amount of evidence. Professor Blanchflower said there was “some evidence” to suggest that A8 workers have lowered wage increases amongst the least skilled “but the effects are not enormous” (Q 318). The Institute of Directors argued that the effect on wage growth has “probably been limited”.39 The City of London Corporation was the most pessimistic about the impact on the low-paid. It concluded that the concentration of immigrants in low-paid jobs in the capital had led to “significant downward pressure on wages at the bottom end of the market”. While this had encouraged growth in the number of these jobs, earnings among workers in this sector ended up “falling behind growth in the cost of living” (p 427). Professor Nickell suggested that home care staff and cleaners were among those whose pay was adversely affected by immigration (Q 37). From the April 2008 House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs report “The Economic Impact of Immigration”. Your report is from 2005. In particular, the report you linked to is _not_ an empirical analysis of what has happened to wages since the ascension of the new European states, rather it’s a mathematical model attempting to resolve a seeming paradox between two other mathematical models. [QUOTE=amrussell] It may seem obvious that it’s Anglo-Saxon true-bred Brits who suffer from Polish immigrants coming here and taking their jobs, but lots of things seem obvious. [/quote] Spare me. [QUOTE=amrussell] There was certainly an unprecedented wave of immigration in the last decade, and the impact on services has been significant. But the idea that this has driven down wages for Brits isn’t backed up by the evidence. [/quote] Is Prof. Stephen Nickell then mistaken in stating that home care staff and cleaners (among others) were adversely affected by this recent wave of immigration? The report above makes it clear that at least two prominent economists disagree with you. On what basis do you state that there is no evidence? In particular, point 113 of the above report, in bold typeface states outright: > [@](#): > > **Immigration keeps labour costs lower than they would be without immigrants.** These lower labour costs also benefit consumers, who then pay less than they otherwise would for products and services (including public services) produced or provided by immigrants. My bolding. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/34 "2010-04-29T14:05:46Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > Part of the reason this gained traction with the UK media is that it’s the first time the general public have had a chance to see what the reporters have known for years… i.e that Gordon Brown is utterly two-faced and a real sh\*t in private. Really? You can tell all that just from this brief snippet, or said brief snippet has just confirmed it for you? ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/35 "2010-04-29T14:07:48Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > Unfortunately once those kind of views gain enough support across a population they move from being bigotted to “what everyone is thinking”, as though that makes it OK. I’m confused as to why it is bigoted to say that people who live and were born in a country should have first crack at any jobs inside that country? That is different than if you’re saying that the ‘darkies’ should just stay home, right? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/36 "2010-04-29T14:55:37Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Yeah, I’m surprised at the apparent controversy. Is merely calling someone “bigoted” such a big deal that it demands such lengthy apology? IMO, the real damage is the way it reinforces the image that big shots put on happy smiley faces in public, but privately hold the Teeming Millions in utter contempt. The “why did that idiot staffer set up that meeting” part is perhaps worse than the “bigoted woman” part. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/37 "2010-04-29T15:13:22Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Really? You can tell all that just from this brief snippet, or said brief snippet has just confirmed it for you? The brief snippet confirmed what seasoned political journalists already knew. e.g. Nick Robinson at the BBC: “_For those of us that have known Gordon Brown for many years, what we have just seen is no huge surprise I have to say_.” Gordon’s foul temper and appaling people skills are very well known in Whitehall (search google for “flying nokias” for more). ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/38 "2010-04-29T15:15:50Z")
Didn’t Brown also put his head in his hands on camera, when he heard that his remarks had been picked up? ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/39 "2010-04-29T15:16:01Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > I’m confused as to why it is bigoted to say that people who live and were born in a country should have first crack at any jobs inside that country? That is different than if you’re saying that the ‘darkies’ should just stay home, right? Yes, it’s different but it’s often very hard to tell the difference between those people who seek a nuanced discussion around the impact of migration on a nation’s delicate socio-economic mix, and small-minded bigots who don’t like anyone different and doggedly repeat lies from the Daily Mail. Mrs Duffy may in the former camp, but it didn’t sound that way to me when I first heard the interview. Quite prepared to accept she has genuine concerns, but I can see why statements like “where are all these immigrants flocking from” immediately trigger the “racist tosser” reaction in people. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698/40 "2010-04-29T15:16:15Z")
I think this episode brings up a question: If the members of one side of the immigration debate (both in the UK and the US) start any debate with the assumption that the other side is bigoted, can there be really meaningful debate? I think the chances for reaching mutually agreeable compromises is significantly reduced, and this is why “status quo” seems to end up being the result more often than not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gordon-brown-bigot-remarks/537698.md?page=3)