22-05-2025
Letter of the week: The case for immigration
Photo by Chris Ware/Keystone Features
George Eaton (Newsmaker, 16 May) exaggerates the Blair-era liberalism on immigration and is too generous to Keir Starmer. As Blair's home secretaries, David Blunkett talked of schools being 'swamped' by immigrant children, while John Reid attacked 'foreigners… stealing our benefits'. Eaton suggests that it is 'overwrought' to find echoes of Enoch Powell in Starmer's 'Island of Strangers' speech, as he has spoken positively about the role of migrants in our society. Yet these token words are overshadowed by his assertion the 'open borders experiment' caused 'incalculable damage'. This is unforgivable pandering to the racist narrative of the far right and tabloid press.
Labour must reframe the story about immigration as making an 'incalculably' positive contribution to our society. Immigrants are essential to the NHS, social care, universities, construction, manufacturing, hospitality and sport. Labour's failure to make the case for immigration will not stop Reform – why vote for the copy over the original? – and their hostile rhetoric and punitive policies will push progressives into the arms of the Greens or the Lib Dems.
Gideon Ben-Tovim OBE, Liverpool
No strangers here
George Eaton describes many similarities in Labour thinking at the time of Enoch Powell's 1968 speech (Newsmaker, 16 May), but omits one critical difference. Harold Wilson's Local Government Act 1966 had introduced a system of financial support for local authorities, enabling them to design and deliver special programmes to assist with integrating new immigrants to the UK. So-called Section 11 services grew in scale, scope and impact, providing many highly acclaimed programmes that aided integration and greatly improved new citizens' grasp of written and spoken English. The austerity years ushered in by David Cameron and George Osborne stripped away so much of the remaining adult education provision vital to the process of integration. Without such services, Nigel Farage can lament sitting on a train and not hearing English spoken, and Keir Starmer can express concern about an 'Island of Strangers' – but it doesn't have to be like that.
Les Bright, Devon
Keir Starmer's 'Island of Strangers' speech reminds me of a line attributed to the poet WB Yeats: 'There are no strangers here, only friends who haven't met yet'.
Brendan O'Brien, London N21
Osborne again
Thanks to Will Dunn for his exposure of how George Osborne's austerity mantra still shapes Rachel Reeves' and Labour's thinking (Cover Story, 16 May). First, they came to make it harder for children in families with more than two children, then for countless pensioners to keep warm, then for huge numbers of disabled people. No wonder non-Reform voters are fleeing Labour for the Lib Dems and the Greens. If Labour is serious about winning the next election, it must ditch Osbornomics.
Colin Hines, Twickenham
It is rare for there not to be an illuminating piece of information or statistic within the New Statesman. But one in Will Dunn's Cover Story screamed at you from the page: 'The specialist bank advising on the deal [to purchase the technology company Arm in 2016] made £96m in fees for a few weeks' work.' The man who waved through this deal, George Osborne, said as chancellor that we were 'all in this together'. But the numbers tell a different story and epitomise what is wrong – what is rotten – about the state of our country.
Michael Haskell, Broughton
The awful truth
I read your editorial with despair (Leader, 16 May) that, indeed, the heinous collateral damage of the war in Gaza are the innocent men, women and children who, if they are not killed by an indiscriminate bomb, will likely die from starvation. It breaks my heart to see images of emaciated infants and children, and, as is rightly stated, this is all happening in plain sight of the world's leaders. It is correct, too, that Hamas are unlikely to be vanquished. Our government could play its part, as it has done in trying to broker peace in Ukraine. Our leaders must facilitate some sort of denouement to this utter disaster. The dreadful events of 7 October still resonate profoundly, but the end game is becoming so horrific that it is a total humanitarian tragedy.
Judith A Daniels, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
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A new Pope
Gordon Brown's view that 'we've got to persuade people that generosity should extend further' than those close to us (The NS Interview, 16 May) echoes both Pope Francis's letter to American bishops, prompted by Trump's excesses on migrants, and Pope Leo XIV's putdown of JD Vance's misuse of ordo amoris.
Francis's letter said: 'Jesus Christ, loving everyone with a universal love, educates us in the permanent recognition of the dignity of every human being, without exception.' In February, before becoming Pope, in a shared article Cardinal Prevost wrote four words: 'JD Vance is wrong.' He added: 'Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others.' The new Pope and Brown might get on well.
David Murray, Surrey
Much as I enjoy Finn McRedmond's columns, I wonder if she was not overthinking Pope Leo's choice of attire for his first appearance on the St Peter's Square balcony (Out of the Ordinary, 16 May). After all, it had been a hard day for Robert Prevost: maybe he reached into the papal wardrobe and pulled out the first thing he could find. Perhaps he was just following Nick Cave's memorable advice about dressing for a gig: 'I'm kind of lazy and I don't have much interest in it… It's easy to put a suit on in the morning.' Swap St Peter's Square balcony for a stadium concert and there you have it. Like singer/songwriter, like Pope?
David Perry, Cambridge
Who do you think you are?
Megan Kenyon says she dreams about the life of her 18th-century ancestor and wonders 'what of her there is in me' (Personal Story, 16 May). She could work it out. She inherited 50 per cent from each of her parents, 25 per cent from each of her grandparents, 12.5 per cent from her great-grandparents, and so on. By my calculation, she inherited just 0.78 per cent from her ancestor.
Michael Bartholomew, Harrogate
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[See also: Gordon Brown: the moral economist]
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