NOTABLE QUOTATIONS
BRITISH POLITICS
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE - watching the Austro/Russian army at Austerlitz
"Let us wait twenty minutes, when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him."
CHRISTOPHER CLARKE ‘The Sleepwalkers’, p.542
"On 31st July 1914 (4 days before Britain declared war), a delegation of City financiers visited Asquith to warn him against allowing Britain to be drawn into a European conflict."
DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM OF 1932
"The Democratic Party platform is a covenant with the people to put into effect the principles, policies, and reforms herein advocated, and to eradicate the policies, methods, and practices herein condemned. We advocate an immediate and drastic reduction of government expenditure by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaux, and eliminating extravagence to accomplish a saving of not less than twenty-five per cent in the cost of the Federal Government. And we call upon the Democratic Party in the states to make a zealous effort to achieve a proportionate result.
"We favor maintenance of the national credit by a federal budget annually balanced in the basis of accurate executive estimates within revenues,, raised by a system of taxation levied on the principle of ability to pay.
"We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards and an international monetary conference called on the invitation of our government to consider the rehabilitation of silver and related questions.
"The removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest."
(source: http://presidency.uesb.edu/ws/?pid=29595, 19.02.2014)
WILLIAM GLADSTONE
"One and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned."
(source: 'Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East')
LORD SALISBURY, House of Commons, 31/5/1877
"The commonest error in politics is to sticking to the carcass of dead policies."
attributed to GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Anecdotal dialogue
Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill ... Well, I suppose ... we would have to discuss terms, of course ...
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.
[This is a very old joke where the participants vary dramaticallty from each telling. It's very likely, though (sic) not impossible, that the joke originated from Churchill.)
(source: The Big Apple: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what_ki..., 10/09/2013)
ORWELL (also attributed to Randolph Hearst)
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: Everything else is public relations."
(source: http://www.vdare.com, 10.09.2013)
WEST SIDE STORY, Song: 'Gee, Officer Krupke' - Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
SNOWBOY: Just tell it to the judge.
ACTION
Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
My parents treat me rough.
With all their marijuana,
They won't give me a puff.
They didn't wanna have me,
But somehow I was had.
Leapin' lizards! That's why I'm so bad!
DIESEL: (as Judge) Right!
Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
he's psychologic'ly disturbed!
ACTION
I'm disturbed!
JETS
We're disturbed, we're disturbed,
We;re the most disturbed,
Like we're psychologic'ly disturbed.
DIESEL: (Spoken, as Judge) In the opinion on this court, this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home.
ACTION: (Spoken) Hey, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived."
(source: http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/krupke.html, 13.09.2013)
DEMOGRAPHY
NICK DE BOIS, MP, Secretary of the 1922 Committee, Daily Telegraph, 23 January 2013
Drew attention to the emigration phenomenon. His research pointed out that over "ten years, to 2011, 3,599,000 people permanently left the UK. Contrary to the perception of typical emigrants being older people retiring to a life in the sun, the figures showed that 1,963,000 were aged between 25 and 44. Only 125,000 people of retirement age emigrated."
EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH OF WINSTON CHURCHILL, 15 December 1944
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/dec/15/poland#column_1483 - 05/05/07
"The Poles are free, so far as Russia and Great Britain are concerned, to extend their territory at the expense of Germany to the West. I do not propose to go into exact details, but the extensions, which will be supported by Britain and Russia, bound together as they are by the 70 years’ alliance, are of high importance. Thus, they gain in the west and the north territories more important and more highly developed than they lose in the east. We hear of a third of Poland to be conceded, but I must mention that that third includes the vast areas of the Pripet Marshes, a most desolate region which, though it swell the acreage, does not add to the wealth of those who own it.
"Thus I have set before the House what is in outline the offer which the Russians, on whom the main burden of liberation still falls, make to the Polish people. I cannot believe that such an offer should be rejected by Poland. It would, of course, have to be accompanied by the disentanglement of populations in the west and in the north. The transference of several millions of people would have to be affected from the east to the west or to the north, and the expulsion of the Germans, because that is what is proposed – the total expulsion of the Germans – from the area to be acquired by Poland in the west and the north. For expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting.
A CLEAN SWEEP
"There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble as in Alsace Lorraine. A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed at the prospect of the disentanglement of populations, nor even am I alarmed by these large transferences, which are more possible than they ever were before through modern conditions. The disentanglement of populations which took place between Greece and Turkey after the last war was, in many ways, a success, and has produced friendly relations between Greece and Turkey ever since. That disentanglement which at first seemed impossible to be achieved, and about which it was said that it would strip the Turkish life in Anatolia of so many necessary services, and about which it was said that the extra population could never be assimilated or sustained by Greece, having regard to its own area and population – I say that that disentanglement solved problems which had before been the causes of immense friction, of wars, and of the rumours of wars.
"Nor do I see why there should not be room in Germany for the German population of East Prussia and of the other territories I have mentioned. After all, 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 of Germans have been killed already in this frightful war, into which they did not hesitate for a second time in a generation, to plunge all Europe (cheers). At the present time, we are told that they have 10,00,000 or 12,000,000 prisons or foreigners used as slaves in Germany, who will, we hope, be restored to their own homes and lands when victory is gained. Moreover, we must expect that many more Germans will be killed in the fighting which will occupy the spring and summer and which we must expect will involve the largest and fiercest battles yet fought in this war."
EXTRACT FROM THE POTSDAM AGREEMENT, 1st August, 1945
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html - 06/03/07.
"XII. ORDERLY TRANSFER OF GERMAN POPULATIONS
"The Three Governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.
"Since the influx of a large number of Germans into Germany would increase the burden already resting on the occupying authorities, they consider that the Control Council in Germany should in the first instance examine the problem, with special regard to the question of the equitable distribution of these Germans among the several zones of occupation. They are accordingly instructing their respective representatives on the Control Council to report to their Governments as soon as possible the extent to which such persons have already entered Germany from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, to submit an estimate of the time and rate at which further transfers could be carried out having regard to the present situation in Germany.
"The Czechoslovak Government, the Polish Provisional Government and the Control Council in Hungary are at the same time being informed of the above and are being requested meanwhile to suspend further expulsions pending an examination by the Governments concerned of the report from their representatives on the Control Council."
FINANCIAL CRISIS
JOHN HOSKYNS (Prime Minister's Advisor) – memo to Margaret Thatcher (12/2/81)
"The penalties for erring too far on the sale of underkill will be fatal, economically and electorally. Those from erring on the side of overkill are, by comparison, trivial."
"All the evidence ... show a familiar Treasury pattern of underkill; too little and too late; hoping things won’t get worse, despite all the evidence."
J.M. KEYNES, 'General Theory'
"Lenin was right. There is no surer way of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency."
"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
G.K. CHESTERTON
"When men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing: they believe in anything."
MAGAZINE 'OXFORD TODAY', Trinity Term, 2012
"Even fewer Oxfordians go into manufacturing. It's fallen from 9.4% in 1974 to 5% in 2003, partly reflecting a national decline in that sector. At the latest estimate, just 100 students a year went into Engineering and Manufacturing out of a student body of 11,752. [That is about 4 per cent of UK undergraduates]."
IMMIGRATION
EVENING STANDARD, 21 January 2014
"But what about Axelle Lemaire ... the French MP who represents the French Parliament for the 400,000 French citizens who live and work in London."
LUDWIG VON MISES, 'Human Action', pp.377,627,752
“The tendency toward an equalization of wage rates which prevails under free mobility of labor from country to country is paralysed.”
“If we assume that there are no institutional barriers preventing or penalizing the transfer of capital goods, workers and commodities from one place to another and that the workers are indifferent with regard to their dwelling and working places, … There is, if we disregard the cost components, a tendency towards an equalization of wage rates for the same type of work all over the earth.”
“Now it is true that under perfect mobility of capital and labor there would prevail all over the world a tendency towards an equalization of the price paid for labor of the same kind and quality."
“Yet, even if there were free trade for products, this tendency is absent in our real world of migration barriers and institutions hindering foreign investment of capital. The marginal productivity of labor is higher in the United States than it is in India because capital invested per head of the working population is greater, and because Indian workers are prevented from moving to America and competing in the America labor market. There is no need, in dealing with the explanation of this difference, to investigate whether natural resources are or are not more abundant in America than in India and whether or not the Indian worker is radically inferior to the American worker. However this may be, these facts, namely the institutional checks upon the mobility of capital and labor, suffice to account for the absence of the equalization tendency. As the abolition of the American tariff could not affect these two facts, it could not impair the standard of living of the American worker in an adverse sense. On the contrary, given a state of affairs in which the mobility of capital and labor is restricted, the transition to free trade for products must necessarily raise the American standard of life.”
LEE KUAN YEW, 'Third World to First', pp.40,134,280
a) "I decided we had to renew the racial mix of new recruits into the SAF … we had over-recruited Malays into the SAF … This bias had to be redressed … A young Lieutenant Colonel, Edward Yong, implemented a plan that over several years reduced the proportion of Malays, mainly by recruiting non-Malays."
b) "Could we have defeated them [the Communists] if we had allowed them habeas corpus and abjured the powers of detention without trial? I doubt it. Nobody dared speak out against them, let alone in open court. Thousands were held in detention camps in Malaysia and hundreds in Singapore. The British had banished thousands to China in the 1940’s and ‘50s."
c) "Our Malays were asking MP’s why we did not have Malay national servicemen in sensitive key positions in the SAF like the air force or armoured units ... Loong said that in the event of a conflict, the SAF did not want any of its soldiers to be put in a difficult position where his loyalty to the nation might conflict with his emotions and his religion … The Malaysian Foreign Minister, Rais Yatma … he said, [Malaysia] was ‘a glass house’ in this matter because its own Chinese were represented only to a small extent in the armed forces …"
IMMIGRATION (embarrassing quotations)
ANDREW ALEXANDER, Daily Mail
“Michael Howard calls for 24 hour security at our ports. Most of us are incredulous we don’t have it now.”
ANTHONY BROWNE, The Times
“Britain is a country with a major neurosis about immigration … the debate about immigration is about as ill informed and hypocritical as the Victorian discourse about sex. Many people are extremely uncomfortable about saying anything other than the official line that all immigration is good.”
LORD FALCONER, Observer, 4 April 2004
"I think it is incredibly important now that we make it absolutely clear that we are keen to encourage immigration. It’s got to be on the basis of proper management but our society benefits from properly managed immigration."
MATHEW D'ANCONA, Sunday Telegraph, 4 April 2004
"Yet the government has privately concluded – rightly in my view – that the sooner we are ‘swamped’ by industrious immigrants from Eastern Europe, the better. In this case populist policies and grown up economics are utterly irreconcilable."
POLLY TOYNBEE, Guardian, 31 March 2004
"It was welcome to hear both Blunkett and Hughes talk with sincerity of the need for more migration and they mean it. This now goes beyond vague platitudes on the value of diversity: there is growing Europe-wide anxiety about fast depleting European populations. GDP growth partly depends on population growth and helps to explain why the US streaks ahead of the EU. Size of GDP determines global power. Europe’s influence will fade fast without more immigration (as well as a much higher birth rate)."
OBSERVER EDITORIAL, 4 April 2004
"We hope that the Prime Minister will also remember that much of this country’s history is built on immigration. We need people to come here to work, to bridge the skills’ gap, in particular in construction and in the health service. However, the argument is not just economic. A multi-racial, multi-cultural society is also a social good and one that is difficult to put a price on."
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH EDITORIAL, 4 April 2004
"This government, like its Conservative predecessor, has signed up in full to the principle of enlargement: greater population mobility and a more fluid European labour market are inevitable consequences. They are also to a considerable extent, desirable. This country needs workers of the sort that Eastern Europe has to offer in droves. It also needs immigrants who are willing to work for competitive levels of pay if Britain is to retain its position in the global economy."
ANDREW RAWNSLEY, Observer, 4 April 2004
"There is evidence that most of the public are prepared to buy into the argument that the long-term health of the economy is served by the rejuvenation of the workforce with skilled, energetic immigrants. They key word for that strategy to succeed is winning hearts and minds is managed."
DAVID DAVIS, The Politics Show, BBC2, 4 April 2004
"What you have to do is manage the system properly in order to provide the skills we need, without overwhelming the local social services or the housing market, without upsetting community relations."
NHS
NHS FIGURES ON NURSES AND BEDS (9.4.2009) 1948 2008
Number of beds (given by Aneurin Bevan to Parliament 30/4/48 in a reply to a question from Sir E.Graham Little.
Bevan also said, in a reply, that there were 466,000 beds in England & Wales in 1938, so 67,000 hospital beds were 533,000 136,076 (2012/13
added in the last 10 years before the NHS took over - and two-thirds of that was in wartime.) 1st qtr)
Number of nurses (Parliamentary reply by Aneurin Bevan to Commodore Harvey, 1948) (actually 398,000 but 322,000
full-time equivalents – not sure if this includes Scotland & NI - also quoted in Nursing Times, 8/1/08, 'Birth of NHS') 125,994 322,000 (2006)
Beds per nurse ( 4.23 0.57 )
Nurses per bed (over 7 times the number of nurses per bed as in 1948) ( 0.23 1.74 )
GPs (England and Wales) (full-time equivalents) 22,478 30,932
As the population increased by about 30 per cent between 1948 and 2008, the GP ratio to population remained static
Daily Telegraph update, 26/03/10: "In the NHS England only, managers now 44,600. Nurses now 375,500 (presumably full-time equivalents?). This implies the 2006 figure above was England only while the 1948 figure is all UK. The 2010 figure for England is, therefore, 375,500. Add 17 per cent for the rest of the UK, this totals 60,500 for all UK – total UK 440,500 - 3.5 times the 1948 figure."
Hospital Beds [HC Deb 30 April 1948 vol 450 c89W, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1948/apr/30/hospital-beds]
Sir E. Graham-Little asked the Minister of Health how many hospital beds in England and Wales will be available on the appointed day, as compared with the number in 1938.
Mr. Bevan The total number of beds in England and Wales at the end of 1947, the latest date for which information is available, was 533,000. The corresponding figure for 1938 so far as is known was 466,000.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE - watching the Austro/Russian army at Austerlitz
"Let us wait twenty minutes, when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him."
CHRISTOPHER CLARKE ‘The Sleepwalkers’, p.542
"On 31st July 1914 (4 days before Britain declared war), a delegation of City financiers visited Asquith to warn him against allowing Britain to be drawn into a European conflict."
DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM OF 1932
"The Democratic Party platform is a covenant with the people to put into effect the principles, policies, and reforms herein advocated, and to eradicate the policies, methods, and practices herein condemned. We advocate an immediate and drastic reduction of government expenditure by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaux, and eliminating extravagence to accomplish a saving of not less than twenty-five per cent in the cost of the Federal Government. And we call upon the Democratic Party in the states to make a zealous effort to achieve a proportionate result.
"We favor maintenance of the national credit by a federal budget annually balanced in the basis of accurate executive estimates within revenues,, raised by a system of taxation levied on the principle of ability to pay.
"We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards and an international monetary conference called on the invitation of our government to consider the rehabilitation of silver and related questions.
"The removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest."
(source: http://presidency.uesb.edu/ws/?pid=29595, 19.02.2014)
WILLIAM GLADSTONE
"One and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned."
(source: 'Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East')
LORD SALISBURY, House of Commons, 31/5/1877
"The commonest error in politics is to sticking to the carcass of dead policies."
attributed to GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Anecdotal dialogue
Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill ... Well, I suppose ... we would have to discuss terms, of course ...
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.
[This is a very old joke where the participants vary dramaticallty from each telling. It's very likely, though (sic) not impossible, that the joke originated from Churchill.)
(source: The Big Apple: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what_ki..., 10/09/2013)
ORWELL (also attributed to Randolph Hearst)
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: Everything else is public relations."
(source: http://www.vdare.com, 10.09.2013)
WEST SIDE STORY, Song: 'Gee, Officer Krupke' - Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
SNOWBOY: Just tell it to the judge.
ACTION
Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
My parents treat me rough.
With all their marijuana,
They won't give me a puff.
They didn't wanna have me,
But somehow I was had.
Leapin' lizards! That's why I'm so bad!
DIESEL: (as Judge) Right!
Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
he's psychologic'ly disturbed!
ACTION
I'm disturbed!
JETS
We're disturbed, we're disturbed,
We;re the most disturbed,
Like we're psychologic'ly disturbed.
DIESEL: (Spoken, as Judge) In the opinion on this court, this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home.
ACTION: (Spoken) Hey, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived."
(source: http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/krupke.html, 13.09.2013)
DEMOGRAPHY
NICK DE BOIS, MP, Secretary of the 1922 Committee, Daily Telegraph, 23 January 2013
Drew attention to the emigration phenomenon. His research pointed out that over "ten years, to 2011, 3,599,000 people permanently left the UK. Contrary to the perception of typical emigrants being older people retiring to a life in the sun, the figures showed that 1,963,000 were aged between 25 and 44. Only 125,000 people of retirement age emigrated."
EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH OF WINSTON CHURCHILL, 15 December 1944
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/dec/15/poland#column_1483 - 05/05/07
"The Poles are free, so far as Russia and Great Britain are concerned, to extend their territory at the expense of Germany to the West. I do not propose to go into exact details, but the extensions, which will be supported by Britain and Russia, bound together as they are by the 70 years’ alliance, are of high importance. Thus, they gain in the west and the north territories more important and more highly developed than they lose in the east. We hear of a third of Poland to be conceded, but I must mention that that third includes the vast areas of the Pripet Marshes, a most desolate region which, though it swell the acreage, does not add to the wealth of those who own it.
"Thus I have set before the House what is in outline the offer which the Russians, on whom the main burden of liberation still falls, make to the Polish people. I cannot believe that such an offer should be rejected by Poland. It would, of course, have to be accompanied by the disentanglement of populations in the west and in the north. The transference of several millions of people would have to be affected from the east to the west or to the north, and the expulsion of the Germans, because that is what is proposed – the total expulsion of the Germans – from the area to be acquired by Poland in the west and the north. For expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting.
A CLEAN SWEEP
"There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble as in Alsace Lorraine. A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed at the prospect of the disentanglement of populations, nor even am I alarmed by these large transferences, which are more possible than they ever were before through modern conditions. The disentanglement of populations which took place between Greece and Turkey after the last war was, in many ways, a success, and has produced friendly relations between Greece and Turkey ever since. That disentanglement which at first seemed impossible to be achieved, and about which it was said that it would strip the Turkish life in Anatolia of so many necessary services, and about which it was said that the extra population could never be assimilated or sustained by Greece, having regard to its own area and population – I say that that disentanglement solved problems which had before been the causes of immense friction, of wars, and of the rumours of wars.
"Nor do I see why there should not be room in Germany for the German population of East Prussia and of the other territories I have mentioned. After all, 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 of Germans have been killed already in this frightful war, into which they did not hesitate for a second time in a generation, to plunge all Europe (cheers). At the present time, we are told that they have 10,00,000 or 12,000,000 prisons or foreigners used as slaves in Germany, who will, we hope, be restored to their own homes and lands when victory is gained. Moreover, we must expect that many more Germans will be killed in the fighting which will occupy the spring and summer and which we must expect will involve the largest and fiercest battles yet fought in this war."
EXTRACT FROM THE POTSDAM AGREEMENT, 1st August, 1945
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html - 06/03/07.
"XII. ORDERLY TRANSFER OF GERMAN POPULATIONS
"The Three Governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.
"Since the influx of a large number of Germans into Germany would increase the burden already resting on the occupying authorities, they consider that the Control Council in Germany should in the first instance examine the problem, with special regard to the question of the equitable distribution of these Germans among the several zones of occupation. They are accordingly instructing their respective representatives on the Control Council to report to their Governments as soon as possible the extent to which such persons have already entered Germany from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, to submit an estimate of the time and rate at which further transfers could be carried out having regard to the present situation in Germany.
"The Czechoslovak Government, the Polish Provisional Government and the Control Council in Hungary are at the same time being informed of the above and are being requested meanwhile to suspend further expulsions pending an examination by the Governments concerned of the report from their representatives on the Control Council."
FINANCIAL CRISIS
JOHN HOSKYNS (Prime Minister's Advisor) – memo to Margaret Thatcher (12/2/81)
"The penalties for erring too far on the sale of underkill will be fatal, economically and electorally. Those from erring on the side of overkill are, by comparison, trivial."
"All the evidence ... show a familiar Treasury pattern of underkill; too little and too late; hoping things won’t get worse, despite all the evidence."
J.M. KEYNES, 'General Theory'
"Lenin was right. There is no surer way of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency."
"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
G.K. CHESTERTON
"When men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing: they believe in anything."
MAGAZINE 'OXFORD TODAY', Trinity Term, 2012
"Even fewer Oxfordians go into manufacturing. It's fallen from 9.4% in 1974 to 5% in 2003, partly reflecting a national decline in that sector. At the latest estimate, just 100 students a year went into Engineering and Manufacturing out of a student body of 11,752. [That is about 4 per cent of UK undergraduates]."
IMMIGRATION
EVENING STANDARD, 21 January 2014
"But what about Axelle Lemaire ... the French MP who represents the French Parliament for the 400,000 French citizens who live and work in London."
LUDWIG VON MISES, 'Human Action', pp.377,627,752
“The tendency toward an equalization of wage rates which prevails under free mobility of labor from country to country is paralysed.”
“If we assume that there are no institutional barriers preventing or penalizing the transfer of capital goods, workers and commodities from one place to another and that the workers are indifferent with regard to their dwelling and working places, … There is, if we disregard the cost components, a tendency towards an equalization of wage rates for the same type of work all over the earth.”
“Now it is true that under perfect mobility of capital and labor there would prevail all over the world a tendency towards an equalization of the price paid for labor of the same kind and quality."
“Yet, even if there were free trade for products, this tendency is absent in our real world of migration barriers and institutions hindering foreign investment of capital. The marginal productivity of labor is higher in the United States than it is in India because capital invested per head of the working population is greater, and because Indian workers are prevented from moving to America and competing in the America labor market. There is no need, in dealing with the explanation of this difference, to investigate whether natural resources are or are not more abundant in America than in India and whether or not the Indian worker is radically inferior to the American worker. However this may be, these facts, namely the institutional checks upon the mobility of capital and labor, suffice to account for the absence of the equalization tendency. As the abolition of the American tariff could not affect these two facts, it could not impair the standard of living of the American worker in an adverse sense. On the contrary, given a state of affairs in which the mobility of capital and labor is restricted, the transition to free trade for products must necessarily raise the American standard of life.”
LEE KUAN YEW, 'Third World to First', pp.40,134,280
a) "I decided we had to renew the racial mix of new recruits into the SAF … we had over-recruited Malays into the SAF … This bias had to be redressed … A young Lieutenant Colonel, Edward Yong, implemented a plan that over several years reduced the proportion of Malays, mainly by recruiting non-Malays."
b) "Could we have defeated them [the Communists] if we had allowed them habeas corpus and abjured the powers of detention without trial? I doubt it. Nobody dared speak out against them, let alone in open court. Thousands were held in detention camps in Malaysia and hundreds in Singapore. The British had banished thousands to China in the 1940’s and ‘50s."
c) "Our Malays were asking MP’s why we did not have Malay national servicemen in sensitive key positions in the SAF like the air force or armoured units ... Loong said that in the event of a conflict, the SAF did not want any of its soldiers to be put in a difficult position where his loyalty to the nation might conflict with his emotions and his religion … The Malaysian Foreign Minister, Rais Yatma … he said, [Malaysia] was ‘a glass house’ in this matter because its own Chinese were represented only to a small extent in the armed forces …"
IMMIGRATION (embarrassing quotations)
ANDREW ALEXANDER, Daily Mail
“Michael Howard calls for 24 hour security at our ports. Most of us are incredulous we don’t have it now.”
ANTHONY BROWNE, The Times
“Britain is a country with a major neurosis about immigration … the debate about immigration is about as ill informed and hypocritical as the Victorian discourse about sex. Many people are extremely uncomfortable about saying anything other than the official line that all immigration is good.”
LORD FALCONER, Observer, 4 April 2004
"I think it is incredibly important now that we make it absolutely clear that we are keen to encourage immigration. It’s got to be on the basis of proper management but our society benefits from properly managed immigration."
MATHEW D'ANCONA, Sunday Telegraph, 4 April 2004
"Yet the government has privately concluded – rightly in my view – that the sooner we are ‘swamped’ by industrious immigrants from Eastern Europe, the better. In this case populist policies and grown up economics are utterly irreconcilable."
POLLY TOYNBEE, Guardian, 31 March 2004
"It was welcome to hear both Blunkett and Hughes talk with sincerity of the need for more migration and they mean it. This now goes beyond vague platitudes on the value of diversity: there is growing Europe-wide anxiety about fast depleting European populations. GDP growth partly depends on population growth and helps to explain why the US streaks ahead of the EU. Size of GDP determines global power. Europe’s influence will fade fast without more immigration (as well as a much higher birth rate)."
OBSERVER EDITORIAL, 4 April 2004
"We hope that the Prime Minister will also remember that much of this country’s history is built on immigration. We need people to come here to work, to bridge the skills’ gap, in particular in construction and in the health service. However, the argument is not just economic. A multi-racial, multi-cultural society is also a social good and one that is difficult to put a price on."
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH EDITORIAL, 4 April 2004
"This government, like its Conservative predecessor, has signed up in full to the principle of enlargement: greater population mobility and a more fluid European labour market are inevitable consequences. They are also to a considerable extent, desirable. This country needs workers of the sort that Eastern Europe has to offer in droves. It also needs immigrants who are willing to work for competitive levels of pay if Britain is to retain its position in the global economy."
ANDREW RAWNSLEY, Observer, 4 April 2004
"There is evidence that most of the public are prepared to buy into the argument that the long-term health of the economy is served by the rejuvenation of the workforce with skilled, energetic immigrants. They key word for that strategy to succeed is winning hearts and minds is managed."
DAVID DAVIS, The Politics Show, BBC2, 4 April 2004
"What you have to do is manage the system properly in order to provide the skills we need, without overwhelming the local social services or the housing market, without upsetting community relations."
NHS
NHS FIGURES ON NURSES AND BEDS (9.4.2009) 1948 2008
Number of beds (given by Aneurin Bevan to Parliament 30/4/48 in a reply to a question from Sir E.Graham Little.
Bevan also said, in a reply, that there were 466,000 beds in England & Wales in 1938, so 67,000 hospital beds were 533,000 136,076 (2012/13
added in the last 10 years before the NHS took over - and two-thirds of that was in wartime.) 1st qtr)
Number of nurses (Parliamentary reply by Aneurin Bevan to Commodore Harvey, 1948) (actually 398,000 but 322,000
full-time equivalents – not sure if this includes Scotland & NI - also quoted in Nursing Times, 8/1/08, 'Birth of NHS') 125,994 322,000 (2006)
Beds per nurse ( 4.23 0.57 )
Nurses per bed (over 7 times the number of nurses per bed as in 1948) ( 0.23 1.74 )
GPs (England and Wales) (full-time equivalents) 22,478 30,932
As the population increased by about 30 per cent between 1948 and 2008, the GP ratio to population remained static
Daily Telegraph update, 26/03/10: "In the NHS England only, managers now 44,600. Nurses now 375,500 (presumably full-time equivalents?). This implies the 2006 figure above was England only while the 1948 figure is all UK. The 2010 figure for England is, therefore, 375,500. Add 17 per cent for the rest of the UK, this totals 60,500 for all UK – total UK 440,500 - 3.5 times the 1948 figure."
Hospital Beds [HC Deb 30 April 1948 vol 450 c89W, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1948/apr/30/hospital-beds]
Sir E. Graham-Little asked the Minister of Health how many hospital beds in England and Wales will be available on the appointed day, as compared with the number in 1938.
Mr. Bevan The total number of beds in England and Wales at the end of 1947, the latest date for which information is available, was 533,000. The corresponding figure for 1938 so far as is known was 466,000.