Sir Max Hastings was on the radio last night talking about this. I like his books about WW1 and 2, but he tied himself in knots about this, going on about the need to do something but that Britain can't take more than a few thousand refugees because 'it would change traditional British values'. No one asked him what these are. He pretended not to hear when the examples of the Ugandan asians and Tamils were brought up.
'Traditional British values' - anybody like to tell me what these are? I would have thought that many would say tolerance and pluralism, but not those worried about 'traditional British values'. Perhaps BBH can educate me.
You're having a laugh. There's no way Germany want all these refugees no matter what story regarding a labour shortage you cook up.
That's some stretch to say that Germany is taking in tens of thousands of asylum seekers for her own benefit!!
Irony is that only a right wing politician like Merkel could get away with what she is doing in Germany. In a way Goldie may have a point, Germany will get the middle class, educated refugees with the dosh to pay the traffickers and the initiative to make the trip. But it's pretty strong to say this is Merkel's motivation.
As it happens Cameron's strategy is nearly right. Obviously the only real solution is to sort things out in the places the refugees are coming from. Right, so that falls at the first hurdle, western politicians absolutely powerless to do that. OK, then take refugees from the 4 million plus sitting in camps in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq - spend our aid (and even the Gulf states pay up for this) in maintaining the camps and process their applications there, no need for the traffickers. But that ignores the fact that there are hundreds of thousands already on the road/in Europe. Presumably Cameron just want to forget about them, send them back to the camps or let the Germans take them.