I'm absolutely baffled by this letter. The writer proposes better 'social organisation' by everyone working half shifts (presumably for half wage). Any takers? Thought not...

Secondly, surely good 'social planning' would mean giving work to those Brits already out of work before importing foreign labour.

The simple answer Mathew is,no immigrants no problem !!!!!

I see Mr. Hardcastle has fallen the old "Everything is the immigrants fault" Very few people who are in th eknow blame the immigrants for the problems which we face, instead they rightly point the blame at the useless labour government. Are you still a member of the Labour party Matthew?

Immigrants cause very few serious problems in the grand scheme of things.
Even the much quoted on here examples of racial attacks- you can bet these will not be perpetrated by immigrants - more the descendants of such.

Yes, there are problems. Yes there probably needs to be quotas. Yes there needs to be a mature adult debate on immigration without left wingers screaming "nazi" at anyone who dares suggest immigration is anything but the best thing ever.

I’m glad to see such a friendly response! If anyone manages to read through my entire reply, ill be very impressed. It is quite lengthy, I’m afraid.

To clarify, I would like to point out that I never have been and never will be a member of the Labour party, nor any political party. The problems we face will never be solved by political parties, of any shade. What incentive does a person on an MPs wage have to solve the problems of a person on the wage of a bus driver, or a "sandwich artist", or any other job?

It seems some of the people who commented have either failed to read my letter properly, or i have failed to express myself properly, for which I apologise. I shall deal with these problems in turn, and capitalise the beginning of each paragraph where I discuss a different response.

IN REPSONSE TO "PIRATE PETE", I would firstly point out that my arguement in no way advocates half wages, or wage reduction in any way, such things would just make every problem a thousand times worse and are totally unnecessary. I attempted to express this by pointing out that "The same amount of service is given, production remains the same", though clearly my rushed letter didn’t put my point across properly, again, I apologise for the lack of clarity.

What i meant was that if you were to reduce peoples hours and make up the time by employing the unemployed in making up the hours, then there would be just as much of everything produced, (houses, food, etc) just as much service given (repairs, telephone advice centres, etc) and everyone would have to work less. Living standards could remain the same, as we would still have enough goods and services to maintain our current standard of life. The same amount of work would be done, but it would be shared around more equally. As the levels of service and production would be identical to the current level, the only reason why anybody could have lower living standards is shoddy social organisation, and therefore it is shodd

[how unfortunate, it was too long! here is the rest of it, the next few posts...]

therefore it is shoddy social organisation that is the problem. This is exactly the point demonstrated by Mr Pirate, what better demonstration of faulty organisation could there be than a society whereby it is a bad thing for everyone to be employed? Indeed, employers would undoubtably seek to use my proposal to slash wages. Again, is this a problem with the idea of everyone having a job, or a problem with the idea of making people ask someone elses permission before they can have a job? I think the latter.

Your second point is that a better social organisation would "mean giving work to those Brits already out of work before importing foreign labour". Indeed, i left the "better social organisation" blank to encourage people to think how they would better organise society, and while i am glad Mr Pirate seized upon this opportunity, i must say i am slightly disappointed with his conclusions. As i say in my initial letter, it is a shoddy form of society that will result in people who want work being unable to get it, regardless of whether they are migrants or not. The idea of cutting work time WHILE maintaining living standards, ie wages, would mean that all British people would be guaranteed a job, with shorter hours and be guaranteed at least the same living standard they have now (and hopefully better). The same would apply to any migrants.

THE SECOND RESPONSE I SHALL DEAL WITH is that of Mr/Mrs/Ms "Scouse1". Initially, i would like to clarify how to spell my name, there are 2 "t"s in it. A common mistake, and easily made, but i hope you will forgive me for asking for my name to be typed correctly. To deal with your point, that if we had no immigration there would be "no problem", i would agree that it does indeed deserve so many exclaimation marks, because such a statement is so surprising. Do you mean this literally? That literally every single problem would evaporate if mi

That literally every single problem would evaporate if migration stopped? My toe would not hurt if i stubbed it, alcoholics would be cured, floods would cease and terminal cancer patients would dance in the street celebrating their new lease of life? Surely not. Dealing with it purely in terms of jobs (which is what the letter was dealing with), it seems obvious that every migrant that comes to Britain needs a house, needs food, needs any number of things. Surely then, if 100,000 migrants come to Britain (the number is purely for example, increase or decrease at your leisure), then that means we need enough houses for 100,000 people built, 100,000 peoples worth of food growing, 100,000 peoples worth of every good or service providing.

How, then, can this reduce employment? The only way is if we have, as i say, a shoddy social and economic organisation.

MY THIRD REPSONSE GOES TO MR LANGFORD, who to me seems a slightly more sympathetic reader, though i think my letter may have caused some confusion to arise between us. I am NOT blaming immigrants in my letter, the title (chosen by those good people at the Courier) attests to that fact. I would quote my final sentence: "It is not migrants who are causing the problems poor people face but our social organisation." However, i could not help but agree with Mr Langford, the first respondent to give a remotely plausible name (for which i thank and applaud him), that the labour government is useless. I would go further than merely "useless" in my description of them, but for fear of having my response blocked i must keep my language in check. It would amuse my friends and family that someone could mistake me as a labour party member or supporter, so i thank Mr Langford for this brief moment of humour. As i mentioned earlier, however, i am not a member of a political party nor will i ever be, and would point out to people that any government will fall very far short of helping the people who really need helping out (sa

(save for token gestures). I do not advocate voting for any political party, i advocate personal responsibility. Our mottos should be "I should do something", rather than "the government should do something".

MY FINAL REPSONSE IS TO DARREN, the second person with the confidence in his views to give what is probably his real name (again, for which i applaud him). While he claims that the "much quoted on here examples of racial attacks" are carried out by the descendents of immigrants rather than migrants themselves, such a sweeping generalisation seems useless at best. Even if we work on the assumption that this is true, a claim i would contest, the nature of human family trees is such that a lot of crimes are probably committed by people descended from the Normans. What does this tell us that is useful about society? Nothing.

Dealing with your second paragraph, does there need to be quotas? If you are talking from an economic perspective, i dont think there needs to be (due to the reasons i have mentioned above, and for clarities sake nor do i think so from a social perspective), but i would be interested to hear your response. Also, "quotas" is a very vague demand, do you mean a quota of 100 million or a quota of 100? It seems to me that if we were to limit the number of migrants or "send them back", we would not have full employment in britain, we would have roughly the same level of unemployment as we do now because that is the way our economic and social system is organised.

You say there is a requirement for a "mature adult debate" on immigration, without those ever-accursed lefties calling everyone in sight nazis. Well i would happily call myself left wing (cue the usual torrent of abuse), and would point out that i never even so much as used the letter "Z" in my letter, never mind called anyone a nazi. I believe what we are having classes as a "mature adult debate", unless i have misunderstood the meaning of "adult" in this context. What now? Do we

What now? Do we wait for the government to look at the Courier website and decide policy?

Also, i would point out that immigration being the "best thing ever" is nobodies view. I havent met a single person who would describe immigration in that way. Who could feel that socio-economic pressures compelling people to migrate thousands of miles away from their families, friends and place of birth, to face vilification at the hands of locals was the best thing ever? While such ultra-left newspapers as the Financial Times might point out that immigration does have some good effects within our current system of organisation and argue for (relatively) open borders for migrants, of course this does not change the undeniable fact that ideally people would not HAVE to migrate.

To bring this arguement full circle, i will point out that the same shoddy social organisation that afflicts us afflicts the societies of those who have to migrate here. If the plan for full employment through shorter hours were carried through in other countries, people would not need to migrate here from there, and would instead stay with their friends and family.

Congratulations for putting up with me if you got this far!

I look forward to the replies,
Matthew Hardcastle

Hi Matthew
Our debates are probably a mute point in the grand scheme of things - because all we're doing is talking, not making decisions - but hey, it's good to swap ideas huh.

Well - the comment I made on "decendants of immigrants" being reponsible for crime rather than immigrants, I'd stick by this. I really do feel that first generation "immigrants" are less likely to indulge in criminal behaviour - I'm simply mentioning this, because there are those who blame such things on immigrants. We have more home grown problems. Hey - it's just an opinion.

Do I think there should be quotas? Well yes. I think that if we recognise that there is a finite need for immigration, beyond which the infrastructure and society would start to creak, then there would probably be a need for quotas. How these would be set is beyond me mind hehe.

The left wingers shouting nazi comment - well I think you've guessed I was being a bit tongue in cheek there. I do like winding up though the more closed minded left winger - because it's just so easy. It's no offence - just something that can often be fun to do with anyone who takes themselves too easily (I also do this with Man U supporters). Yes, you are obviously open to a debate on this subject, but unfortunately there are plenty who will not say nazi - but will play the race card whenever anyone dares to mention immigration. Maybe we can blame Powell's speech and the ludicrous aftermath. Who knows.