[NWRA]

Originally Posted by tesla69

Morrissey isn't the only one who feels this way, supposedly 1000's of Brits are fleeing to Canada and Australia and New Zealand. My understanding is that with the EU, anyone from a member country can move and work in another member country. What a great way to keep wages low. There is strong thought control against having any opinions about immigration. My personal gripe is it keeps housing costs high - I have to compete against new immigrants for the same cheap housing. I can't afford $3,500 a month apts.

You're spot on. There has been an influx of migrants into Britain, mainly from Eastern Europe, and, as you say, it keeps wages low and housing costs high: that's the basic rule of supply-and-demand. I have no idea how a normal couple on average wages can afford a house nowadays, without having a very miserable, frugal lifestyle.

There have been reports of builders in Southampton being paid half of what they were paid five years ago, and that is if they can find work at all. And local schools, hospitals, etc, are finding it hard to cope with the same facilities as before (which weren't enough then) but hundreds or thousands of more people suddenly needing them. It's idiotic to accuse someone of racism for implying that things might be getting out of hand.

The whole 'British identity' is confusing for me because I don't know what British culture is. But I would hate to visit, say, Dublin and to see its Irishness replaced with a homogenised 'multiculture' like London has.

I find it funny how NME see themselves as champions of diversity despite being the most stereotypically 'white middleclass' magazine you can imagine; perhaps that's why their take on migration is so naive and sunny (‘its enriched our culture’ – what does that even mean?), ignoring the real effects of it.

I get the feeling with this interview that NME realised they were wrong when they accused him of racism in the '90s - wilfully misinterpreting his lyrics so they could accuse him of it, and create a 'scandal' - and wanted an excuse to say, 'see: we were right all along!' rather than admitting their previous wrongness.

Soon music interviews will be so careful and guarded, they will be like those interviews to promote an actor or actresses’ new film you get on The Jonathon Ross Show, a matey smugfest where interesting questions have been forbidden by the star’s ‘people’.