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Leicester's social fabric is fraying. Michael Regan/Getty Images
The South Asian neighbourhood of Highfields in Leicester is made up of long, sloping streets of terraced houses, built largely between the Victorian era and the Second World War. At that time, Leicester was a major centre of Britain’s booming textile trade, becoming Europe’s second richest city in 1936. Today, though many Highfields residents still work in garment factories, these are more associated with exploitative practices than prosperity. While parts of the neighbourhood are still bustling, others have a ragged and timeworn character. The issues facing Highfields — particularly immigration, housing shortages and a crisis of government funding — are once again indicative of wider trends shaping British life.
The first of these factors, immigration, has brought Leicester into the national spotlight in recent years. Since the Fifties, when small numbers arrived from the Commonwealth, the city has increasingly become known as a place of different cultures and faiths. Some 20,000 South Asians came during the Seventies, not from India but East Africa, where they had settled under the British Empire. Leicester is also home to Somali, Polish and Romanian minorities. But in 2022, the city’s vaunted harmony was ruptured by clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Highfields and the neighbouring Belgrave area. In a foreshadowing of the recent riots that followed the Southport stabbings, authorities in Leicester blamed the unrest on false claims spreading via social media, including rumours of attacks on places of worship and the attempted kidnapping of a Muslim girl. The mayor Peter Soulsby spoke of a campaign to recruit troublemakers from outside the city. But other accounts of the disturbances — including one I heard from a long-standing Gujarati resident in the city — have drawn attention to the recent arrival, via Portugal, of more assertive Hindus from the Indian regions of Daman and Diu.
The spectre of sectarian politics returned at last month’s general election. In Leicester South, the constituency where Highfields is located, former Labour frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth saw his 22,000 majority overturned by an independent, the optometrist Shockat Adam, who channelled the anger of local Muslims over the war in Gaza. Ashworth complained that “I’ve never known a campaign of such vitriol, such bullying, such intimidation,” saying he was barred from mosques and chased down streets. Meanwhile, the only Conservative gain of the entire election came in Leicester East, apparently confirming the drift of the city’s Hindus towards the Tories.
These ructions may help to explain the suspicion I encountered in Leicester, from both council employees and members of the public. Many people did not want to speak to me or be seen speaking to me. Then again, I saw no signs of religious tension, with the exception of one angry diatribe about immigrants, and that came from an elderly Sikh man who had moved here in the Sixties. Leicester has also remained relatively peaceful during the widespread anti-immigration protests and riots of the past fortnight. Most of my conversations pointed to a different, more material problem raised by immigration: the difficulty of finding housing in a city that is growing rapidly, even as its authorities struggle with overstretched resources.
Recent demographic data for Leicester presents a picture of remarkable change. The city’s population was estimated at about 380,000 last year, a rise of 15% since 2011. The increase in its foreign-born residents has been greater than its overall population growth, suggesting that the latter has mainly been driven by international migration. In a single year to July 2023, the equivalent of 3.6% of the city’s population arrived from overseas. But Leicester has only added 25,000 new houses since 2001, despite gaining four times as many new residents. It is now one of the most densely populated local authorities outside London, a density that its ageing, low-rise housing stock is not well placed to handle.
One result of this is fierce competition in the rental market. Leicester’s prices are rising even faster than London’s. An estate agent in Highfields told me she had received 10 calls in a matter of hours for a two-bed house at £900 per month, which is above the city average. She also said she did not struggle to find housing for newly arrived immigrants, since they tended to have good jobs — often in the NHS — and to be hard-working, wanting to “make a better life”. It is more difficult, of course, for those in the gig economy. The father of one family I met, who is an Uber driver, told me they had been looking for a one-bed flat in Leicester for six months, having originally moved to London from India in 2022.
Other losers in the housing market are those working for low wages, such as east Leicester’s textile workers. Their situation has become even worse since the local clothing industry was decimated by the Covid pandemic and soaring energy costs. Similar issues exist in white working-class areas in the west of the city. A 21-year-old street cleaner said he was still living with his dad and had no intention of moving. When I asked if this would make it difficult to start a family, he told me he already had a partner and two children there with him. Apparently most of his friends have similar arrangements.
All this has contributed to a surge of claims on the local authority. In 2022, Leicester City Council officially declared a crisis due to the numbers on its waiting lists for social housing, reported to be 6,400 households late last year. Half of those applicants qualify due to overcrowding in their existing homes; I heard of two-bed properties housing as many as 15 people. Yet the council’s ability to provide housing has been steadily undermined by a high uptake of Right to Buy, the Thatcherite policy which allows social tenants to purchase their homes at a discounted rate. It lost nearly 2,000 properties in this way in the five years up to 2022.
Recent years have also seen a dramatic rise in homelessness. Faced with the costs of housing hundreds of homeless families in bed and breakfasts and other temporary accommodation, the council this year borrowed £45 million to buy and rent more properties. It also cited the costs of 1,000 asylum decisions expected this year, and has taken out further loans to accommodate those arriving through humanitarian schemes.
The need for more housing in Leicester is evident; the question is where, and how quickly, it can be built. In theory, the obvious solution is to increase the density of terraced streets like those in Highfields, by building upwards. Yet even with Labour’s much-hyped planning reforms, a city like Leicester has neither the financial capacity nor the policy tools for such a challenge. Instead, it is currently committed to adding around 1,300 new houses annually, a target that is basically unchanged since 2006. The council cites lack of land as a constraint, though there are signs of the inefficiencies that have plagued house-building in Britain more generally. A large development in the north of the city, Ashton Green, received planning permission for 3,000 houses in 2011 (the site had been earmarked since the Seventies), but so far just 208 have been completed.
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SubscribeWhen will you tell them, eff of, we’re full?
But many were invited.
Were they not?
Of course, you are right. People are just worked up about the issue and red ticks are like letting off steam.
As anyone considered reducing demand rather than increasing supply?
Surely the demand has long been reached.
Reduce demand by removing people.
Where do you imagine the demand comes from?
Sounds like logic is not a priority or strong suit?
Something like a final solution.
Removing us would please them no end
Demand will reduce, don’t worry.
Pakistan had 10-15% Hindus and Sikhs in 1947, now 1%.
Bdesh had 13% in 1971, 6% now, will be close to zero very soon after the recent coup.
The 10-15% Hindus and a significant chunk of the remaining Christians are soon going to have to leave Leicester. That should fix the demand problem, but only a decade or two, given the rather higher birth rates of the “remaining” group
Ethnic cleansing is fine if its done the correct way around
What an incredible mess, and worldwide, not just Leicester; to bring in thousands of immigrants without thought of where to house them. Even if we consider the immigration policies as humanitarian how can it really be so if they end up this way. These governments have basically engendered a. new age of slums. No government who supports immigration under these circumstances will solve the problem. Shocking behaviour by so many governments. I really cannot understand the reasoning behind immigration policies. What has been, or is, the objective? If we had a clear cut objective then we might be able to measure its success, or failure, which it clearly is, because I cannot see one benefit from it.
I think the idea is to staff the jobs that our existing population no longer wishes to take. Unless you are aware of huge queues of applicants for crop-picking, care homes, underpaid cleaning and those categories of unautomatable employment? Immigrants don’t (despite the propaganda) push existing workers out of their jobs – they fill gaps created by unintelligent employers. Traditionally (pre-Blair) the annual requirement was about 140k, I believe, but as we get better at being bad employers that figure increases.
Okay, if that’s the objective then fine. Hopefully there’s not too much unemployment among immigrants. So then, what about accomodation? If there was no plan for housing then the government knowingly created a housing problem.
Interesting how a whole generation stopped doing those jobs.
Means-tested benefits might well be a big reason why.
Do you know who used to do this work?
Someone close to me used to work in a laundry which washed bedding coming from a mental institution. She did it for five years but was sick every Monday morning when the sheets (stored over the weekend) were unpacked for washing. Only immigrants do this now.
I would not have liked to do that job but I am from an age where going on benefits was a sign of a bad, lazy person – so I would have done it if it was the only job available.
In the UK there is an increased expectation after Tony Blair said that 50% of children should go to university. I guess that when you get a degree you are expecting better things.
Nice theory, but that’s not what the data says; Muslims for example have significantly higher levels of unemployment (per latest Census). So whatever they’re doing, they’re not talking our jobs.
Perhaps if these jobs paid better then people would do them. You can’t have jobs that don’t pay people enough to live on, and then complain that people won’t do them so instead import a load of cheap labour from poorer nations
Newly arrived cheap labour stops wages rising.
The article mentions the NHS as a significant employer of immigrant workers. If the NHS was a private company employing cheap immigrant labour as a significant part of its corporate plan it would be (correctly) howled down for, amongst other things, undermining the wages of its staff and depriving developing nations of skilled workers. But being the NHS it gets away with it . Another example of our delusional attitude to one of the worst managed and worst performing health services in the developed world. You talk of bad employers. The British State and NHS are certainly such. Let’s not mention either the ridiculous and unaffordable Ponzi pension schemes for civil servants being funded by future generations of private sector workers. Again, no private company could get away with it. Talk about two tier!
We have 5 million people of working age who are not in work! That is totally unsustainable. The whole narrative about people being incredibly choosy about which work they will and will not accept is just absurd.
This country is going to eventually have to wake up to the fact – 70s style – that it is already a high tax, low productivity society, whose economy is in at least relative and quite plausibly absolute decline. The concept that we can have people picking and choosing what work they will and won’t accept just has to be binned. If you don’t work, unless you have very good justification, you starve. This is what happens in the great majority of countries in the world in our kind of economic situation.
There are many causes for this – and the last government certainly played its own part. The covid response policies were an absolute disaster in this regard – to many giving the impression that the government can indefinitely pay a major part of the workforce to sit at home doing nothing.
But the “progressive” nostrum that all we need to do is somehow “invest” more in some fashionable area or other, this term being endlessly used just for any government spending, is just a convenient warm myth. Is “investment” a term we can reasonably use for paying off the train drivers, one of the new government’s first acts, without requiring any reform of working practices whatsoever?. But of course the trade unions would have it so.
I worked in an Alzheimer’s home for 6 years and was handsomely paid. I did lots of overtime because many employees didn’t turn up for their shift. Now if you were to talk about Dom Care, visiting people’s homes, then you are talking about being underpaid as you were not paid for every hour you were out unlike Care homes. I was 64 years old when I left but still had no problem doing 15 hour double shifts.
You could argue that the requirement of Government (national or local) to provide housing is a relatively new expansion of the role of the state. What is also a relatively new set of ‘duties’ is to permit immigration and prohibit the building of housing (e.g. green belts) at the same time. Driving with a foot on the accelerator and the other foot on the brake.
“to provide housing is a relatively new expansion of the role of the state.”
Im not sure what you might mean by “relatively new”. In 1943 in Australian the Commonwealth Housing Commission was established and promoted the idea that housing was a right for Australians.
However I do feel that anything the government gets involved in affects the economy of that industry in a negative way. I did read a story awhile ago of Singapore achieving a high number in home ownership. Mostly units in tower blocks I would assume. So it can be done.
Providing housing us not a ‘right’ in the American Constitution but you can’t tell that to the Lefties…Kamala’s new program is offering $25k for new home purchases- can’t wait until that hits the Supreme Court.
My point was that public housing is not a new expansion of the role of the state. But it may be an idea that doesn’t work.
It was all put on local authorities post WW1. MacMillan saw how vote friendly it was but did he actually make it STATE organised or just make it easier for local authorities to implement. There is a legal difference.
There’s no difference to the people trying to find a home. But my point was that governments, local or national, public housing programs were not a recent idea. But it was also, relevant to the above article, that government had allowed a growing immigration number without thought to housing. Some people believe it’s not the governments role. But if they have an immigration policy then maybe they should have a housing policy that fits.
You would not like the Singapore system.
I don’t have to like it. I’m just observing a response to housing shortages that appears to work. Do you think living in tents, cars or hovels is very likeable?
The policy of populating HDB blocks in accordance with ethnic proportions in the general population does seem to have settled the race riots of the 1970s. We, with our total lack of foresight, have subscribed to the failed doctrine of multiculturalism and allowed ethnic silos to grow at, ultimately, the expense of societal harmony.
Once you need help with basic washing and eating in a care home – on assumption you live to that age – you’ll grasp quickly why immigration was important. It’ll be someone who’s come from far away, or who’s parent did so. Fortunately they won’t know what you thought some years earlier.
There was a time when locals did that work and did it with genuine care, What happened?
”Fortunately they won’t know what you thought some years earlier.” I’m not sure what you mean by this.
Actually I linked it to the wrong comment so hands up, apols. Nonetheless the point is all those who bang on about mass migration, or whatever they opt to call it, deserve some criticism for not mentioning how many migrants do incredible jobs for the benefit of us all.
Well I agree with you there. They are doing the work others have turned away from,
Nonsense,media lies.
I would still prefer the indigenous White British not to be reduced to living in caravans alongside the M32 or tents in Cornwall, while recent arrivals get 4 star hotels followed by first dibs in social housing.
I did a forking incredible job getting up at 3am six days a week and walking to work in the dark. Where’s my fricking medal. And I donated my whole wage packet every fortnight to Save The Children because I was brought up with that injunctions of Jesus to give away all I have to the poor and not make the pursuit of Wealth my motivation in life. I deserve a fricking gold medal don’t I. Co me on,hand it over then
They are internet savvy. They will. Ha ha ha.
My elderly mother in law has some wonderful carers, all white British. So your assumption is not universally valid.
I’m glad you jumped in there. Generally here in Australia caring was done by local women, generally in mid to late age, They had a very good work environment and were generally a happy lot who enjoyed their work. Somehow that changed. Some of that was probably government knowing better and introducing new systems that killed the workplace and how it had worked. When they left it wasn’t younger people taking their place, it was people from other countries.
In the UK a big part of prob is many families can’t survive on one income anymore so both partners have to work. It’s also the case it fell too much on women and you are a bit rose-tinted in assuming they all loved the caring responsibility disproportionately falling on them. I don’t know the demographics as well for Auz but daresay you’ve an aging population too and so demand increasing without the natural supply, hence more reliance on carers who’ve come from elsewhere.
You seem intent on missing the point, which was that the following generation wouldn’t do the work. I’m actually talking about aged care homes/facilities. I don’t understand your point about both partners working. It was a job women and men took as employment, It wasn’t work that disproportionally fell on them, it was a job they chose to do. Your point about demand and natural supply supports my point of how the following generation wouldn’t do the work.
“I don’t understand your point about both partners working. It was a job women and men took as employment”
It’s just a failure on his part to follow his own dialectic.
A similar experience in the UK. When visiting People’s homes the local authorities introduced a clocking in system. So you were only paid for the time you were at the Clients. In some cases a visit could be just 15 mins. I did Domestic Care for Two years but it was exhausting, long hours for which you were paid a fraction of the time you were out. In a Care home you are paid for every hour you are there and not wearing your car out travelling, though you were paid a mileage allowance on the road.
Not universally, nor one suspects ever will be, but perhaps without the migrant carers your Mum would have her care so stretched she’d be going without visits. The vacancy gaps and labour shortage is v real.
My father-in-law and mother-in-law were cared for primarily by non-immigrant carers, although this was 10 years ago. The carers were privately sourced rather than through agencies and I suspect it is agencies and perhaps the government red tape that make’s the indigenous find the work less attractive now.
I was astonished to hear from a friend that councils are seeking to employ African sourced social workers who unsurprisingly don’t have much of a grasp of the complex legal rules and regulations UK social workers have to operate under. No doubt this plan will be the source of more scandals.
It’s the latest lie,from the media lie spin doctors,oy vey,it is
I did that Job when I was made redundant at 55 years old from a Technical Services role in the Motor Industry Why? because I have always had a strong work ethic and that was all that was available. It certainly opened my eyes to the Care Industry and was a great experience. British born by the way.
I’m not having some sly Ukranian botch “care” for me ,a quick half hour to wash,dress and breakfast. Thats “care” for a lot of people,and it’s not free either. This is nasty and stupid reasoning like “they” are not humans with aspirations. They are just mindless fodder to wipe our bums for us.
It is to destroy society and atomise us all into lonely sad individual units before they atomise us another way.
The article describes the 2022 sectarian strife as rupturing “the city’s vaunted harmony”. Did anyone take that vaunting seriously? In 1989, Keith Vaz, the Labour MP for Leicester East, led a march of thousands of muslims in Leicester, supporting the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. That was one of the first occasions when militant Islam flexed its muscles on Britain’s streets.
And I remember that doyen of the Right, Norman Tebbitt, basically indicating it was Rushdie’s own fault.
Vaz deserved opprobrium for that and whilst some years back he was wonderfully excoriated by Christopher Hitchens. Oh for the Hitch to be alive now.
If Hitch were alive now this government would throw him in jail. Probably on the instructions of Alastair Campbell.
“The on-going consequences of Liz Truss’ disastrous financial experiment have made these significantly worse. ”
Whatever the rights and wrongs of her ideas, they lasted five minutes and were reversed, completely reversed by Hunt.
Maybe you can blame “austerity” but Truss?
Not Truss, but the dimwit risk-takers managing over-leveraged pension funds.
Actually it was the highly restrictive regulatory environment which constrains pension fund investments (anything outside fixed income triggers very high capital adequacy requirements as an example)
It spoilt an otherwise good article..
It’s worse. These drip drip comments that we cannot allow anyone to try to free up the economy. That the only way is to have some wise and gentle hand at the tiller to steer us into prosperity.
These are taking us further along the waterway to serfdom.
Same situation all over the western world.
Indeed. It is possible to read about gangs of immigrants ruling the roost in Rome.
The Author touches on one of the dilemmas regarding migration near the end – the demand for services from the older/wealthier. And it’s the case our demographics mean legal migration will not cease if folks want to retire as they do now and access services as they need. The question is the balance and it beholds us to be more honest about that.
As regards local planning and housing – the truth is Councils are not provided with the means to make local decisions. Power is too concentrated with Westminster and esp the Treasury. One reason turnout in local elections is so low is everyone knows they mean v little as the big decisions are made in London. This has to change. Truss had an anti-Treasury stance, and that was not without some validity. But she didn’t grasp the issue was it’s continual concentration of power. That needs to be gradually stripped back. Allow Councils like Leicester to determine how they raise income and how they make development decisions.
If you want good quality accountable local government you need also to have local democracy and local taxation. Good luck with that.
Currently more than 50% of local government spending comes from central government. Westminster politicians ain’t gonna give up their control or give away that taxation power.
I agree it’s quite a challenge for Westminster and the Treasury, but sounds like on this needing to be the direction of travel we concur. Britain needs some radical answers and empowering local Govt more one of them. Otherwise too many decisions are London-centric.
Diversity is our strength.
Care to explain that? What do you mean by “our”?
I’m guessing it was irony …
You’re probably right.
One thing the author neglected to mention is the impact between housing and the rising sectarianism within the city. If you’re a Muslim living in Leicester and you’re looking to move within the city, I doubt you’d consider the areas with large Hindu populations. Same logic applies when going the other way and likely for the white British population there too. These limit your options and will naturally drive up prices for everyone. We’ve seen this in Northern Ireland, so it’s not exactly unprecedented.
I hate our system of multiculturalism.
But with your reference to N.Ireland you recognise the housing separation predates more recent migrants and probably the most visceral battles been between a bunch of white folks. Concur?
The question then perhaps is what lesson can be learnt from that experience? Probably one that includes ensuring all kids go to same schools and we never allow again the separation that happened in NI. And we keep religion out of schools too as much as poss.
The buy the World a Coke and teach it how to sing… school of wishful thinking.
This is a quote about my old local school “I went there myself and left last year, and I have to say it’s possibly the worst school within Stoke. There were race wars every other week, there were gangs, weapons and drugs are often found, and certain areas of the school felt like ghettos with only a select race are within an area. Honestly, if you’re thinking about taking your kids there, don’t, and if your kids are already there, move them. kids to this utter joke of a school.”
Read more at http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/stoke-trent-high-schools-fail-inspections/story-26053614-detail/story.html#8ZfmRHr7qhokuidk.99
Broken link. Sounds interesting though, if you can be bothered to repost
You mean multi-ethnic. Different communities living in harmony. Not worked out well so far
No he means multi cultural.
I realise that you can try to analyse just a corner of a much larger debate, but the article contains some truth and some ‘spin’.
For instance the Belgrave area does not neighbour Highfields – it is the other side of the city centre. Neighbouring Highfields is the St Matthews estate (with lots of Somali) and of much more recent housing stock.
Look at the urban geography a different way… ethnic groups tend to ‘flock’ together unless they manage to move as individuals to the outer suburbs or out of the city entirely – something that has been going on for years. Does the desire to ‘flock’ together cause intense competition for very local resources? Yes, I suspect. Just building more housing won’t necessarily address the issues of ‘ethnic areas’.
Why don’t we create tax incentives and penalties to force automation in ithis.country? The cheap labour model isn’t working As for Wessie of the Roof writing abut housng …. raised a smile.
There are some already although you are correct we need to drive an investment culture much more. Remember most of our pension funds invest elsewhere and not in the UK. Crackers really as it’s our money and it’s self defeating in the medium term.
However certain sectors don’t have the easiest automation option – e.g social care. Even agriculture needs the dexterity that comes with the human hand more than we’d like.
Remember most of our pension funds invest elsewhere and not in the UK.
The job of a pension fund is to obtain the maximum return for pensioners. It’s the job of government to provide an attractive environment for investors by not over-taxing productive activity in order to reward the rent-seeking behaviour of the metropolitan class.
Attractive environment? – guess you supported Brexit eh?
Absolutely! Mine was one of the businesses that, in total, were forced to spend over £8 billion pounds implementing the entirely pointless and ineffectual GDPR. Next we’ll be compelled to adopt European ‘know your customer’ legislation that will be even worse.
The EU bureaucracy is slowly Europe’s economy to death. Its share of world trade has fallen by 10%+ in just a decade. France hasn’t balanced its books for forty years and the German economy is in the toilet thanks to barmy green fanaticism.
In 2008 The economies of the USA and EU were the same size. Now the USA economy is twice as large. Try to name three iconic French, German or Italian businesses that are less then fifty years old and you might begin to understand why.
If we want to9 be prosperous it makes a hell of a lot more sense to shift our focus away from the failing EU to the US.
Even an old school bureaucratic statist like you must eventually understand that a society cannot go on indefinitely consuming more than it produces. Surely?
Such numbing ignorance. It was Gordon Browns surprise 97 removal of the dividend tax relief which triggered the City’s march away from UK shares. Estimated cost? 350bn and counting. Then your Regulators stepped in with yet more pig headed super destructive intervention, forcing pension funds to load up on bonds…and leading us to the 65bn LDI crisis. You of course blame neo liberal capitalist Geekos. But you know nothing.
Automation of what?
Remember kids: immigration does not drive up house prices!
It’s not prices, it’s supply.
The sort of towns that had the riots have fairly cheap housing, certainly more than in London & SE. The problem is they don’t have the jobs, infrastructure and investment. Too easy to blame immigrants.
Here’s something to ponder – 70% of all private equity investment in UK is in London. That’s what we need to change.
7.5 million people in 25 -30 years, from 40K pa in the mid Nineties to well over 200K pa during New Labour’s term of office and over a half a million the previous year under the Tories. The majority of people are blaming governments not immigrants for multiple failures to reduce numbers.
You are repeatedly dishonest with your misleading comments, fallacies that would embarrass a 12 year old.
What is it the loony Left’s gnostic obsession with mass immigration?
Hey AR I think we need a bit less too, but I just don’t blame everything on them. You got an answer to the private equity investment conundrum? Or too tricky to blame migrants for that one?
The private equity groups will be very happy for immigration to continue in the hundreds of thousands each year as it increases the value of their assets. My question is why are progressive Left happy to be associated with them.
Still continuing with the “blaming migrants” deflection fallacy (twice), really JW really…
SMH
How about votes in future elections?
Apparently we need 8m to care for our ageing grannies. Membership of the EU and its insane free movement was cause A of this perma crisis. With unlimited uncontrolled demand guaranteed, our Progressive State elite leaders – from Blair to Hunt – did nothing to fix the supply – funny that – so making themselves, Lucky Socialist Keir, 10 Kitchen Socialist Ed and all our London Blob multi millionaire property Rich – 100k a year capital gains for 20 years. Note Rachel – all tax free. The goons at the Treasury assured these UK Dom Rich leaders that having 750, 000 people a year arriving added 1% to the GDP stats. Whopee! Good data! And of course this unprecedented population wave would guarantee the multiculturalism of their New Order. A reckless, squalid, criminal abnegation of the first duty of the State, they have in fact broken the social contract. The first shockwaves of this botched revolution are being felt and not just in sorry Leicester.
It’s interesting isn’t it that you really don’t care too much about how our economics work and how we’ve such a North-South divide that can add to such tensions. Too quick to blame immigrants, consistently. Don’t hide behind ‘Govt failing to do anything about it’ line. You repeatedly fail to highlight many immigrants doing crucial jobs we need, making tremendous contribution and instead tar all with the same brush.
I’ve done nothing of the sort, you’re desperate. Bad faith actor as always JW, no arguments one fallacy after another.
Pathetic
No mention of the two universities in Leicester, the large student population, and the fact that many rental properties are set aside for them. Many of these properties are owned by local Indian people who make good, steady money out of student loans.
I happened to come across a Green party flyer for the last election in Leicester South. The candidate was a muslim woman. The bullet points were Gaza, Gaza, Trans rights, Gaza, and Gaza. No mention of the environment or typical ‘green’ issues whatsoever.
It’s a long time since the Green Party stood for green issues. Now they are a watered-down version of the Li Dems.
The Green Party’s appetite for continuous mass immigration makes them anything but green. Adding 10m in 25 years to 60m living on a 100,000 square mile archipelago means more housing, more roads, more schools, more hospitals, more shops, more offices, more factories, more airports, more prisons, more sewage treatment plants, more concrete, less agricultural land, less forestation, less parkland, and less natural habitat.
I genuinely don’t understand the Green Party.
Tell me about it. Not to mention their attachment to Hamas’ attachment to concrete tunnels & rockets. And Hezbollah setting fire to northern Israel. Theres nothing green about the Green Party anymore. Bunch of clowns.
Thanks for your excellent elaboration of my point.
The two major challenges facing this country are unchecked mass immigration and spiralling government debt – yet no party has any credible policy offerings to tackle and reduce either of these . Until we significantly lower net immigration ( currently running at circa 700,000 persons per year) and reduce our national debt burden ( and its terrible annual servicing cost) we will only continue to decline. Strong economic growth is the answer to the latter and getting the economically inactive back to work is a big part of the answer to the former. But no politician has a clue how to do either. Their silence on these issues speaks volumes.
Maybe it’s framed incorrectly as arguably you are flagging symptoms not causes.
How about it’s reframed as – ‘We have an aging population and we have a form of ‘politics’ that mitigates against an honest conversation what this means’
As regards the economically inactive – mental health/burnout, NHS waiting lists and UKs reliance on unpaid carers (linked to aging population) are key drivers. It’s also more pronounced in the 50-60s age cohort. Thus each of these needs a policy response. Too easy to think it’s a bunch of feckless youths who just need to have benefits withdrawn etc which has been the tendency on the Right.
I get your point re symptoms and causes. For me the cause is a slide from Responsible Capitalism to Socialism . From individual responsibility to an emphasis on assumed rights. From wealth creation to an emphasis on wealth redistribution. From equality of opportunity to an attempt to secure equality of outcomes. From the view that the market can work things out to the view that politicians are all knowing. This in my view has all lead to Panglossian politics funded by seemingly endlessly available debt and an increasing reliance on others to do the hard work. Result : unsustainable debts, increased worklessness and inevitable decline. Turning it round I agree will not be easy and is beyond the ken of most of the current crop of politicians – which in itself is a major problem for those of us who believe in democracy and despise totalitarianism.
“No politician has a clue..” Does anyone have a clue? Especially about the boat people. People mocked the Rwanda plan but it was an idea. Sinking the boats is not ideal. Taking them back to French beaches is a violation of French waters and could lead to war – their ship against ours. Re-joining the EU is a plan but would fail because we can’t trust them, can we?
Getting the inactive back to work will cause millions to suffer from mental problems. Psychiatry seems like a good degree choice at the moment.
Unchecked mass immigration? Wherever and wherever was that? Never in Britain.
And spiralling government debt is necessary to sustain profitable growth. Check out Olivier Blanchard. It’s spiralling debt to GDP ratios you don’t want. Old style néolibérales once said this would be produced by welfare dependency, whereas Osborne showed how to do that by austerity. Spend more and spend better is the answer.
We will have to agree to disagree. Immigration control is certainly not working and the idea that Government itself creates wealth is, in my view, misconceived. Government of course can create ( or damage) a healthy environment for wealth creation but the idea that Government can “fix” anything (outside its core defence / regulatory remit ) and especially that it can create sustainable, self funding jobs, leaves me cold. On that I think past experience here and abroad is a good guide. (Cue for my Socialist friends to complain that Socialism has not yet been correctly implemented and for me to reply “How many very damaging failed experiments do you need to prove that the concept is wrong?” ).
“Meanwhile, the only Conservative gain of the entire election came in Leicester East, apparently confirming the drift of the city’s Hindus towards the Tories.”
More pertinent to the election result was the presence on the ballot paper of the two previous Leicester East Labour MP’s, Claudia Webbe and Keith Vaz, both of whom had been suspended by the party at some point in their distinguished careers. In actual fact the Conservative share of the vote went down in Leicester East as it did around the whole country.
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Lovely area, Highfields. Perched above the city centre but within walking distance of there and Leicester University. Large park adjoining too.
in the mid 80s, small terraced houses were available for a song, yet easily sold thanks to arrivals. Don’t know what this article is actually about, but it’s not what it says on the tin.
If there’s now a ‘housing crisis’ it’s not just any government that’s brought that about. It’s the small state types who expect the market to sort everything out.
Those who don’t ‘like’ the concluding remark above nevertheless know it’s true.
Truly, a dystopian nightmare Britain is becoming.
All of the next generation of my extended family are struggling or struggled to find work. Even those who graduated university with honors. None are talking about children. Two decades ago I thought labour shortages coming with the aging population would give them abundant opportunities. I did not see or imagine that our political leaders would abandoned us through mass immigration. My family line is effectively being wiped out. I use tho poo poo the theory that we are being replaced until it became a lived reality. Where do we go from here? The only groups which claim to defend my family’s right to exist are the far right. They therefore have my support. Should white families like mine just accept this form of soft genocide?
Please be careful with terms like ‘far right’. Not sure what it means any more.
Why? All of it – why? To what end?
Liz Truss, really?
Why is an Indian taxi driver given right to remain. He will never contribute anything.
Too many people and too many who contribute nothing.
“the fact is that successive governments have rapidly increased the country’s population with no realistic plan for housing it”
…20 years of govts run by the ConLabLib uniparty. And nothing will change unless you vote them out. If you love your country vote Reform.
“Then again, I saw no signs of religious tension, with the exception of one angry diatribe about immigrants, and that came from an elderly Sikh man who had moved here in the Sixties.”
One morning when the recent riots were at their height, I ventured to my local shop, which is run by Pakistanis. As I paid for my shopping, the young man behind the counter looked at me carefully and asked “what is going on out there?” I decided not to mince my words, and replied “the UK has added 10m to its population in the last 25 years, and instead of addressing the impact on the indigenous White population of housing scarcity, overwhelmed public services, and squeezed C2DE wages, the authorities are treating White people as ignorant racist gammon and Karens, and they have reached the end of their tether, and the riots are the result.” To my surprise, instead of arguing with me, the young man agreed and started complaining – in his strong South Asian accent, mind – about immigrants taking jobs from him and his friends.
What a mess of an article. The vein that runs through it is “the government’s job is to fix the housing problem”. So the government, by allowing unchecked immigration – actually ramming it down the throats of residents – creates a demand for housing. Then the government steals residents’ money (through excessive taxes and devaluation of the pound through rampant money-printing) to “fix” the problem they created. And the author buys it completely.
I’m increasingly “questioning the narrative” in my mind at least. I was a little kid in 1960 but the radio was always on at our house,burbling away. I realise now that I was probably more aware of the adult political issues going on than most of my classmates at school. I don’t think that was good for me now but at least I’m equipped to recognise when established media is telling me a false narrative. I do not recall there being a shred of the idea that the new people coming here,from the Caribbean or from India were answering desperate appeals to save our societal infrastructure from collapse. I do know that in the Caribbean lots of government sponsored adverts promised good status,high wage jobs in Britain just waiting and needing to be filled. Most of those black men on the Windrush were coming to Britain to be engineers or architects,or accountants,or bank managers etc.
Jobs they had the education and skills for and that those ads implied were available. This is true.
So when they got here they found out they were here to be bus drivers,and even that with a struggle. I live in Bristol. The Indian newcomers mainly came to work in the mill towns at those looms and in the cloth trade. And once again I do believe government paid for adverts encouraged them to come. And the adverts were not asking them to selflessly and virtuously save the British economy. The adverts were implying that a better life with more money was waiting for them in Britain,and that was the draw. Now in the 2020s (and it’s only started recently) I’m hearing (on the BBC and other legacy media) that circa 1946 our post war government appealed to our colonies for the people there to come to Britain to save our isles,to fill all the empty jobs,left vacant by the war dead and revive our dead economy. No idea of money came into it. The appeal was to the nobility of spirit of brown skinned people uncorrupted by the decadence of higher education and they came here to SAVE US. Money was just not a factor. This is WHAT I AM BEING TOLD and it’s a lie. It’s not true. Anymore than those ads in the West Indies or India were true. As ever History is being rewritten to suit the agenda of the current masters of the universe.
Why don’t we all emigrate out of the country and then there’ll be plenty of housing for our replacements?