JOHN HOWARD ON THE DAILY POLITICS TALKING SENSE ABOUT IMMIGRATION

I don't know if anyone watched the "DAILY POLITICS" programme today, with Andrew "WEETABIX HEAD" Neil, but my first disappointment was that Anita was ill and couldn't co-present the prog. However he did have a very interesting guest in John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister from 1996-2007.

The discussion that really interested me was between Howard and some Muslim woman whose name escapes me. The discussion was on immigration, which I believe was very tightly controlled in Australia when Howard was P.M. Anyway his argument was, (and I paraphrase) that people confused multi-culturism with multi-racism. When asked to expand, he explained that of course countries NEED people of talent as immigrants to their country and obviously they would be of DIFFERENT RACES but when they were admitted to a country they should EMBRACE THE HOST CULTURE and not retain, their own CULTURE.

This struck me as the most sensible statement I have ever heard anyone making about immigration. Of course we want to bring people to the U.K. who are persecuted in their own country or have skills that will be useful in our society, and I don't meant being nannies in London, but they should then try and learn English and the customs of the country they have been invited to join and not try TO CHANGE the country and initiate SHARIA LAW BY THE BACK DOOR.

If I went to a new country whether it was Australia, Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, I would not try to impose my Scottishness on that country but instead try to learn the language. I once bought an apartment in Spain many years ago and I learnt Spanish and tried to learn their customs although that was not really possible when you weren't living in the country full time. But at least I tried.

I hate to see Brits abroad living in Spain or France who insist on speaking English and they usually think the louder they speak the better the locals will understand them!