The Tories want to push through a bill which means tests the ability to bring a non-EU spouse and kids into the UK on a family visa. To bring over your wife you have to earn £18k, and to bring a wife plus three kids you will have to earn £27k. This even applies to British citizens born in the UK!

I can see the rationale for xenophobes targeting economic migrants who are seeking to bring their families over. I think such a rationale is despicable, and not just because I am an economic migrant, but at least I can follow the dots between the originating sentiment (‘They took our jobs!’) and misguided policy like the one above. But why target British citizens as well?

The only explanation I can think of is that the Tory party hates poor people. There is no other possible explanation for why they would introduce such a policy. Sure, the New Zealand national party might dislike poor people a little bit. Especially if they happen to be brown. Or yellow. But National are badgers on valium compared to the Tory party. Asset stripping tax cutting badgers on valium.

This Guardian column skewers the policy more wittily than I can. Which is to be expected, given it is by a comedian who happens to be the daughter of two migrants from Pakistan. An excerpt:

All my parents' relatives came here with nothing, with nowhere to live, let alone an £18,600 salary. Today most of them are millionaire businessmen in Birmingham and have contributed hugely to the economy by supplying kebabs to drunken people in the city centre on a Saturday night.

Friends don’t let friends vote Tory.

 

Letters of Note

I stumbled across Letters of Note today. Pretty much what it says in the title, a repository of letters by people who write good.

Imagine my delight at the following Bill Hicks letter, responding to an English priest's criticism of Hicks's Revelations TV special. That show is particularly profane, but the letter above is entirely clean, so please read the letter. And only look up the Revelations show if you are not easily offended.