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Letters: Migrants help the economy, councillor; missing the point on civic pride
It is one thing for Cllr Fitzgerald to reply to my letter (“Costly stunts do not instil civic pride”, ET Letters, February 2), even though he did so employing the methods of distortion and misrepresentation, but quite another to use that as an excuse to attack migrant workers.
In his response, he claimed that the reason we have too few school places and “overflowing doctors’ surgeries and hospital waiting rooms”, as well as “stresses and strains on just about every other public service you can name here in Peterborough”, is because of “unprecedented and uncontrolled numbers of immigrants” coming to the UK.
Now, I am fully aware that xenophobes and racists are strangers to the truth, but I would have hoped that Cllr Fitzgerald would have been familiar with the ample evidence (produced in recent years by the Government, the TUC, universities and others) to confirm that immigrants to the UK are net contributors to the economy, and that their contribution outstrips any increased costs to public services.
Indeed, many of those migrant workers are employed in the public services, where, without their hard work and commitment, the problems would be much greater.
The real problem, however, is that governments and councils have failed to ensure the proper funding and development of those services, preferring instead to trust the anarchy of the market to provide for people’s needs.
(And, yes, Cllr Fitzgerald, things are changing in the NHS. The process of privatisation is under way, services are becoming increasingly restricted, and the hated PFI – which your party introduced – has saddled hospitals, such as Peterborough City Hospital, with crippling debt.)
The history of the UK is a history of migration, including the Irish workers who contributed to building the railways, and those from the Commonwealth who came in the 1950s and helped keep the NHS and public transport functioning.
It is particularly disturbing, therefore, that an international survey of eight European and North American countries, published in 2011, showed that the British were more hostile to immigration than any of the other countries, despite the evidence that public services and employment levels were not adversely affected by immigration, and that population concentration was higher in a place like the Netherlands than in the UK.
Unfortunately, the comments of people such as Cllr Fitzgerald sponsor misinformed and potentially dangerous attitudes and offer comfort to groups such as the racist EDL and BNP.
If Cllr Fitzgerald cannot base his remarks on the readily available evidence, it would perhaps be better if he said nothing at all.
Ron Graves
President
Peterborough Trades Union Council
I carefully read the letter from Councillor Wayne Fitzgerald replying to Ron Graves’ letter about civic pride and found myself wondering how he had managed to use so many column inches and still miss the point.
For example, parts of Peterborough are far from clean, being strewn with rubbish, and just last week, the ET reported that Claire Johnstone had been sleeping in her car, because her home was infested with rats! There are also places where I would not feel comfortable to be going on my own at night, due to things like poor lighting and the absence of police patrols. Also, Mr Graves was right to point out that there are problems with the health service. Yes it is still “free at the point of use”, but it is becoming more difficult to access and in the last few days we have all heard the reports of appointments, including operations, suddenly being cancelled at Peterborough City Hospital.
I also noted that Councillor Fitzgerald used a lot of his long letter to go on about patriotism and even signed his letter with “Proud to stand for Queen and Country”. What did that have to do with anything Mr Graves had written? I don’t recall him saying anything at all about patriotism. Didn’t “Red Ron” end his letter by saying that he was writing about making a city we could all be proud to live in?
M. Walker
Peterborough
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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