By Isle of Wight Observer
According to Professor Brian Cox, our galaxy alone has over 400 billion stars, which means life certainly exists on other planets.
These extra-terrestrial life forms are unlikely to be anything like ours; they’re probably just microbes, not the little green men of science fiction. That’s disappointing because, if ET existed, we would probably all enjoy meeting him. Now that’s odd – because few of us seem to have any desire to meet the 184 million people here on planet Earth displaced from their birth country.
For evolutionary reasons, humans always feel threatened by incomers, because we believe they will diminish our own lives.
I just tuned in to the BBC’s Today programme, and migration was under discussion. Auntie’s ultra-woke journalists mentioned the 4,000 unfortunate souls who crossed from Calais last month, and the 18,000 who’ve arrived so far this year. Did you know our £6 million daily hotel bill is being paid from the foreign aid budget? Is that fair? Does it mean India will struggle to land any more rockets on the moon from our taxes? And why spend so much on hotel rooms anyway – surely Baroness Mone isn’t supplying them at inflated prices? Maybe the Home Office could ask Sir Lenny Henry for some Premier Inn rooms; the ads say they only cost ‘from’ £20.
The extra-long inflatable dinghies arriving on our shores are usually full of single young men. You see very few women or children pictured. I’ve been around boats most of my life, and I’ve yet to see any boat resembling the kind that people smugglers use. They must be specially made for the purpose, so why not trace the manufacturers? Requiring buyers of mega-inflatables to produce some ID before purchase would also be a good idea. The law says any boat sold here must be EU-compliant. They need a serial number and the name of the manufacturer. So why can’t the gendarmes go and feel some collars at local boat shops or marine suppliers, and earn some of the money we pay them?
The desperate Afghan family I heard on Radio 4 said that, after faithfully serving the British army, they’d fled their country. You didn’t need to join the dots; it was all laid out, and tugged at the heartstrings. Dramatically, the family added they’d rather risk their children drowning in the Channel than be shot by the Taliban. Powerful stuff, but no one asked them about the chances of being shot in Calais. Naturally, I didn’t hear any single young men being interviewed either.
Our little Rishi pays the French government a fortune to “stop the boats” and they seem to be laughing at him. Could it be a case of better here than (still) over there? After all, the French do have far more migrants than we do. If the will is there, how hard can it be to spot a 30ft inflatable on a beach? The French coastline is long, but the only bit of interest to people smugglers gives access to the Dover Strait, and that is not very long at all.
Once afloat, even if they’re only in a foot of water, the police won’t prevent the migrants from leaving their shoreline. They claim that’s for fear of capsizing them. Can you imagine the authorities doing the same with a RIB full of Class A drugs down at Compton?
I have sympathy for anyone trying to move for a better life, the most determined human beings have always done so. But for the good of all, migration must be controlled – and the Tories aren’t doing it.
I’m afraid no one here on planet Earth has a clue about how to do it fairly. Certainly not Rishi or Keir – and probably not even Brian Cox.