..Someone wittier than me once remarked, 'Immigration is the
sincerest form of flattery.'
..Currently there are a number of Gypsies trying to enter Britain
because they are the victims of persecution in Europe, in particular the Czech Republic.
Heartbreakingly, they believe - as in the past they would have been right to believe - that in
England they will find a happy land of tolerance and decency. Most of them aren't being allowed in,
and those who are will shortly be kicked out, primarily because Jack Straw is afraid they'll shit on his patio.
Those who remain here for the time being are branded as parasites by tabloid
hacks who don't have enough dignity to beg.
Now William Hague has gone barking mad and declared that the Romanies and other
asylum seekers must be kept in concentration camps, or immediately repatriated to countries
he deems safe, such as the Czech Republic. (Previously Hague's wry humour and calm common
sense have been a nice antidote to Blair's ranting hysteria. One wonders why he has
suddenly chosen to abandon that and attempt to out-Nazi the New Labour Nazis, the Nazi
Nazi pigfaces. Theory one: he is receiving deliberately bad advice from Tory Party
strategists who
secretly want Bonnie Prince Portillo as leader and are positioning Hague as a frothing
nutjob so that that preening hidalgo will seem reasonable by comparison. Theory two: he
has a brain tumour the size of a grapefruit.) Meanwhile the Kosovan refugees we took in
are being forcibly repatriated to a land which is in a state of murderous anarchy.
..The time was when the British used to open our arms to persecuted
people. In the past Britain grew rich economically and culturally by welcoming in all the
smart and sensitive people who had been kicked around by the nasty brutish Europeans. Nowadays
we make meaningless political gestures like proposals for a Holocaust remembrance day, while
stigmatizing and victimizing living survivors of tyranny.
..The Gypsies are a cultured, sensitive lot who get the crap
kicked out of them all over the wonderful new Europe precisely because they are so meek and
gentle.
..Gypsies have been part of the fabric of English life for centuries.
They are a joyous, life-affirming people - ordinarily something that would be a strike against
them in my book, but I happen to fancy their women. The ones who look like Sophia Loren
or Jennifer Jones, I mean, and dance and have catfights around campfires, or flit around
mysteriously on windswept moors. Any Gypsies answering this description are welcome to
come and live in my garden.
..Michael Kelly's Page of Misery says: Let the Gypsies in now.
..Failing that, an independent Gypsy homeland must be established.
It will have to be a mobile homeland, of course: a caravan the size of Luxemburg which will
roam around Europe pulled by two immense horses.
Furthermore, a Gypsy curse should be placed on Jack Straw and William Hague so
that they become three inches high. They can do it, you know.
(PS, added in and at a more cynical age:
please note this was posted in 2000.
And while I mostly stand by it, be it noted that it says to let gypsies in, and smart and
sensitive people,
not Somalian gunmen, or theocratic terrorists,
or bloody lepers, they'll be next. It largely does
just apply to pretty gypsies. In particular the ones with horsies and violins and mystic
powers. And yes, yes, it's a small island and I suppose we can't fit everyone in.
But if we kicked out the population of, say, Wrexham, we could easily have room for a few more
gypsies.
And lucky heather is good for the economy, has to be.
Besides I don't see many native birds queueing up to fill all the vital
flitting-around-on-moors positions, or dance on my lawn.)