Bizarre populist claims disguise the paper's real concern - UKIP splitting the Tory vote.
“Mass immigration, the subject that dare not speak its name, has been all but airbrushed from this election, even by the Tories.”
That was the message on the front page of yesterday’s Daily Mail, in what must be among the most bizarre moments in a very odd election campaign.
For any one awake and literate (or semi-literate) over recent months, the claim that immigration is ‘the subject that dare not speak its name’ is enough to make one’s head spin.
The paper’s comment ran next to its report that among Tory voters in 2010 who plan to vote UKIP this year, 94 per cent named immigration as the reason for the switch.
The paper ran a rare full page editorial headed:
IMMIGRATION: It’s the issue of our time. So why is it being totally ignored by the major parties?
The piece calls on David Cameron to reassure these UKIP voters and urge them to ‘come home’ to the Tory party. Today the paper got it’s wish. The Mail’s front page screams:
MILIBAND WILL BRING BACK UNCONTROLLED MIGRATION
Cameron appears inside with his own full-page editorial doing just as the paper wanted. (Almost as if the whole thing was contrived by the Mail and Tory HQ…)
What makes this so surreal is the fact that everyone is talking about immigration. All the time.
It’s possible the Conservatives are keen to skirt over their missed ‘tens of thousands’ target, with immigration in the year up to September 2014 at 298,000. (In 2010 Cameron told voters: “If we don’t deliver our side of the bargain, kick us out in five years.”)
But the idea the subject has been put on the back burner is false.
Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband gave speeches in November and December respectively focussed solely on immigration.
‘Controls on immigration’ is one of the Labour party’s five election pledges. They even put it on a mug.
Miliband made a speech just last week on immigration arguing for tough controls and saying Labour would succeed where the Tories had failed.
And in March, UKIP, a party whose main election platform is reducing immigration, launched its campaign at the white cliffs of Dover with posters of escalators to show how easy it is for migrants to reach Britain. (I think they might regret that one in light of recent events.)
The recent deaths of hundreds of migrants crossing the seas to Europe have placed migration at the centre of public and political debate.
Today, as the Mail gives space to Tory propaganda attacking Miliband, the Labour leader is giving a speech on foreign policy with special attention on what to do about migration from Libya.
All this and more (newspaper stories, for example) about ‘the subject that dare not speak its name’!
Perhaps when the Daily Mail calls immigration the central issue in this election, what it means is the central issue for the Daily Mail, and for readers who might split the Tory vote.
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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41 Responses to “No talk of immigration? What planet is the Daily Mail living on?”
Guest
So you’re an ex-BNP voter, as you show from your spelling choices, voting for much the same policies.
Thanks!
Guest
I’m British.
And you managed to lose a comma in there, magically, to “prove” your “point”. Dishonest of you.
Jonathan Lunn
My ass. What British person endorses the mass immigration of 100,000s of people, the collapse of peoples wages and the millions in poverty in this country. I bet you are one of them immigrants that came here and within 2 month had a British Passport. That doesn’t make you English! You are obviously someone who gained from this corrupt system and have no empathy towards any REAL English people who are struggling. Selfish, that’s what you are.
Guest
Your ass what? You’re one, it seems.
As you engage in No True Scotsman, and blame the Other for everything.
I’m not you, but thanks for your projection – I’m British, born in Britain. I don’t like your kind of Little Englander, as you struggle with the millions you earn to lower wages and raise poverty, as you fight the evil trade and try and stop people fleeing you.
Selfish you say, selfish for the peons not to be worse off, to be corrupt like you.
Jonathan Lunn
The only thing I got from that is: 1. Your English is bad, 2. You are saying that I am blaming other people for problems that aren’t their fault and 3. That I am selfish and corrupt.
You said nothing about the poor people I spoke about, and the struggle of hard working families in this country. You also didn’t speak of the 100,000s of people flooding into this country. You just avoided talking about that and attacked me.
I don’t know what life you are living but you seem to be enjoying it and seem to have no care for other people. I’ll leave you to your little life. Goodbye.