The perils of immigration

Wasn’t there some hyperbolic mush from the Conservatives about immigrants bringing in diseases a few years back? I can’t be bothered doing the three minutes of googling to find out the exact details, but I’m pretty sure I remember Michael Howard or one of the other shadow ministers arguing that we should start screening people for TB and the like…

Turns out they were right.

In a way. One of the most potentially devastating diseases in recent decades could have been brought here by a migrant according to the BBC.

A dead swan found in Fife which tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been identified by scientists as a whooper swan.

The breed originates from outside the UK but it was unclear whether the bird, which has been subjected to DNA tests, picked up the disease abroad.

Y’see! You start letting these foreigners in willy-nilly and the next thing you know we’re back to the times of the plague. It’s not really Johnny (or should that be “Swanny”) foreigners fault – its just that the countries they come from don’t have the same level of hygienic awareness that we do: no Oust to realise delicate freshness, no quilted toilet paper, no scented candles to make bathing an almost transcendental experience. It’s worse than the average Weatherspoons toilet over there.

Just because you're paranoid...

I was just polishing off a rather lengthy post about the whole British spies in Russia story when my computer froze up and I lost the whole thing. Highly suspicious if you ask me!

My original post was witty, insightful and really got to the heart of the matter. The gist of it was (I can’t be bothered re-typing it) that it’s essentially a non-story. We spy on them, they spy on us, everyone spies on everyone. It’s the nature of international politics. The only reason it’s got the decent amount of press attention that it has is because it involves bugging-devices hidden inside fake rocks. Which sounds like something out of espionage movie.

The Russian government has to express indignation, but won’t make a big deal out of it, otherwise they’d jeopardise their relationship with the UK and the intelligence network they no doubt have set-up over here.

(If you ask me, my mistake was to use Google to look up MI6’s budget)