Bloody Foreigners

click here for more details, find new or used items	Robert Winder Our price £14.00 (£20.00) New from £7.95 Used from £6.95 Pages: 544 (Hardcover) ISBN: 0316861359 Pub: Little, Brown Pub date: 2004-05-20 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 102864

Reader Reviews:

Boring (1/3 people found this helpful)

A bit boring i gave up halfway through! Some of the references seem inaccurate also! Tries to put axcross the view that Britain was as diverse as it is now! Which is nonsense! You can't have large social goups occupying the same social construct and living in poverty without massive conflict (think former Yugoslavia!) Why do nations bother to exist in the first place ! But the author romantically brushes over this in order to support the view that the British are really just a bunch of foreigners! Little mention is made of the how Britain was formed into a nation through violent upheaval! Saxons, Romans, Normans all missing from this book!

Absolutely Brilliant - A MUST BUY!!! (1/4 people found this helpful)

This is a fascinating book mapping the story of immigration for the English people. It is informative, well written, balanced and stimulating. It informs and does not dictate. Winder judges fairly the story of immigration in a way I found a real insight. I SIMPLY COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. A must buy!!

More informed than the papers... but just as biased (4/10 people found this helpful)

This is a wide-ranging and generally well researched book which makes occasional attempts to be balanced however there are a number of factual inaccuracies which multiply as the book reaches modern times and Mr Winder wears his heart on his sleeve a little too openly. The newspapers routinely take a fact and extrapolate and exaggerate to suit their political view, unfortunately Mr Winder falls into the same trap and considerable caution should be exercised in taking too much as fact rather than political view. The story of the refugee touring the streets tugs at the heartstrings but is hardly what one might expect as evidence in volume which suggests it is a history book. More noticeable errors are the false distinction that is drawn between "refugee" and "asylum-seeker", there is no legal distinction; the legislation quoted is inaccurate, the first asylum legislation was not as late as 1996 as claimed; the impression that detention is only used against those refused asylum and only used from 1993 is wrong; the suggestion that asylum seekers were expected to complete a 20 page form without assistance is false - considerable legal assistance is provided to all refugees and often refugees will arrive with their lawyer already arranged. Some of this is myth, some poor research. Although immigration statistics are acknowledged to be unreliable they are regularly, if selectively, quoted where they support the author's point. Illegal immigration (non asylum) since the seventies cannot be quantified and consequently many of the statistics quoted must be highly suspect if not worthless, even where they are from official sources.

Some will find the sweeping statements such as "The cultural landscape of Britain would have been empty without migrant writers, musicians and sports stars." (page 408) to be as biased as the more lurid headlines in the less enlightened newspapers.

An interesting contribution but the immigration debate needs accuracy and less emotion if readers are to come to a properly informed conclusion of the benefits and costs.

Warts and all (4/4 people found this helpful)

Little has changed over hundreds of years - wouldn't you think that British politicians would have learned from our history? Everybody in public life should read it and consider how they would feel if they were at the receiving end of Britain's present immigration policies. We probably haven't treated immigrants any worse than any other country would in a similar position, but not better either. A sobering book that dampens all empty jingoism.

A brilliant history of immigration into Britain (38/39 people found this helpful)

A most impressive book, and beautifully written. Winder traces the story of immigrants into Britain - he deals mainly with England - from pre-Celtic times to the present. As the sources become more plentiful, so the book gathers momentum, and by the time he reaches the time of the Huguenot immigrants in the 17th century, it really begins to sparkle. As he moves from one wave of immigrants to the next, the story - until very recent times - is always the same: initially there is some popular resentment, but, often sooner rather than later, they have been accepted, do well and contribute enormously to the economy and quality of life in these islands. Many people will be aware of the variety of immigrants who have come to these shores; but this is a thorough and systematic account, based on a formidable amount of reading. It could have been a dry catalogue, but the story is captivatingly told: each time Winder explains the circumstances which caused a particular group to arrive, and innumerable stories of individuals are given with great verve and vividness: Huguenots from France; Dutchmen who came with William III; Germans who came with the Hanoverians and who continued to come in the 19th century; black people who originally came as servants and slaves; Italians who left a repressive and over-populated homeland; Irishmen who escaped the famine to work in the factories and on the canals and railways during the Industrial Revolution; Jews who fled from anti-Semitism in Russia and Germany; the Lascars from Asia who manned so many British ships; Greek and Turkish Cypriots who came in large numbers from their war-torn island; men from all over the Empire who had fought for Britain in the First World War; Poles during the Second World War; the Chinese from Hong Kong before the gates were shut to them by the Act of 1997 just before the territory was given up to China; Kenya and Uganda Asians whom Kenyatta and Idi Amin were throwing out. And there were of course the West Indians who came in large numbers during the time when all imperial subjects were given the right of free entry into Britain by the 1948 Nationality Act. That is where the trouble started: the numbers were now such that governments became alarmed, and much of the last third of the book catalogues the desperate but unavailing attempts of governments to stem the flow: from the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962 through to the chicaneries, incompetence and bureaucratic insensitivities of what Winder calls "the Asylum madness" from 1996 onwards. Winder leaves it an open question whether the government led or followed public opinion, though he leaves no doubt about the way a hostile public opinion was fanned by the press. It is in any case a disgraceful story, mitigated only by the fact that it was occasionally restrained by impulses of decency, which were also to be found in sections of public opinion. The huge increase in the number of people wanting to come to Britain undoubtedly created genuine problems, but, to give just a few of many examples, few people were aware that the immigrant population was contributing more in tax than it was receiving in benefit; that certain groups like the Indians were producing in proportion more professionals and successful businessmen than did the white population; and that a largely young group of immigrants for whose education Britain had not had to pay would contribute towards supporting the increasing number of pensioners. Winder's indignation about the sour attitudes towards the immigrants - not to mention the many race riots and racially motivated murders - is in no doubt; but he recognizes countervailing sentiments both inside and outside government. The fact remains that Britain remained a magnet for immigration even though the migrants knew what difficulties they would have to face. There are great many shrewd psychological and sociological comments throughout the book, and it ends with a superb and thoughtful chapter of reflections on what a multi-ethnic Britain could and should be like and what indeed in many ways is taking shape already: a Britain in which the question of "ethnic identity" dissolves and the people of Britain can "cohere around a lucid set of individual rights, so that the group to which any man, woman or child belongs is incidental rather than decisive."

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