Boris Johnson: Nigel Farage’s decision to blame M4 traffic on immigration is like ‘effluent’ and ‘sewage’

“Yeah, I heard this. Xenophobia is like sewage, it’s a natural concomitant of the human condition,” Mr Johnson said.

“We’ve got to manage it, we’ve got to dispose of it. It’s like effluent, it’s something that human beings naturally produce.”

Pushed on the comments by the show’s host Nick Ferrari, Mr Johnson said that immigration had been “massively” beneficial for London and the country but xenophobia reflected a wider fear of Otherness.

“It’s part of the way human beings are. I think there’s a natural sort of tendency to be alarmed about the Other, the alien,” he said.

“My view about the whole immigration is very, very clear. London has benefited massively from immigration; the country benefits massively from immigration, but people need to be British.

“They need to speak English, they need to be loyal to this culture, to this country, to our institutions, to our society, to the Queen, to the rule of law – all the things that make us British – a sense of humour, and not freaking out about traffic jams on the motorway.”

Mr Farage said over the weekend he was unable to attend a reception for 100 party supporters to meet the leader at Ukip’s first conference in Wales because of traffic on the M4.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday Politics Wales, Mr Farage said: “It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here – it should have taken three-and-a-half to four.

“That is nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a population that is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be.”

Boris Johnson: Nigel Farage’s decision to blame M4 traffic on immigration is like ‘effluent’ and ‘sewage’

“Yeah, I heard this. Xenophobia is like sewage, it’s a natural concomitant of the human condition,” Mr Johnson said.

“We’ve got to manage it, we’ve got to dispose of it. It’s like effluent, it’s something that human beings naturally produce.”

Pushed on the comments by the show’s host Nick Ferrari, Mr Johnson said that immigration had been “massively” beneficial for London and the country but xenophobia reflected a wider fear of Otherness.

“It’s part of the way human beings are. I think there’s a natural sort of tendency to be alarmed about the Other, the alien,” he said.

“My view about the whole immigration is very, very clear. London has benefited massively from immigration; the country benefits massively from immigration, but people need to be British.

“They need to speak English, they need to be loyal to this culture, to this country, to our institutions, to our society, to the Queen, to the rule of law – all the things that make us British – a sense of humour, and not freaking out about traffic jams on the motorway.”

Mr Farage said over the weekend he was unable to attend a reception for 100 party supporters to meet the leader at Ukip’s first conference in Wales because of traffic on the M4.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday Politics Wales, Mr Farage said: “It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here – it should have taken three-and-a-half to four.

“That is nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a population that is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be.”

Boris Johnson: Nigel Farage’s decision to blame M4 traffic on immigration is like ‘effluent’ and ‘sewage’

“Yeah, I heard this. Xenophobia is like sewage, it’s a natural concomitant of the human condition,” Mr Johnson said.

“We’ve got to manage it, we’ve got to dispose of it. It’s like effluent, it’s something that human beings naturally produce.”

Pushed on the comments by the show’s host Nick Ferrari, Mr Johnson said that immigration had been “massively” beneficial for London and the country but xenophobia reflected a wider fear of Otherness.

“It’s part of the way human beings are. I think there’s a natural sort of tendency to be alarmed about the Other, the alien,” he said.

“My view about the whole immigration is very, very clear. London has benefited massively from immigration; the country benefits massively from immigration, but people need to be British.

“They need to speak English, they need to be loyal to this culture, to this country, to our institutions, to our society, to the Queen, to the rule of law – all the things that make us British – a sense of humour, and not freaking out about traffic jams on the motorway.”

Mr Farage said over the weekend he was unable to attend a reception for 100 party supporters to meet the leader at Ukip’s first conference in Wales because of traffic on the M4.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday Politics Wales, Mr Farage said: “It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here – it should have taken three-and-a-half to four.

“That is nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a population that is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be.”

Boris Johnson: Nigel Farage’s decision to blame M4 traffic on immigration is like ‘effluent’ and ‘sewage’

“Yeah, I heard this. Xenophobia is like sewage, it’s a natural concomitant of the human condition,” Mr Johnson said.

“We’ve got to manage it, we’ve got to dispose of it. It’s like effluent, it’s something that human beings naturally produce.”

Pushed on the comments by the show’s host Nick Ferrari, Mr Johnson said that immigration had been “massively” beneficial for London and the country but xenophobia reflected a wider fear of Otherness.

“It’s part of the way human beings are. I think there’s a natural sort of tendency to be alarmed about the Other, the alien,” he said.

“My view about the whole immigration is very, very clear. London has benefited massively from immigration; the country benefits massively from immigration, but people need to be British.

Top immigraion lawyer uk is the one to call if you have questions about immigration laws.

“They need to speak English, they need to be loyal to this culture, to this country, to our institutions, to our society, to the Queen, to the rule of law – all the things that make us British – a sense of humour, and not freaking out about traffic jams on the motorway.”

Mr Farage said over the weekend he was unable to attend a reception for 100 party supporters to meet the leader at Ukip’s first conference in Wales because of traffic on the M4.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday Politics Wales, Mr Farage said: “It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here – it should have taken three-and-a-half to four.

“That is nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a population that is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be.”

Sending Putin the Elgin Marbles is barmy, but it’s what makes Britain great

Well, perhaps we are; and we must all hope that there is a sensible solution in the Ukraine. But how exactly does it constitute “putting pressure” on Putin to send him a masterpiece of Phidian sculpture? The British Museum is one of the very greatest in the world (if not the greatest, as I am sure its director, Neil MacGregor, would attest). The Duveen Galleries are the holy of holies, the innermost shrine of that cultural temple; and the river god Ilissus is one of the most fluid and extraordinary pieces of 5th-century Athenian sculpture.

Why send it abroad now? Why to Russia? Why Putin? The French have just decided not to send the Russians the warships they have built for them; and here we are, despatching a portion of the Elgin Marbles. It is hard, on the face of it, to see why there should be one rule for oil and gas companies, which are private businesses, and one for a museum that receives – rightly – substantial support from the taxpayer. If you were Putin, you might feel that this was a decidedly friendly gesture from the British Government – a calculated thawing in relations, an olive branch.

And there, I think, Putin would be completely wrong. I don’t believe for a minute that the Government plotted to send Ilissus to Russia. This is not an act of state; this is not some serpentine piece of British diplomacy, a surreptitious little bit of détente. This is what it looks like – a moderate shambles, in which the trustees of a national museum have taken a decision, at the urging of their flamboyant and enterprising director, which simply does not cohere with British foreign policy. And the decision, therefore, is all the more glorious – and all the more correct.

The idea of sending a piece of the Elgin Marbles to the Hermitage did not need to be cleared by government. The British Museum did not obtain prior government approval – and in that simple fact you have the difference between Britain and so many other countries on earth, and especially Russia. This is not a tyranny. We do not have power located in one place. We have and we protect an idea of cultural, artistic and intellectual freedom – and that is of immense economic value to this country.

We have more live-music venues in London than any other city on earth; we have twice as many theatres as Paris, and we will soon produce more TV and feature films than New York or even Los Angeles. One of the reasons for that global success is that politicians, by and large, do not interfere – except to encourage.

Can you imagine any other country where a national museum could take such a politically charged decision, without government knowledge and acquiescence? Greece? France? Russia? Don’t make me laugh. That is why good old George Clooney is so wrong in his plan to restore the marbles to the “Pantheon”, as he puts it (I think even M Vipsanius Agrippa would have had some trouble with that project, since the Pantheon is the wrong temple, in the wrong city, with the wrong architectural order).

That is why it is entirely fitting that the owl of Pallas should still haunt the squares of Bloomsbury. It is the British Museum’s freedom to loan Ilissus to Russia – even in this wretched period – that shows exactly why the Elgin Marbles belong and shall remain in London.

Indonesia adores the Brits, so why aren’t we trading there?

We saw dozens of kids wearing Premier League football sweaters: Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and so on. As I left the presidential palace a young chap came up to me and said: “I love your Royal family. God save the Queen!” They love the Beatles, sure; but they also love Coldplay and Adele, and modern British pop music is heard endlessly in their vast new shopping malls.

According to a recent survey of Indonesians, 69 per cent have positive feelings about the UK – interesting, when it is not at all obvious that 69 per cent of British people have positive feelings about Britain. Why do they like us? Search me, frankly. It may be that we are seen as a) not American and b) not Australian and c) the possessors of a pretty cool and groovy creative national brand.

At any rate, it is something good to build on. After all, Indonesia is a colossal market, and it’s going to be bigger. It is the powerhouse of the Asean countries, accounting for 40 per cent of the bloc’s economic might. The archipelago is vast – it stretches the same distance as London to Tehran. Indonesia has 242 million inhabitants, and will reach 280 million in the next 15 years, and economic growth has been ticking along at 6 per cent a year. According to the IMF, Indonesia will be the world’s fifth biggest economy by the year 2030. These are the consumers of the future – and they love British brands.

So you would expect British companies to be piling into the place, wouldn’t you? Which is why it is so disappointing to find that Indonesia is only the 46th biggest export market for British companies, and to find that Indonesian investment in Britain is minimal.

Yes, there are some heroic British firms that are out here – and going great guns. The malls are full of British retailers such as Marks & Spencer and Debenhams, and British oil companies, banks and insurers are also doing well.

But the country has a colossal need for new infrastructure, so you would have thought there was more of a market for British engineers and construction firms, for designers and consultants. One would have thought Indonesians would want more and more British luxury goods – from Range Rovers to Jermyn Street suitings.

What is holding us back? People have offered various suggestions. There is the perennial issue of bureaucracy and corruption. I talked to one British dynamo who imported hundreds of tons of potatoes all the way from Scotland – they have an increasing taste for chips – and he explained how the Indonesian phytosanitary inspectors had insisted on being flown all the way to Britain for two weeks, and hadn’t gone anywhere near the potato farm.

Well, if there is a problem with venal officials, then that is exactly the kind of problem that the Jokowi government is pledged to sort out. There is the complaint about lack of direct flights from London – and that will only be really resolved when we do what all the capitals in this region are doing, and build an airport that can cope with the needs of British business. There are complaints about the difficulty Indonesians have in getting visas to visit and study in Britain – and that certainly needs to be addressed.

But the final explanation I have been offered for these modest trade flows is the most disheartening – and one that I frankly refuse to accept. There are some who say that UK business just doesn’t have the same persistence as our rivals in Germany or America; that we have lost the buccaneering Stamford Raffles world view of our Victorian ancestors; that we are not prepared to take the long-term approach.

Can that be so? It is time to recognise that the world is mysteriously full of people who love all things British. We should help them buy British, too.

Give Ed Miliband a Darwin Award for his Emily Thornberry decision

A furious twitstorm blew up, as it does so often these days – like some summer squall in the Mediterranean: quick to rise, quick to die. Some people denounced her, some defended her. And yet still Emily might have survived; she might today be luxuriating in her position as shadow attorney general to others Attorneys at Law; she might never have been chased down her street by photographers; the name Emily Thornberry would still be relatively unknown, and not – as it is today – on the lips of every newspaper columnist, every broadcaster and everyone in the entire country who drives a white van or flies the England flag.

But then Ed Miliband stepped in. He ingeniously doused himself with petrol; he lit the match – and ka-boom: there he is, with staring panda eyes and frazzled hair, and the entire Labour Party looking on in amazement at the destruction. He fired Emily; indeed he is said to have lost his cool altogether and actually shouted at the woman.

This tells us several important things about his leadership, and about the Labour Party under Miliband. The first is that he is prone to panic under pressure – and that is in itself a reason why he should not be prime minister. The second is that he clearly can’t think straight. By sacking Emily Thornberry so violently, he has emphatically and publicly endorsed the real meaning of her tweet.

Rachel Reeves and other ministers have been lining up to support this interpretation – that Thornberry was being snooty about that home in Rochester, and of course they are right. She was indeed being snobbish and condescending. She was showing her Twitter followers that house in order to belittle it and make fun of it.

When Emily Thornberry looks at a white van, she ought to see the people who make this economy go, the grafters and the entrepreneurs who comprise a huge proportion of the GDP of the South East. These are the people any government should want to help and support – by cutting their taxes, for instance, or helping them with a diesel scrappage scheme so that they can buy less polluting vehicles.

If you own a white van, you have worked to buy a vital asset; you are more likely to be helping others into employment; and yet Thornberry looks at a white van and sees only an enemy – a cultural enemy.

She doesn’t care much about small businesses and their problems, and in her experience too many white van men have unacceptably Right-wing views. And what does she see in those England flags? She should see an innocent symbol of patriotism, and love of our country – its language and history and institutions, its Royal family and its countryside, pubs, Shakespeare, football, fish and chips, you name it.

But that is not what Emily sees. She sees the dreaded flag of pot-bellied, immigrant-bashing lager louts. She sees the kind of flag that Labour councils have tried in the past to ban from public buildings; she sees a symbol of deplorable nationalism and jingo.

As for the house itself – what does Emily see? She should see a tribute to the efforts of the homeowner, someone who has worked not just to own the place but also to ensure that its architectural features somehow reflect his or her personality. Of course she sees no such thing – only a reminder of the achievement of her bête noire, Mrs Thatcher, who mobilised people to buy their own home.

Mrs Thornberry’s tweet was superbly eloquent of everything that is wrong with the modern Labour Party – a party that is all too obviously full of middle-class lawyers like her, who secretly disdain hard‑working, George Cross-waving white van men. But she might have got away with it; she might have been able to fudge it and keep her head down until the twitstorm passed, and then claim that it had all been grievously misunderstood.

Well done Ed, for so brutally confirming the truth about what Labour really thinks. Give that man a Darwin Award.

Dr Matt Taylor’s shirt made me cry, too – with rage at his abusers

It may be that we can learn some more about the role of comets in transporting ice, and therefore water, through the heavens – and there are some who have speculated that we have comets to thank for the existence of the oceans on our planet.

At this very moment the scientists will be beginning to process the data – to understand more about the elements, the minerals, the isotopes, the molecules. There may be clues about our past and pointers to our future.

This mission is a colossal achievement. Millions of us have been watching Philae’s heart-stopping journey. Everyone in this country should be proud of Dr Taylor and his colleagues, and he has every right to let his feelings show.

Except, of course, that he wasn’t crying with relief. He wasn’t weeping with sheer excitement at this interstellar rendezvous. I am afraid he was crying because he felt he had sinned. He was overcome with guilt and shame for wearing what some people decided was an “inappropriate” shirt on television. “I have made a big mistake,” he said brokenly. “I have offended people and I am sorry about this.”

I watched that clip of Dr Taylor’s apology – at the moment of his supreme professional triumph – and I felt the red mist come down. It was like something from the show trials of Stalin, or from the sobbing testimony of the enemies of Kim Il-sung, before they were taken away and shot. It was like a scene from Mao’s cultural revolution when weeping intellectuals were forced to confess their crimes against the people.

Why was he forced into this humiliation? Because he was subjected to an unrelenting tweetstorm of abuse. He was bombarded across the internet with a hurtling dustcloud of hate, orchestrated by lobby groups and politically correct media organisations.

And so I want, naturally, to defend this blameless man. And as for all those who have monstered him and convicted him in the kangaroo court of the web – they should all be ashamed of themselves.

Yes, I suppose some might say that his Hawaii shirt was a bit garish, a bit of an eyeful. But the man is not a priest, for heaven’s sake. He is a space scientist with a fine collection of tattoos, and if you are an extrovert space scientist, that is the kind of shirt that you are allowed to wear.

As for the design of the garment, I have studied it as closely as the photos will allow, and I can’t see what all the fuss is about. I suppose there are women with long flowing hair and a certain amount of décolletage. But let’s not mince our words: there are no nipples; there are no buttocks; there is not even an exposed midriff, as far as I can see.

It’s the hypocrisy of it all that irritates me. Here is Kim Kardashian – a heroine and idol to some members of my family – deciding to bust out all over the place, and good for her. No one seeks to engulf her in a tweetstorm of rage. But why is she held to be noble and pure, while Dr Taylor is attacked for being vulgar and tasteless?

I think his critics should go to the National Gallery and look at the Rokeby Venus by Velázquez. Or look at the stuff by Rubens. Are we saying that these glorious images should be torn from the walls?

What are we all – a bunch of Islamist maniacs who think any representation of the human form is an offence against God? This is the 21st century, for goodness’ sake. And if you ask yourself why so few have come to the defence of the scientist, the answer is that no one dares.

No one wants to take on the rage of the web – by which people use social media to externalise their own resentments and anxieties, often anonymously and with far more vehemence than they really intend. No one wants to dissent – and no wonder our politics sometimes feels so sterilised and homogenised.

There must be room in our world for eccentricity, even if it offends the prudes, and room for the vague other-worldliness that often goes with genius. Dr Taylor deserves the applause of our country, and those who bash him should hang their own heads and apologise.

Scrapping grammar schools was a ‘real tragedy’ for Britain, Boris Johnson says

“They work very well in many areas and they should be supported. I think that the decision to get rid of them was a real tragedy for this country.”

Mr Johnson said he did not support bringing back grammar schools with “brutal” academic tests for children aged 11, but added: “What I think you could do is have a greater degree of academic competition, academic selection, at various stages in a child’s development.”

“There are ways of doing that, I think, which wouldn’t be hurtful to people, which wouldn’t make them feel like failures, but which would spur competition and get better performance out of our schools.

“And so the principle of academic selection is I’m afraid is not one that we should jettison.

The London Mayor also failed to match Nigel Farage’s decision to go on the popular TV show Gogglebox, which relays footage of families across the country watching television.

The UK Independence Party leader is to appear alongside one of the programme’s most well known couple for a special episode, it has emerged.

Asked if he would be interested in going on Gogglebox, Mr Johnson replied: “What is Gogglebox?” When pushed, he failed to commit to an appearance.

Scrapping grammar schools was a ‘real tragedy’ for Britain, Boris Johnson says

“They work very well in many areas and they should be supported. I think that the decision to get rid of them was a real tragedy for this country.”

Mr Johnson said he did not support bringing back grammar schools with “brutal” academic tests for children aged 11, but added: “What I think you could do is have a greater degree of academic competition, academic selection, at various stages in a child’s development.”

“There are ways of doing that, I think, which wouldn’t be hurtful to people, which wouldn’t make them feel like failures, but which would spur competition and get better performance out of our schools.

“And so the principle of academic selection is I’m afraid is not one that we should jettison.

The London Mayor also failed to match Nigel Farage’s decision to go on the popular TV show Gogglebox, which relays footage of families across the country watching television.

The UK Independence Party leader is to appear alongside one of the programme’s most well known couple for a special episode, it has emerged.

Asked if he would be interested in going on Gogglebox, Mr Johnson replied: “What is Gogglebox?” When pushed, he failed to commit to an appearance.

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