Blair flunks his 20 questions

[emad]

As Tony Blair was reduced to near-incoherence by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight, blow by blow, we look at the painful inquisition:
Jeremy Paxman: Can you tell us how many failed asylum seekers there are in this country?


Tony Blair: No, I can't be sure of the numbers of, of people who are er, illegals in this country. For the same reason that the previous government couldn't. Erm, what I can say is that the asylum system has been toughened up and tightened up hugely, and according to the United Nations Commission for Refugees, and not us, asylum figures have fallen by more than a half in the past two or three years.

JP: Can you give us a rough idea of how many there may be?

TB: (There's no) point in speculating on that. What I do know is that...

JP: Is it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. Millions?

TB: I've said, I don't think there's any point in speculating...

JP: But you have no idea?

TB: ...Well it's not a question of having no idea.

JP: Well what is your idea Prime Minister?

TB: What, what you. Hang on, what you can say is, how people are applying for asylum, month by month. How many people are you removing...

JP: Prime Minister...

TB: ... and what is the backlog, and we are dealing with all of those issues.

JP: Prime Minister, you have really no idea of how many failed asylum seekers there are illegally in this country?

TB: I can't...

JP: You don't know?

TB: ... because people are here illegally...

JP: You don't know?

TB: ... it is difficult, for the very reason that...

JP: You don't know?

TB: Hang on, for the very reason that the previous government gave, you cannot determine specifically how many people are here illegally.

JP: You have no idea?

TB: What you can say is, here are the number of people that are actually currently applying for asylum...

JP: Yes.

TB: This is the backlog of claims that you're dealing with. And these are the people who are being removed from the country.

JP: Do people not come to you and say, we think Prime Minister there may be a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand or fifty thousand, or five hundred thousand?

TB: We it, they, they don't come and say that, what they...

JP: So you have no idea?

TB: No, hang on a minute. You have an idea of the numbers that are claiming, the backlog, and the numbers that are being removed. Some of those asylum seekers when they fail, and their claim fails, they will go back voluntarily. Now, in the long term...

JP: What's your working assumption?

TB: I don't make a working assumption, what I do is I concentrate on the bits that are absolutely vital to concentrate on, which is - hang on, just let me finish, which is the numbers who are coming in, the numbers we're removing and the backlog. The only long-term way of dealing with this issue however, is to introduce the proper controls of borders through an electronic visa regime, and the other thing is identity cards.

JP: Does the fact that you're unable or unwilling to tell us indicate that you have in fact lost control of our borders?

TB: No, it doesn't indicate that cos no government has ever been able to say that. What you are able to say, however, is here are the measures that we're taking to control it properly, to deal with the abuses, and you are also able to say, which I can say to you very clearly, cos we keep the proper statistics of this, is the numbers that are claiming now and the numbers that we're removing, and the way to get asylum figures down, so that it's only genuine refugees you're taking is, is to do precisely what we've done. Clean up the system, remove the, the tiers of appeal, make sure that people can't destroy their documentation when they come here and improve the removal system. We're doing all of those things.

JP: And just one final time. You have no figure that you can give us for the number of refused asylum seekers who are in this country?

TB: I'm giving you the information that I've got, and I've answered that question...

JP: A figure, you can't give us any kind of figure.

TB: The, the reason is because some people will return after their asylum claim has failed.

JP: Right.

TB: So, what you can say...

JP: So you have no idea?

TB: Well it's, what you have is an idea of the numbers that are coming in and claiming, and the numbers that you're removing. Now, those are the two important things to concentrate on.

JP: Well, what is that number?

TB: The numbers that are coming in now, it's fallen to just over about two thousand a month who are claiming asylum, and that's down from at its height it was round about eight thousand a month. And actually, that is lower than the figure in, in March 1997.

JP: But it gives us no indication of the backlog of course.

TB: Well, no sorry, it does give me an indica...

JP: No it doesn't.

TB: No, no - no Jeremy, excuse me. You can say what the backlog is of claims. The backlog of claims I think is down to round about ten thousand, that's down from sixty thousand that we inherited, right. In respect of removals, there were one in five asylum seekers who failed, were being removed. It's now half of them that are being removed.

JP: All right. Let's look at...

TB: And the answer that I have given to you on the numbers of illegals here, is precisely the answer we have always given, and the last government gave.

JP: Although you've not given us a number.

TB: Well I, I - I've just explained to you why it's impossible to do that...

JP: Well all right..

TB: ...but what you can do is give numbers for the other things.

JP: Let's look at economic migrants. Is there an upper limit to the number who should be allowed into this country?

TB: Well there's a, a, an arbitrary limit or a quota in my view, but there's going to be a limit set by what your economy needs.

JP: Well what does our economy need?

TB: And the points. And the points system that we, we're introducing will make sure that only people get work permits, who actually come in...

JP: Well...

TB: ... and we need for our economy.

JP: What does our economy need?

TB: Well, at the moment, I think - well, I, I haven't got the exact figure off the top of my head but I think it's round about a hundred and thirty thousand come in with work permits, but most of those people will come in, work for a time, and go again.

JP: Your previous Home Secretary, David Blunkett, told us that he saw no obvious upper limit.

TB: No, what he's saying is exactly the same as me. There's no point in setting an - the Tories say, you set a quota and what they say is that parliament will set the quota. Supposing you get a major company that says they need someone to come in from abroad for a short time. Why, why shouldn't you have them in? The point is to make sure that you have strict controls that mean the only people your economy needs to come in to this country...

JP: But you have predictions of the economic growth of this country. You know roughly what's going to happen with the labour market. Why are you so shy of just putting a rough figure on it?

TB: Well you can take the figures now. I don't think the figures on work permits have changed that much in the past erm, few years. But the reason I shouldn't put a figure on it, is that I don't run every business in the country.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/elections2005.html?in_page_id=1853&in_article_id=345787

[thereismore]

1. An enjoyable intercourse. Where are reporters with guts this side of the

Atlantic?

[emad]

4. Yep. Paxo sure screwed Poodle. His veins were bugling on his

forehead as he got grilled about the WMD fantasy and asked why anyone should ever trust him again.

Best bit was when he was aked if he believed condoms stop spread of Aids.

he said Yes.

Paxman then said: "Are you going to tell this to the Pope?"

Poodle just choked and said No....

[American in Asia]

12. sad, isn't it??

These days I find myself wishing we had our own version of Question Time. Can you imagine Bush standing there being grilled by the likes of Kerry and Boxer? His head would explode! In all seriousness - if we want to stop electing dumbasses, maybe it would be helpful if someone started asking these guys tough questions. The idiots wouldn't last long, at least!

[Jo March]

2. "It's not a question of where he grips it!"

All I could think of was that exchange in The Holy Grail about the birds and the coconuts. :rofl:

[SweetLeftFoot]

3. Not as bad

As Michael Howard refusing to answer Jeremy Paxman's question 13 times in a row.

[pie]

5. That is actually painful to read

It makes Blair look like a complete fool

[gratuitous]

6. Holy socks!

A journalist who asks a question and insists on an answer rather than simply accepting whatever talking point the official wants to give? What is the world coming to, and can you imagine the chaos in the United States if our journalists started doing the same thing?

This man Paxman must be stopped!

[burn the bush]

11. he would have been tackled and carried away by HLS if that was here

"Dubya already answered the question and Dubya don't chew his cabbage twice reporter. Off to jail for you."

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Actually he has a point, one that I've wondered about for years.

"Undocumented" means there is no documentation. So how do we know that there are millions of illegals in this country, as opposed to hundreds or tens of thousands?

They guestimate by the numbers that are picked up at the border. But do they really know that they are catching one in a hundred rather than one in ten? And if they go by just numbers, do they count the guy who is caught 5 times as one person or as 5 people?

Blair is unwilling to be pinned down and admit that there is no good way to count the uncounted. But the question is valid. What is the basis for the claim that there are millions of illegals? Didn't the Minutemen spot only ten percent of what they expected in what is supposed to be the highest traffic area on the border?

How much of the illegal immigrant crisis is just whopped up by the administration?

[emad]

8. Last week Sunday Times said Foreign Office statistics said

500,000 was a conservative estimate of illegal immigrants who had escaped the cops' net.

[emad]

9. "From the Toil of the Sun" - Nostradamus prophecy re last Pope:

'The Sun' comes out for Labour and salutes Blair's 'courage' over Iraq
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor


21 April 2005


The Sun newspaper came out for Labour last night in a further boost for Tony Blair's campaign.

Trevor Kavanagh, the political editor of The Sun, made it clear that support for the war on Iraq on the part of owner, Rupert Murdoch, had been decisive in ensuring the newspaper gave its backing Mr Blair over the Tories for the third successive election.

"We believe that Tony Blair deserves credit for a number of things," Kavanagh said. "He and Gordon Brown have managed to give us a stable economy and ... to get people off welfare into work. And most important - Iraq. We think he deserves credit for his courage in backing America and going to war in Iraq."

The Sun famously opposed Neil Kinnock in 1992. Following John Major's unexpected victory, the newspaper declared: "It's The Sun wot won it!"

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=631711

[mrfrapp]

10. RealVideo

This interview can be streamed from the BBC website.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/newsnight_election_2005/4421655.stm