Take more refugees and do it now

To anyone who doesn't carefully avert their eyes, the scenes from eastern Europe are harrowing.  It's not just fit young men trying to get into Europe: it's also families with young children and babies, surely only making this terrible journey because of terrifying conditions at home.

Do we really leave them to suffer and, in some cases, die?

People who have the determination, perseverance and pluck to undergo such dreadful hardships are a huge loss to their homelands.  They could, if only temporarily, prove great assets to us if we gave them the chance.

But ... but.

Refugees

But we have a shortage of houses already.  Where do they live?  But we have a struggling economy.  Can we support them?  But what if they include terrorists?  And many more buts.

Well, we do have quite a bit of accommodation in the UK.  It's not in the south, but these people aren't going to be commuting to work any time soon.  Place them where the accommodation is.

Not only that but as the government slims down, military bases (for example) are being closed.  House some refugees there: even (on a temporary basis) makeshift accommodation in a hanger or warehouse is better than being in a field in the rain.

And yes, we do have a tough economy so how can we afford them?  Well, let's take a billion pounds from the foreign aid budget and use it in the UK to build basic accommodation - even as basic as dormitories - where we need places to house these people.  Accept them on the basis that they will agree to learn to speak English and employ some more teachers to teach them; short term contracts for retired teachers, if necessary.  Many young graduates struggle to find work in the UK: offer one year contracts to young graduates to help refugees learn to live in a UK society with UK norms whether this is teaching, social work, counselling and therapy, language skills, UK history and simple things about just how the UK works because even in day-to-day terms it is far different from the middle east.  Another billion pounds going into the UK economy will help expand it, to everyone's advantage.

Give refugees a chance to contribute to the economy so they can help build it.  Offer them free flights home when conditions in their homeland permit.  Offer them the chance to work to become UK citizens if they wish.

But what of the evil people who try to get in among the mass of refugees?

Like the poor, the evil will always be with us.  There will be very few, however, among refugees.    Children aren't terrorists.  Desperate parents aren't terrorists nor likely to undermine a society which helps them escape their wretched plight.  For those few, those very few, who bite the hand that feeds them, we need quick justice: deport any convicted of serious crimes.  These will be very few however.  Imagine you had to flee your home and country with just what you could carry: would you attack a country that gave you refuge?

It's the British way to act carefully and this generally works well.  In this case we need act briskly; a contemplative approach will see many die during the winter.  20,000 refugees over five years is too little, too late: 100,000 over the next year is more like it.  We cannot take every refugee but our current approach is pitiful.  Here's how pitiful:

UK proposal: 20,000 over 5 years.
France: 24,000 over 2 years
Lebanon: 1.2 million refugees today
Germany: (proposed) 500,000 annually

Whether from the point of view of common humanity or self-interest, we should take a lot more refugees a lot sooner.

Make Pontificating History

Am I the only one to be annoyed by pointless and deceitful campaign slogans? Let's take just a few:

• Make Poverty History.
  
• Every Child Matters.
  
• Millenium Development Goals.
  
• Abolish Youth Unemployment.
  

All of these have good intentions, but all seem disconnected from reality.

Make Poverty History

Jesus himself said "The poor will always be with us". Now I am not making a case for abandoning the poor, but in reality throwing money at countries or organisations which have shown themselves quite incapable of handling it isn't going to help anyone, least of all the poor. The home page of MPH is full of loaded political terms and devoid of ideas that will solve poverty long term. In fact, some of the actions suggested are little more than a left-wing rant ("vulture funds" "climate debt"). The only way to have any chance of making poverty history is to build democratic and commercial systems where the rule of law drives government. Throwing funds at dysfunctional states will only serve to impoverish ourselves and encourage and enrich the corrupt.

Every Child Matters.
Of course every child matters. This programme seems to be mainly to do with "joined up government". Whenever I hear the words "joined up government" I know what it means: people doing only what's in the official procedure instead of using their God-given brains. Every Child Matters so children can't paddle in water. Every Child Matters so teachers can't put sunscreen on children in their care. Every Child Matters so don't let them learn about losing; rather let them learn that if they lose, then it must be somebody's fault.

If every child does matter, why don't we do more to teach children about the world as it is, full of opportunity but also subject to disappointment? If every child matters, why don't we do a better job of educating our children so they are better able to cope with life and succeed?

Millenium Development Goals

Among these are the goal to reduce maternal deaths by 75% by 2015. This is surely a worthy goal. But we need to understand that many or most of those deaths come about because of society and culture in poor countries. These issues include women having more children (and each pregnancy is a health risk), poor care before during and after birth, sexual violence and poor condom use. All of these will take a considerable time to fix: setting a goal of 2015 is unrealistic.

Abolish Youth Unemployment

The obvious question is: How? I don't know any country in the world where there is zero unemployment. Now of course, we could abolish youth unemployment by introducing some kind of national service but I suspect not too many people would find that acceptable (but who knows)?

...

The common problem with all of these is that they set out an aspiration that is unrealistic. When the goal is missed, as was bound to happen, this is often followed by a tirade against right wing politicians or capitalism or both which almost by definition are uncaring and therefore must be to blame.

And this is the biggest pity of all, because these aspirations are often worthy goals. If we could reject the rhetoric and set realistic goals we would achieve a great deal more for those who desperately need our help.

These matters are too important to fall prey to petty politics.