Last night's Newsnight did a short segment on immigration in Boston, Lincolnshire. It showed a series of vox pops collected on a bus and (I think) at an exercise class. All the people were white and (I think) over 50, probably over 60. The commentary said that there one in ten people in Boston were immigrants. All the people said that 'immigration' was too much/too many. The commentary didn't question this in any way and of course neither showed anyone in Boston who disagreed with this view, nor - heaven forbid - one of the immigrants because as in all these scenarios, they are not 'people in Boston'. The commentary and the presentation always, always 'others' the immigrant, so the immigrant doesn't have attitudes (or if the immigrant does, it is entirely irrelevant).
Then we cut to a farmer standing in the middle of an empty field. He said that he needed labour on his farm at picking/harvesting time and was worried about where this would come from.
End of sequence.
So we are left with a view of immigration now and in the future that it's universally awful and opposed; that what immigrants think is irrelevant; that there is possibly a 'need' for immigration if only we could find a way to tidy immigrants into 'seasons' or bus them in for particular jobs and then tell them to bugger off.
Nice.
