This is fascinating. You can read the full text of the speech and find much to disagree with, but it’s still a great leap forward.

Blair: Paying religious groups is a mistake

By Philip Johnston, December 8, 2006

Tony Blair formally declared Britain’s multiculturalist experiment over today as he told immigrants they had “a duty” to integrate with the mainstream of society.

Tony Blair today
‘No culture or religion supercedes our duty to be part of the UK’

In a speech that overturned more than three decades of Labour support for the idea, he set out a series of requirements that were now expected from ethnic minority groups if they wished to call themselves British.

These included “equality of respect” - especially better treatment of women by Muslim men - allegiance to the rule of law and a command of English. If outsiders wishing to settle in Britain were not prepared to conform to the virtues of tolerance then they should stay away.

He added: “Conform to it; or don’t come here. We don’t want the hate-mongers, whatever their race, religion or creed.

No apologies to Enoch Powell or others who predicted these problems, though.

…in Jeff Randall’s wastebasket. Any card that says “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” gets tossed.Randall writes in Britain’s Daily Telegraph [ Christmas: crucified by do-gooders, December 8, 2006 ] that this mild form of protest is about

resisting those who seem hell bent on turning Christianity into a crime.

In the United Kingdom, this time of year is a Christian festival — as it should be. It is part of our heritage. You don’t have to be a fire-and-brimstone evangelist to respect a faith that still underpins traditional British values and institutions, even though much of its spiritual message was lost long ago in a fog of consumerism. Jettisoning Christmas-less cards is my tiny, almost certainly futile, gesture against the dark forces of political correctness. It’s a swipe at those who would prefer to abolish Christmas altogether, in case it offends “minorities”. Someone should tell them that, with only one in 15 Britons going to church on Sundays, Christians are a minority.

None of the Christmas-less cards that I have received came from a PC nutter. A few were from good friends and business acquaintances. But I rejected them anyway.

He reports that yes, there is a War On Christmas in Britain

But what I found so shocking this week was a survey from a law firm, Peninsula, revealing that three out of four British employers have banned conventional Christmas decorations, lest they offend employees of other faiths. Bosses, the report said, are worried that they could be — wait for it — sued if they were to allow displays of Christian joy, but not those of other religions.

Randall lays the blame on “white, middle-class do-gooders “ who cringe before every religion and culture but their own

No, it’s not the Muslims, Jews or Hindus who are behind the drive to secularise Christmas. They are not the culprits. The presence of a small cross round the neck of a British Airways check-in staff member does not prompt them to scream in protest, vomit in the aisle or rush for a transfer to another carrier. On the whole, they couldn’t care less. The demons in this horror story of crucifying Christmas are white, middle-class do-gooders whose assumption of a superior morality is as disgraceful as it is disgusting. They are busybodies, obsessed with forcing on us their vacuous “ethical” code.

Thanks to Martin Kelly for pointing this out.

James Davies, Susanna Sandström, Anthony Shorrocks and Edward Wolff have recently introduced a report on the world distribution of wealth. [The World Distribution of Household Wealth (PDF)]The headline finding of this study is that 2% of the world’s population own most of the world’s private wealth. This report doesn’t focus on immigration. However, if we compare the maps in this report with those of net immigration, it is pretty clear that it is a subset of the wealthier countries that are the destinations of immigration. What is also clear from the report on wealth is that countries like Japan with lower levels of immigration have higher levels of wealth per capita than the US -and less overall wealth inequality.