Labour Can Race Ahead in Immigration

From The Mirror: 

Immigration is the issue jostling with the economy when voters are asked what concerns them most. Labour's private polling and doorstep canvassing pick it up.

Mp Steve McCabe found it topped the list when he surveyed his Birmingham constituents. Which is why the Government's getting ready to persuade voters it has immigration under control.

Net immigration is falling and asylum applications are the lowest since 1993.

The points-based entry system is working and our borders more effectively policed than for a long time. I celebrate Britain as a multicultural society, confident we're enriched as a nation. With Irish blood on my father's side and Dutch on my mum's, I'd be a hypocrite to argue anything else.

Thankfully the queasiness of Lefties and Liberals over confronting the immigration issue is over. Jon Cruddas in Dagenham and Ed Balls in Morley & Outwood are showing the way. Immigration Minister Phil Woolas lives with the challenges posed in his own patch of Oldham.

Tories slumping in the polls will be tempted to revert to style and play the race card - it's in the Nasty Party's DNA.

Hague did in 2001, Howard in 2005 and yesterday, in 2010, a Tory MP called for a burka ban.

Labour must come out fighting, starting by demolishing the big Con called an immigration cap.