Category: Asylum, Immigration and intolerance.

This story in The Observer caught my attention. I lived for almost 10 years in Loughton, not too far from Epping, and observed a couple of years before I left that a ‘swing to the left’ meant the Conservatives taking seats from the BNP.

Having said that, I find the tone of the article disappointing. I don’t believe that Epping is all that different from many towns and cities across the UK, and whilst the emphasis is on the less tolerant members of the town, it’s easy to forget that many others don’t share the same feelings.

It also entirely fails to make the distinction between ‘migrants’ (as in the headline) and ‘asylum seekers’ (as in the body of the article).

The article demonises the town based on a few anonymous opinions, and I am not entirely sure what it is trying to say, or more to the point, what it is trying to achieve? If it is that towns and cities across the country are torn between tolerance and intolerance, then I wouldn’t argue with that, but why single out a particular place on the border between London and Essex?

I note that since I first read the article the sub-heading has been changed to emphasise “false claims of ‘crime surge’ in Epping.”