Britain’s own nannygate

If anyone’s interested, this article, from the Daily Mail, gives the first relatively coherent account I’ve seen of the David Blunkett affair. (I underscore the “relatively,” since even this article raises more questions than it answers.) One surprising fact emerging from the story is that a foreigner, after working for four years in Britain, automatically receives permanent residency. So you just have to get into Britain on a temporary, non-immigrant visa, work for four years, and you’re home free. I had been under the impression that Britain some time ago had greatly scaled back the admission of new individual immigrants and was only admitting relatives of existing immigrants. But the story of Blunkett’s mistress’s Filipino nanny makes Britain sound like something approaching an open-borders country.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 18, 2004 07:16 AM | Send