My So-called Life: They're all coming here for the weather

The Conservative Party is right about immigration to this country. It is getting seriously and frighteningly out of hand.

The Conservative Party is right about immigration to this country. It is getting seriously and frighteningly out of hand. Indeed, just the other day, I woke up and found immigrants everywhere: six in the wardrobe, at least, several on the window sill, banging to be let in, and one even sitting on the end of my bed. "Oi," I said. "What's going on here?" He said that as I am quite short and the bottom third of my duvet was effectively ill-used, but no less cosy-looking for that, he had thought to seek a little asylum there. "Be off," I said. "This is my duvet. I've worked hard for this duvet. I pay my taxes. I am not sharing this duvet." Then I went downstairs for breakfast, and what did I find? An immigrant in my porridge, while another came out of the tap with 17 children and a bull. This is migration madness, I thought. It's only a small kitchen and now it's much too crowded. Plus, such was the commotion, with the bull lowing and everything, I could scarcely concentrate on my Daily Mail with its delicious sounding recipe of the day for a hearty lentil, thyme and Roma gypsy soup. ("Preheat the oven to gas mark 5. Wash the Roma gypsy well and place in a saucepan...")

It is certainly time we put a stop to all this; certainly time to have a "blistering crackdown". I mean, among other things, immigrants are entirely responsible for drugs, crime, housing shortages, lime scale, verrucas, plums that won't ripen, A-Z's with the necessary page missing and, it is firmly believed in some circles, Shane Richie, which is unforgivable, whichever way you look at it. I also found an entire family of asylum seekers in my shoe. I think they were bogus, though, because when I shook them out they went and hid under the piano and haven't come out since. This makes me think they do not have the right paperwork.

Now, as I understand it, and according to the accurate figures that can be easily cooked to go any way you fancy, the number of people coming to this country every week equals the population of China plus Japan, Canada, Russia, all of the Middle East and Brent Cross on a Saturday during the sales, which is always, very, very busy. Thus Britain's population is growing at the rate of 56 billion a minute. No wonder I can never get a table at the Ivy. No wonder I can never park at Brent Cross. The thing is, and the Tories are so right about this, it's just too absurdly easy to enter this country. You can simply get into the back of a lorry and roll yourself in carpet and nearly suffocate. Or you can hang on to the undercarriage of a train or wheel arch of a plane and risk freezing to death. Obviously, such people are not desperate. They're simply acting on a whim, just as you or I might, on a sunny day, say: "Hey, let's go down to Brighton." Michael Howard is, of course, the son of Romanian Jews, who themselves fled persecution, so he knows just how lightly such decisions are taken. Indeed, as a third generation Jew myself, I know my family originally fled Russia only because they fancied a change of scenery, a ride on a London tram and a nice Devon tea.

Is Britain an "easy touch"? I should say so. All immigrants, while being assessed, are expected to live off £37.77 a week, which is just 70 per cent of income support - the amount the poorest families in the UK struggle to live on. No wonder they're coming over in their lorry-loads. And then? They steal our jobs, don't they? And that is evil. They'll put them under their coat and then blithely walk out. Shocking, especially when you consider that there are one million unemployed in this country, all dying to work 23 hours a day in The Savoy kitchens or clean toilets or pick spring onions in Norfolk or wheel patients about in mouldy hospitals. I know I am. I applied for two hospital porter positions just last week (fingers crossed). And as for the Conservatives' proposal to adopt Australia's points-style system for economic migrants, this is a stroke of genius. After all, that country's "Keep Australia White" policy, which lasted from the 1940's through to the 1970's, is still held up throughout the world as the humanitarian ideal. The only trouble with Australia is that it has sharks, which sometimes eat people. This is why most prefer to come to Britain, as we have no sharks, only Devon teas, which have yet to savage or bite the leg off anyone.

Of course, everyone wants to come here, even though all those TV documentaries about British families abandoning the UK for a "better life" in Italy or France or Spain or New Zealand, where the schooling is superior and the climate more agreeable, might tempt you to think otherwise. Those people are simply big-time loons. The fact is, this is the best place in the world, but we can't take everyone, not even those who say "please" very nicely. As it is, our culture is weakening under the weight of immigration. For example, in most cities now you can find Indian food, or Chinese or Thai or Turkish or Greek or French or Italian, but when was the last time you came across a restaurant serving the great English dishes, like melon boat followed by chicken in the basket, or chips and then slimy tinned fruit? Angel Delight was invented in this country and we should never forget it. Angel Delight should be taught in schools, as should Arctic Roll and Mr Brains' Faggots. This is our heritage. Lastly, the strain "newcomers" put on state schools, the NHS and public housing. I congratulate the Tories for bringing this to our attention, even though, chances are, they have never and will never use a state school, the NHS or council housing in their lives. They possibly don't even know anyone who has used a state school, the NHS, or council housing in their lives. But that is public service for you.

So, thank you, Conservative Party, for taking the bull by the horns. It was about time somebody did, as it was smelly, noisy and getting on my nerves. All that lowing. I'm now off to do that soup. It is always essential, by the way, to wash your Roma gypsy very, very well otherwise you might get tummy ache.

d.ross@independent.co.uk