Word: councils
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Barking and Dagenham - the two neighborhoods elect separate members of Parliament but make up a single London borough council - have witnessed rapid demographic change since the last national census, in 2001. At the time, 80% of locals identified themselves as "white - British." There's been a big influx of nonwhite families since then, with many blacks and Asians - British-born as well as new immigrants - looking for cheap housing. "There's a sense of competition for finite resources," says Jon Cruddas, Dagenham's MP and a Labour Party member. "These are generic forces, but they collide in an intense form...
...racial tensions suit the politics of the BNP, which controls 12 of 51 local council seats, making it the second largest party after Labour. There are concerns it will grow even stronger after the May 6 council elections. And national BNP leader Nick Griffin is campaigning to unseat Barking's veteran Labour MP, Margaret Hodge. Griffin, once convicted of inciting racial hatred, has pledged to represent "the interests of our people instead of all sorts of others and all sorts of greedy banks who ponce on [freeload off] every council in the country...
...Wolfgang Schüssel, Chancellor of Austria (2000-07) and President of the European Council (1998 and 2006) Kishore Mahbubani's analysis of "Europe's Errors" actually contains a declaration of love for Europe: "It can provide an alternative pole of growth, a model for abolishing wars between neighbors, cultural education and a moral voice." (See pictures of immigration in Europe...
Thorbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Europe is hardly shrinking. The European project is far from perfect and the E.U. currently faces many challenges, from bolstering the euro, to creating a stronger presence in the international political arena. But I take issue with the article's premise that Europe is absent from the world stage - rather alarmingly illustrated by your cover page illustration...
Your article notes that Europeans have learned that the force of arms rarely settles political disputes for long. But it does not note that Europe spreads beyond E.U. borders. The Council of Europe encompasses some 800 million citizens, unified by a vision of human rights. Call it soft power if you like, but it exerts a strong and fruitful influence in every member state, from Russia to Turkey, to Iceland and Italy...