Vaz scorns British minister's demand on immigrants By Sanjay Suri, Indo-Asian News Service
London, Sep 17 (IANS) Labour MP and former minister Keith Vaz has called the demand by Home Secretary David Blunkett that immigrants speak English at home one of the "silliest" remarks made by a home secretary. Vaz's comments set him in confrontation with a minister of his own party. In a strong outburst Monday, Vaz said Blunkett was making the Asian community a "cheap target". Blunkett had said in an article in a forthcoming book titled "Reclaiming Britishness" that young immigrants should speak English at home in order to prevent "schizophrenic rifts" between generations. Vaz said Blunkett should come and spend a night in the home of an Asian family in his constituency, Leicester East. "No Asian family in Leicester does not speak English at home," Vaz said. "In many cases they speak it better than Mr Blunkett himself." When Blunkett saw how well young Asians speak English, he would regret what he had said, and find out "how wrong he is", Vaz said. Vaz said in a statement: "If this was a Conservative home secretary he would have been asked to apologise by now. The immigrant community has become a cheap target." Vaz said: "He has clearly forgotten all the excellent work that he did as education secretary in relation to mother tongue teaching and this latest statement flies in the face of the excellent work done by Tessa Jowell at culture." Blunkett claimed that "in as many as 30 percent of Asian British households, according to the recent citizenship survey, English is not spoken at home." Several race groups attacked Blunkett for attempting to take government into people's homes and telling them in which language they should speak. Vaz took the line that Asians speak English often better than the English - a claim borne out by the excellent results that South Asian children have to show for themselves. --Indo-Asian News Service =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet =================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
