Why history repeats itself with immigration policies
Last night on television Michael Hogan
Liberal-baiting battleaxe Katie Hopkins will doubtless steal headlines for her typically toxic appearance on Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Great Immigration Row (BBC Two) – causing a stir is, after all, the tiresome professional troll’s job – but it would be a shame if Hopkins overshadowed what a thorough and thoughtful film this was.
As Brexit negotiations continue along their chaotic path, immigration remains as high as ever on the political agenda. In his unwieldy-titled documentary, gnomic Private Eye editor and Have I Got News for You stalwart Hislop looked back at the history of British reaction to outsiders arriving on our shores. What can we learn from our forebears, apart from exemplary facial hair?
Perhaps surprisingly, it turned out that our Victorian ancestors were much more welcoming, regarding an open-door policy as a matter of principle. Britain was an “asylum of nations”, which prided itself on being moral leader of the world.
It was only towards the end of the 19th century, when migration levels rose and right-wing politicians whipped up anti-foreigner feeling, that a backlash began (sound familiar?). The present-day parallels, with fears over immigrants jumping the queue for housing and jobs, were striking.
Hislop’s lively and enlightening story took in Jewish “invasions”, French terrorists, Asian Anglophiles and Belgian refugees. The infamous media storm about the “Yellow Peril” of Chinese migrants was an early example of “fake news”. There were surprise cameos from a young Winston Churchill, Hercule Poirot and Count Dracula (“a blood-sucking Eastern European, preying on innocent British workers and women”).
Proceedings were pepped up by good-natured vox pops and witty graphics, while Hislop gamely performed historical reconstructions and conducted interviews with a twinkle. This divisive topic all too easily descends into blinkered shouting – see Hopkins’s entire career – but Hislop carefully kept it jovial.
He was even polite to Hopkins, while making clear his distaste for her hate-filled language and absence of compassion. “‘A plague of feral humans’?” he asked. “Aren’t they just a group of people?”
He ended by proposing, if not an open-door policy, at least an open-mind policy. The contrast to ITV’S offering in the same time slot, which saw Hislop’s old adversary Piers Morgan indulging his sensationalist side, could hardly have been more stark.
Killer Women with Piers Morgan (ITV) couldn’t be a much less alluring programme title if it tried. What next? Tapeworms with Gregg Wallace?
This returning series found Morgan meeting some of America’s most notorious female murderers. First up was Rebecca Fenton, imprisoned in Florida’s Lowell Correctional Institution for shooting her husband Larry multiple times in their home.
Fenton was serving life without parole, but still protested her innocence. Police originally believed her story that the incident was a home invasion by an unknown assailant. However, their doubts grew over holes in Fenton’s account and they eventually convicted her of first degree murder.
The centrepiece of the programme was Morgan’s interview in prison with Fenton, whose blue boiler-suit matched her ice-cool demeanour. As always, he was a dogged interrogator, digging away to decide if she was the “victim of an extraordinary miscarriage of justice” or “a cold-blooded murderess who is the best liar I’ve ever met”.
He displayed a tad too much relish for grisly details and couldn’t resist dropping in bombastic, tabloid-ese turns of phrase (“pools of blood”, “point-blank range” and, worst of all, “pumping bullets into your husband”). Like on his Life Stories chat show, he seemed to pride himself on making his subject cry. The addition of hysterical cable news footage, speculation from neighbours and hammy music added an extra grating of cheese.
There was also a question hovering in my mind throughout: why should we care? This murder took place nine years ago and 4,000 miles away. Morgan might argue “human interest”, but there wasn’t much humanity on show. There’s a point at which compelling true crime becomes gratuitously ghoulish ambulancechasing. This lurid documentary trod too close to the line.
Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Great Immigration Row
Killer Women with Piers Morgan