Live on air on BBC in front of 300 million viewers worldwide I scrunched up newspapers. I was so angry about a whole host of press stories. I hate press sensationisation; headlines for grabbing readers, but which are exaggerated and so are basically false. These are journalists lying.
So I scrunched up the newspaper. And I am glad.
The next day I had a BBC Radio interview on the Asian Network where for 45 minutes I discussed the actual truth of UK India relations – not the headline grabbing rubbish outsiders who pretend to be insiders talk about.
BBC wanted my insights from Number 10 who from 1999 I’ve advised officially on policy regarding India (till 2004) and more recently on Entrepreneurship. In fact I write to you from a flight to India where the UK PM will be joining me at the TechSummit where I have judged companies to land bring to the UK from India – all organised by our outstanding Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department of International Trade.
So here are the top lies and exaggerations by journalists in the past week and the responses in summary on BBC Asian Radio I was able to give – as an insider:
‘Why does the UK involve itself in Kashmir?’ – It doesn’t. It supports India, just as it would the US after terror attacks- don’t forget the UK PM said, ‘Pakistan is an exporter of terror’.
‘Has increased racism since Brexit not put off Indian?’ – Nope. Just hasn’t come up. And for anyone who has suffered – get in touch with us and we will use all our community resources to come down on the racist scum.
‘UK doesn’t want Indians – it makes visas harder’ – this is a classic outsider sensational lie. I wish the UK had an open border with India. It doesn’t sadly. It says we want skilled migrants from India with the likelihood of jobs and income. (By the way – how come no one writes about getting visas and OCI to India and how clearly India doesn’t want us Brits?)
‘Why would India care about UK?’ Because TATA Motors made a billion in profits in one year from the UK. They want us to go global from our brand and ease of doing business from the UK. So they invest and set up here, like the rest of the world does. That’s why.
‘The UK doesn’t want Indian students’. Ummmm…as a former Governor of a UK university, I know this is false. What the policy is that we want students going to proper universities, not just any old rubbish set up to defraud the immigration rules, and also want the students to stay if the economy here wants their job skills. We don’t have an open border with India – I wish we did and the students from India could stay here without a job and have lots of time to find one.
‘The UK hates immigrants because it left EU’. Well, we haven’t left yet. And the population can vote as they please, but as Number 10 special advisors told be at Downing Street – we will act in the national economic interest and that means no issues with skilled migrants. Yes we do not want open borders for unskilled migrants.
