Mr Callaghan's doubletalk
In his lengthy and hair-splitting reply to Mr Heath's statement of Conservative policy towards Commonwealth immigrants, Mr Callaghan did attempt to make one substan- tive point. 'The Government,' he claimed on Monday, 'have already set in motion the programme of aid for urban areas of special social need that Mr Heath calls for. The first phase of this programme has been put into operation today.'
The Home. Secretary was referring to the announcement that thirty-four local authori- ties had been invited to apply for a total of up to £3 million of Government financial aid under the so-called 'urban programme' launched by Mr Wilson in his immigration speech of 5 May. Yet closer examination of the thirty-four areas chosen reveals a rather different picture. Twenty-six of them qualify both as housing priority areas (as defined by the Ministry of Housing) and immigrant priority areas (as defined by the Home Office), so it is impossible to determine from this which criterion was decisive. But of the remaining eight, seven are officially desig- nated housing priority areas with no immi- grant problem, while only one is an immigrant priority area without a general housing problem. A further thirty officially- designated immigrant problem areas get no additional aid whatever.
A case can clearly be made for channel- ling additional government funds to areas where housing is particularly bad: what. Mr Heath was calling for, however, was aid specifically directed towards areas with a large concentration of coloured immigrants. Mr Callaghan's attempt to confuse these two quite separate policies is plain dishonest.
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