"He doesn't speak any community language!"

In the by-election thread at ATW, a commenter referred to a rather interesting little story about the Ealing Southall contest, which I thought worth sharing with you. It centres around the following quote, from an article on the Respect website (don't say I didn't warn you!):

Already shamed by revelations that he gave £4,800 to Labour days before his nomination, Tory Tony Lit made a further fool of himself tonight on the community [i.e. Indian - FR] Venus TV station (Sky Channel 807). Following a phone-in with our candidate Salvinder Dhillon in Hindi and Punjabi, the presenter invited Mr. Lit to speak in a community language, as his whole contribution had been in English. Lit just kept speaking English. He doesn’t speak any community language! Yet he claims to be a local.

Doesn't that just sum up multicultural Britain today? A candidate in a British election being vilified as an auslander for not speaking Hindi. True, this is only the Respect website, but what business has the TV presenter even asking Tony Lit to speak in a "community language"? Despite what visitors to Southall may think, it is not in India, but in England, and those who seek to be elected to represent Southall in the British parliament should speak English. So, indeed, should all immigrants who have come to Britain. The fact that British-based Indian TV stations are conducting phone-ins in Hindi and Punjabi is, in my opinion, just further evidence of the failure of large numbers of immigrants to even attempt to integrate or assimilate.

Postscript: As exercises in self-delusion go, the headline of the article on Respect's website, "Respect rules the streets of Ealing Southall", must fall among the most extreme cases. Given that their candidate picked up a mere 588 votes (1.6% of all those cast), I think that Respect can be said to "rule the streets of Ealing Southall" in much the same way that the Emperor Norton I ruled America.