Thanks, I guess, for that.

this is not a bit rich but very rich from the one who, I'm almost certain, earlier told me not to answer off-thread questions

Don't be silly. Yes, I think this thread should come with a BS tag, as it's mostly political rather than musical. Yes, I think that if you want to talk about music you should take the political discussion somewhere else. But no, that doesn't mean ignoring questions - it means responding somewhere else (you could start a new BS thread - it's not hard). But I've given up that particular battle for now.

Do you therefore believe that England should not be a multi-cultural country? ECONOMIC/CAPITALIST (NOT ALL) IMMIGRATION SHOULD STOP, AND THERE SHOULD BE ASSIMILATION INTO ENGLISH CULTURE AND VALUES - WHY COME TO ENGLAND IF AGAINST SUCH WAYS?

That's a 'Yes', then. England should be mono-cultural, nobody should come here except asylum seekers from a nearby country, and those who do come here should assimilate to 'English culture'.

Do you also believe that it would have been preferable if people who don't have an English culture had not come to England in the past? I BELIEVE IT WOULD BE BETTER IF THE ABOVE HAD COME INTO PRACTISE EARLIER.

In other words, you believe it would have been preferable if far fewer people who don't have an English culture had come to England in the past, and those who had done had assimilated to 'English culture'. No Indian takeaways in this green and pleasant land, then. No pizza, come to think of it. I suppose we could still have burgers, but we'd have to call them rissoles. (Sorry, lunch break.)

Do you specifically believe that England would have been a better place if there had not been large-scale immigration of non-Europeans over the last 50 years? LARGE-SCALE IMMMIGRATION PER SE.

Since all the large-scale immigration which has actually happened has been of non-Europeans - at least, up until the recent Polish influx - this is a distinction that makes no difference. I appreciate you're trying to clear yourself of the imputation of hating brown-skinned people personally - as you say in response to Ruth,

I'VE ONLY QUESTIONED THE ACT OF IMMIGRATION ITSELF - NOT WHERE IMMIGRANTS COME FROM/NOT ANY PARTICULAR CULTURE OR RACE!

But really, that's not what racism means. You want to preserve English culture by excluding foreign influences. In other words, you want to exclude foreign people from England, because you see them as a threat to the purity of English culture. That is racism.

One final question, about assimilation. You've said earlier that it's a bad thing when people lose their culture; in many ways I tend to agree. But doesn't that mean that it's a good thing when immigrants keep their culture alive?