'Why can't hotel staff speak English?': Andrew Flintoff in bizarre anti-immigration outburst

 

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 9:43 AM on 02nd June 2009

 

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England cricket star Andrew Flintoff has landed himself in trouble again after he launched a bizarre anti-immigration tirade.

The all-rounder told GQ magazine that Britain's immigration policies had failed.

He added: 'I have no problems with a multicultural society, I think that is to the benefit of the country. But you have to be careful what levels you take it to.

 

'It annoys me when I phone a hotel receptionist in my own country and they don't understand what I am saying because they don't speak English.

 

 

Andrew Flintoff with his wife Rachael and daughter Holly

 

'I think that's wrong, it's nothing to do with being politically correct or incorrect, it's just not right.'

Flintoff, 31, a father of Holly, four, and sons Corey, three, and one-year-old Rocky, said: 'I see Manchester on a Friday night and I would be horrified seeing my daughter going to the bars.

 

'There are places I wouldn't go to now. You see these reports of stabbings, bottlings, shootings, and you think, "What is happening to this country?"

'I think rap music has a lot to do with it. It makes it sound cool not to conform, and to be violent. That's why I think sport plays such an important role. Cricket kept me away from trouble.'

He called for sport to be brought back as a compulsory subject for kids at school, adding: 'It tackles everything from child obesity to drug abuse and binge drinking. A lot of kids don't get the chance to play sport.

'Our reputation abroad is getting worse, we are seen as a violent country now.'

 

Asked what he would tackle if he was prime minister, Flintoff replied: 'There's knife crime, gun crime, homelessness, the financial crisis. So many things need fixing.

'But when you go to somewhere like India you realise we're not in that bad a shape. We have a tendency in Britain to talk ourselves down.

'I wouldn't want to be American, but you have to admire the way they talk themselves up as a people, athletes and as a country. Our glass is always half empty.'

Bit cheap coming from the Daily Mail. What a bunch of hypocritical twats.