I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

Mainly. Whether or not you’re tired of the fact that the press is overwhelmingly right wing, that doesn’t make it a myth. I notice you only managed to think of three out of ten daily national newspapers that could be described as not right of centre. You had to bung in a magazine to make the numbers up.

“A figure ten times a Mars bar is not actually very difrent is it .”

Yes, it is very different. It’s ten times the difference.

Now, ten times a Mars bar is still low – but who ever suggested that to take the excess in GDP contributed by around 200,000 people and divide it first by sixty million and then again by fifty would or should give a high number? Except MigrationWatch, that is. The argument is a strawman from the get-go.

You could do the same with practically any section of the population. Nurses, for instance. Or firefighters. Nobody’s claiming we should limit the numbers of those two professions though.

It’s also incredibly weird that anyone would use the low extra contribution of migrants when divided by sixty million and then again by fifty to argue for a reduction in the number of migrants. That would necessarily lower the extra contribution they make as it would reduce the main pot.

You’re accessing the archived older version of the paper – not the current version on the site, ‘The Impact of Immigration on GDP per head’, which says in its opening:

“Since this paper was first published in January 2007 it has been brought to our attention that:

a) The Home Office Minister was confusing two issues in the same sentence [i]. The estimate of a £4 billion contribution by immigrants to GDP was intended to refer to the contribution of migrants from the 8 central and east European countries (A8 migrants) since their accession to the EU in May 2004. The reference to economic trend growth applies, of course, to the contribution of all migrants in one year.

b) The data recorded in the Accession Monitoring report concerning dependants of migrant workers was incorrect[ii] We have therefore revised the calculation using National Institute Economic Review data on dependants which is more reliable.

2. The paper below has been amended to take account of these points but they do not affect the thrust of the conclusions at paragraph 20. [That's arguable, but they do remove the whole Government calculation that allows MW to arrive at their Mars bar figure.]

3. The original version of the paper can be found by accessing the Archive item number 1.15.

You’d expect an organisation committed to honesty to flag that in the archived version so people aren’t confused, but there you go.

And before you point out that MW’s calculation of the NIER figures above the government ones supports the government calculation – it doesn’t. It uses the figure of total migration rather than net migration. If it used net migration as it did with the government figures, the findings would be about the same as Prof Coleman’s claim.

Yes but they also add to population.
In a recent parliamentary debate, a Home Office Minister gave an official estimate that “migration has increased output by at least £4 billion and (accounts for) 10 – 15% of economic trend growth” But the Government had failed to take into account the addition to population. In 2005 net immigration was 185,000 which, on a population of 60 million, is 0.31%. At the same time the government’s estimate of £4 billion on a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of approximately £1,250 billion is 0.32%. The benefit in terms of GDP per head is therefore trivial – about 0.01% of GDP or just 4p per head per week – less than a Mars bar per month.
As for the claim that migration accounts for 10 – 15% of trend growth, the result is the same. Trend growth is 2.5% so 10-15% of trend growth is 0.25% to 0.375% of GDP. The effect on GDP per head is therefore a small negative or positive amount.
Other recent studies in the UK, and studies carried out in other countries, point to the same conclusion – namely that immigration makes little difference to GDP per head.

This is basic maths . House prices , services and so on have not been taken into account. It is opretty clear what the conomists would have us do . Pull up the drawbridge

Ineresting I`ll look into that. I take it by the Press you mean the right of centre Press and not the Guardian , Independent , Mirror and New Statesman. I am getting tired of this myth that the Press are anti “Progressive “.

A figure ten times a Mars bar is not actually very difrent is it . A Packet of cigatettes ?In fact the house price issue is the main one , lowering wages another, use of services and the decimation of struggling educational facilties . Growth is in any case not an unalloyed good if it requires the country to be ruined in the process( and I am talking about building not pigment ).

The economy has been growing for 25 years and we are worse off. Tax immigration and ( to be fair ) old age are the reasons.
I am not a fan of picking economically good peopple to be allowed in anyway. I would like a tolerant flow of people but not a flood. The profitability of it is secondary.I ask for common sense, I get crazed colonist aggression

In the same report, they switched between using net and total migration figures for their measurements to make it look as though different studies supported a conclusion they didn’t.

In defending the figure, David Coleman himself actually gave a figure of his own that was more than 10 times higher than MigrationWatch’s original claim.

In the very report this blog entry’s about, MigrationWatch are taken to task for counting children of one immigrant and one non-immigrant parent as half an immigrant for the purposes of calculating how much they’d take from the system, but as non-immigrants when they grow up and contribute to the system. Not very accurate, that.

MigrationWatch are not so much consistently proved correct as consistently given favourable coverage in most of the press. Not the same thing.

“I do not believe in completly open borders, because of the space issue. However, I think that is different from saying that migrants are good or bad for this country depending on their economic impact.”

So, you are saying that if we had space for 30 million people in this country,you wouldn’t care if they could contribute to the economy, or that all live on benefits.

The fact is that a country’s well-being is due to the active population, the ones that provides services and pay taxes. When the UK government pays for education, it is not doing it for charity – it is an investment so that a new generation is able to contribute actively to the economy. So why shouldn’t immigrants be picked according to their capacity and ability to contribute to the economy as well?

That leads to another point: the simplistic nature in which immigration is discussed. It seems there are only two narratives: that immigrants are boon to the economy, and that immigration drains Britain.
Both narratives are obviously wrong since they treat immigrants as a homogenous group.

1. Accept the minimum wage
2. Find work in an area free of foreign competiton
3. Vegetate on benefits

Sunny presumably supports this policy because being of recent immigrant stock himself he sees it through rose-coloured glasses. But immigration is not a race issue, it’s a class issue, and today’s Labour Party is pursuing the kind of policies the Tories of yesteryear could only have dreamed of. Race is a red herring. Thi is about the rich screwing the poor and the so-called left cheering from the sidelines.

I’m not anti immigration, being an immigrant myself. But if immigration is to work then everything we’ve learned on the subject these past three decades tells us in giant sized neon lit letters that we’ve got to be picky about who gets in.

Racism and nationalism was big in the 70s and 80s, then became deeply unfashionable in the 90s. Now all that good work is being undone, as unless you think the BNP’s rise from the ashes is down to their sound economic policies or the charismatic Mr. Griffin, racism is back with a vengeance. And that’s deeply unfair on the migrants the UK needs, and that want to be in the UK.

It’s no good trying to dismiss the new racists as knuckle dragging neo nazis either, as they have two things. 1) A vote; and 2) A legitimate grievance. Poor white natives are doing worse than anyone else, and that’s because their jobs have actually been taken by migrants. You may say they didn’t want to work, but that’s hardly likely to make them feel friendlier to the migrants, is it? They’re dirt poor and pig thick, and sort of hoped a decade of Labour government would see the minimum wage raised, their dignity returned and their environment improved. What they got was told they were rubbish – that’s as maybe but they’re our rubbish and our responsibility – and they got to watch the government encouraging migrants to fill their boots rather than doing anything to close the gap between rich and poor.

On top of this they get to see training schemes exclusive to migrants and ethnic minorities to help them better themselves, and watch their councils spend money on studies as to how the housing for minorities might be improved, with money that could simply have been used to provide more housing. They themselves get no preferential treatment whatsoever. All the time the middle classes are telling them the grat benefits migrants bring, while simultaneously dismissing any complaints as the rantings of scummy chavs and neanderthal thugs. Must sting a bit, eh?

Yeah, Bert’s back. And his van’s bigger and whiter than ever \o/

Without borders and control of themn you do not have a country at all. My suspicion is that for some ever increasing floods of foreign people is a sort of emotional vindication of the difficult seperateness being an outsider must bring .

I understand but isn`t this like going to someones house smashing the Turner reproduction , hanging up a picture if your self and saying

” There thats better…oh sorry did you like it the way it was ….?”.

Why not get over the needy thing and start joining the mainstream of the coutry and its concerns . Amongst these concerns are excessive immigration.

Freedom of movement along the lines you suggest would be the end of war would it not . The Germans could have simply moved here. What pre-pubescent twaddle.

Rumbold – Finally ..it is quite clear that we would al be far better off without immigration . There are some dubious benefits to big business but this is far outweighed by the pressure on Services and most of all house prices . Of the 3,000,000 new home s planned for the South east 1,000,000 will be inhabited by immigrants not here yet( N Soames from Govt. Figures). I `m not sure that’s the point free movement is desirable and many have a lot to add .Nonetheless to argue we are better off when in fact we have less in out pockets than ten years ago despite unremitting growth mostly due to mortgages is bizarre . There will be 70,000,000 in 50 years time. Why another 20,000,000 ? What possible good can it do .? How much irreplaceable countryside will be turned into dismal estates to accommodate the newcomers and for what?

Mass immigration is of course useful for Tescos but Tescos is not ( gasp) an innocent charitable organisation

Why is it so hard to accept a reasonable compromise of controlled immigration at low numbers with a tolerant emphasis on the majority culture .? Why must you all be so extreme , as if to fill the country with foreigners was some sort of holy mission. Suppose it might be nice but we just don’t want to ?

On purely democratic grounds you are surely aware that a huge and increasingly vociferous majority believe immigration to be far too high. Nothing is done about it . Why should small elite govern against the wishes of the people in this way ? Surely in a democracy it is our wishes that count ?

“Do you defend open-borders in this country? If not, why?”

I do not believe in completly open borders, because of the space issue. However, I think that is different from saying that migrants are good or bad for this country depending on their economic impact.

and ignores one of the fundamental points made on this thread, namely the absolutely huge numbers of recently-arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Because absent their colour – which is absolutely a factor some of the time. Their cultures are slightly more similiar – in the same way that Krakow is more like Lincoln than Quetta. Cultural distance does matter.

It would perfectly possible to posit a case of a ‘Staunch Polish Catholic farmworker’ versus ‘an unreligious East African Asian merchant banker’, but communities on average don’t work out like that.

Go back a few threads, and we were discussing the varying success with which subcontinental groups have managed to get educated and seek employment in this country. The flip side of that is that there are a few communities which have been here for several decades but in which the average standard of English (albeit pulled down by older people) is worse than that amongst the average immigrant from the Czech republic who is working over here.

I am staunchly pro-immigration, but am always wary of using economic statistics to make an argument for particular levels of immigration. Is this how we judge our immigrants now?

Do you defend open-borders in this country? If not, why?

If you think that a racial-cultural-religious-linguistic identity is important to ethnic minorities, then the same courtesy should be extended to people of paler complexions.

Incidentally, it’s quite revealing that Mike’s ire clearly focuses on non-white immigrant populations with regards to the “millions and millions of foreigners” he’s referring to, and ignores one of the fundamental points made on this thread, namely the absolutely huge numbers of recently-arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Don’t you regard them as “foreigners”, Mike, or is it only non-white people you have a problem with, even if they’re born in this country ?

Which begs the question: why the hell should white people reject the positive aspects of their heritage and their culture by letting in millions and millions of foreigners who reach a critical mass in inner-city suburbs?

I am curious now. What positive – or indeed any -aspects of English heritage are in danger of disappearing from the hordes of foreigners that come here?

Which begs the question: why the hell should white people reject the positive aspects of their heritage and their culture

Nobody is forcing white people to do so or even suggesting the above. Last time I looked, white people still make up the majority of this country, in terms of both numbers and their influence on the predominant culture. By a very large margin indeed.

by letting in millions and millions of foreigners who reach a critical mass in inner-city suburbs?

Precisely how does the presence of such individuals “force” English people to “reject” the positive aspects of their culture & heritage ?

The very presense of people from other countries somehow “forces” English people to become “less English” ? Is that what is being suggested here ? And if so, in what way, exactly ?

I think it was Golda Meir who said something very similar:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Golda_Meir

Anyone trying to make the case that there cannot possibly be, in principle, such a thing as ‘too much’, or the ‘wrong kind’, of immigration is not building a defensible position, not picking a fight they have any prospect of winning.

As such, while making that argument is technically not quite the same thing as explicitly joining the side of the racist, it just happens to have about the same net effect on the outcome of the debate.