Should immigration always be perceived as ‘a problem’?

First topic message reminder :

Writing for ‘Compass’ in July this year, Lisa Nandy MP said: “For most of my lifetime, politics has been based on a belief that the only way to win elections is to seek out the centre ground, but it is surely an essential plank of a democracy that politicians should provide leadership and not just follow; as Robin Archer of the LSE says, to seek to define and not just seek the centre ground”. She continued by saying that people on the left in politics have to tackle the issues which make us feel uncomfortable – welfare reform, law and order and immigration.
http://www.compassonline.org.uk/news/item.asp?n=13151&offset=50

Let’s tackle the issue of immigration. The right-wing press has been indoctrinating us for years with claims that most immigrants are living on benefits, while at the same time saying that they’ve taken many of our jobs, and of course both scenarios can’t possibly be true. We’re told that the country is already overcrowded; it’s not, only S.E. England is, although we are now the most densely populated country in Europe. We’re told that immigration increases crime (our prisons do indeed hold a disproportionate number of people who weren’t born here) and increases the threat to our security. By increasing the labour force, does immigration suppress wage levels?

In the 1970s, the National Front used to peddle the spurious argument that as there were a million people unemployed in the UK at the time, all we had to do was repatriate a million immigrants and there would be no unemployment. Anyone with half a brain can work out that by reducing the population by a million, you would have a million fewer consumers to buy goods and services, thereby reducing demand and creating unemployment. There would also be a million fewer taxpayers (even those not working pay VAT).

So why have successive UK governments over the last fifty years allowed and even encouraged immigration?
Not out of charity but out of necessity. Firstly, to do jobs which the indigenous population didn’t want to do, or didn’t have the skills to do. The NHS would have collapsed years ago without immigrant doctors and nurses. Secondly, Europe has a declining birth rate, which is threatening to make it difficult to pay for pensions for future generations. Most immigrants are of working age, which means they consume less of the services provided by the state, such as health care and education, and pay more in taxes. Home Office research in 2002 suggested that immigrants paid £2.5bn more in taxes than they took in benefits.

Perhaps if more of us showed a positive attitude to immigrants, welcoming and celebrating diversity instead of perceiving it as ‘a problem’, immigrants might feel less of a need to retreat into ghettos, where some of them succumb to religious fanaticism and terrorism.

It's no wonder that the first thing they teach at Recruit-training Camp is unquestioning obedience to Orders.

(Though see how far THAT excuse gets you at any subsequent War-crimes Trial).

bobby wrote:What’s this "we" Steve, When I go abroad which is frequently, the last thing I want is to find a Kings Head, I much prefer the Continental Bar Culture, the last thing in the world I would want is to turn what is beautiful about Europe (as that’s where I go) into a copy of what we have allowed the UK to become.

Anch'io parlo italiano, Roberto. Non si può dire che sono tipicamente inglese - but you can't seriously deny that a lot of English people want exactly that: a facsimile of England but with better weather.

My point is Steve that not every one is lucky enough to view immigration based on yourself having some decent immigrant neighbours, how would you feel if you or yours got done by a gang of pepper spaying Albanians, or as My Auntie living in fear of them.

Criminals are criminals, whatever their colour or nation of origin, and should be dealt with as such. It's a completely separate issue from that of immigration.

Criminals are criminals, whatever their colour or nation of origin, and should be dealt with as such. It's a completely separate issue from that of immigration.

I really don't know if those roving gangs of Albanians are in the UK legally or not, but it can be argued - successfully, I might add - that if immigration laws were tightened and thorough background checks were made on anyone - and anyone's family - that wishes to reside in the UK, crimes committed by immigrants would be far fewer.

Here in the US, there is a lot of crime committed by Latinos in the country illegally. Again, it can be successfully argued that if US immigration laws were better enforced and our borders less porous, all of the victims of crimes committed by illegals would not be victims.

Skin color and ethnicity doesn't matter since a person can just as easily be killed by a nice-looking Scandinavian as they can by a ragged-looking Arab. The whole idea behind it is to not let everyone that asks into the country because, as we often find out, many of those seeking asylum are actually fleeing from the law in their homelands.

Downing Street rushes to defend PM's 'unravelling' immigration speech

Extracts from an article by Nicholas Watt:-

Cameron said: "New migrants should not expect to be given a home on arrival. And yet at present almost one in 10 new social lettings go to foreign nationals." Labour pointed out that Mark Prisk, the housing minister, has written: "Most foreign nationals who have recently come to England are not eligible for an allocation of social housing.” Downing Street said there had been a 40% increase in the number of social lettings taken up by migrants between 2007-08 and 2011-12. In fact it was an increase from 6.5% to 9% in the proportion of such lettings.

Of the 2 million net migrants to the UK from the 8 eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004, just 13,000 have claimed jobseeker's allowance. This figure was not disputed by No 10.

Cameron also said that Britain has a "free National Health Service, not a free International Health Service". The Department of Health estimates that in 2011-12, the NHS was owed £66m (0.06% of its £104bn budget) by foreign nationals for treatment, of which it collected only £21m.

Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, said: “The government's proposals seem to be very confused and are unravelling. And there was no significant action to tackle illegal immigration or labour market exploitation, which we know have been getting worse.”

Habib Rahman, chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: "Immigration is a great boon to tackling the coming demographic imbalance posed by our ageing population. The real effect of this speech will be to further increase the intolerance and the hostile reception that immigrants are facing from some sections of society."

For the full article:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/mar/25/downing-street-defend-immigration-speech?CMP=twt_gu

The political cartoon in last weekend's Sunday Times showed our Leaders "Playing the Race Card".

In God We Trust - all others are still on probation.

Lets try again shall we? I'll probably be slaughtered for using the mail as a source, though the subject is just as relevant to the Guardianestas out there.

Immigrants? We sent out search parties to get them to come... and made it hard for Britons to get work, says Mandelson

Former minister admits Labour deliberately engineered mass immigration
Between 1997 and 2010 net migration to Britain totalled 2.2million

By Tim Shipman


'We were sending out search parties for people': Former Labour Cabinet Minister Peter Mandelson has admitted that his party actively encouraged immigration to the UK while in government

In a stunning confirmation that the Blair and Brown governments deliberately engineered mass immigration, the former Cabinet Minister and spin doctor said New Labour sought out foreign workers.

He also conceded that the influx of arrivals meant the party’s traditional supporters are now unable to find work.

By contrast, Labour leader Ed Miliband has said his party got it wrong on immigration but has refused to admit it was too high under Labour.

Between 1997 and 2010, net migration to Britain totalled more than 2.2million, more than twice the population of Birmingham.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324112/Immigrants-We-sent-search-parties-to-come--hard-Britons-work-says-

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/immigration_jobs_wages-28674

Another source, that is possibly better researched and tells a rather more complex story.

I use fullfact all the time boatlady, unfortunately in your link theres no mention of anybody talking to "Lord Mandelson" which makes it irrelevant to the point really, thanks anyway.

tlttf wrote:-
I use fullfact all the time boatlady, unfortunately in your link theres no mention of anybody talking to "Lord Mandelson" which makes it irrelevant to the point really, thanks anyway.

The title of this thread is “Should immigration always be perceived as ‘a problem’?”, so quit trying to tell one of our moderators what is or is not relevant. We all know that while you were having your cornflakes, you spotted something in the tabloid trash about a Labour politician, so you couldn’t wait to post it here. (How strange that you are so quiet about Johnson wasting over half a billion quid on his vanity buses?).

Your underlying assumption, and that of the crap newspaper you read, is that immigration is, per se, a bad thing. That’s about all one would expect of a xenophobic ‘little Englander’ who can’t see further than the end of his nose. Let’s remind you of a few facts:-

- Home Office research in 2002 suggested that immigrants paid £2.5 billion more in taxes than they took in benefits. Can you get it into your tiny brain that immigrants who work, spend and pay taxes help the economy to grow?

- In December 2007, UK unemployment was at its lowest level since April 1975 and three million more people were in work than in 1997.

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2007/12/12/unemployment-at-30-year-low

- The birth rate in the UK in 1999 was only 1.7 children per family. The projection was that there would not be enough young people in the country to sustain a rapidly ageing population. This country needed immigrants, especially young ones.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/25/birth-rate-statistics-england-wales

- The Gross Domestic Product of the UK rose by 34% under Labour, faster than in every other G6 country, partly thanks to immigrants. It wasn’t all just finance that caused the boom, or property or oil; try reading the evidence, even if it doesn’t fit in with your nasty little prejudices:-

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/conference_papers/15b_11_2011/151111_UK_Business_slides_final.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy

It wasn’t immigrants who caused the global credit crunch, it was City bankers, the cronies of Cameron, Osborne and your friend Farage. It isn’t immigrants who are preventing a recovery now, it’s the absurd policies of the Eton boys. Trying to scapegoat immigrants for the incompetence of some public school toffs is evil and the start of the slippery slope towards adopting Hitler’s attitude towards minorities. But then your favourite newspaper was a big fan of the little corporal. It’s a pity that you’ve never studied any history and learned anything from it.

Chill out Ivan, I've never said immigration is bad, simply said it shouldn't be used to lower your beloved minimum wage by importing cheap labour. Is it my fault "Lord Mandelson" said it?

boatlady sent a message, I replied, end of really!

There wasn't a minimum wage until Labour introduced it. The Tories said it would cause a recession in 1998, and as on so many issues, they were wrong.

The minimum wage was increased every year under Labour, albeit not by enough in my opinion. It's the Tories, and Iain Duncan Smith in particular, who are undermining the minimum wage and would like to abolish it. That's not the fault of immigrants.

Labour policy now is to pay the living wage in the public sector and to shame if necessary the private sector into following suit. 29 Labour councils are already paying the living wage.

Everyone in Politics (and everyone else in the media) seems to arrange their thoughts and deeds to avoid the adverse comment of RED TOP newspapers.

When did the British Public choose that situation?

tlttf

He also conceded that the influx of arrivals meant the party’s traditional supporters are now unable to find work.

Just to be clear - my link was addressed to that specific point in the article you cited - to my mind, it is a rather apposite point.
Having done the courtesy of reading the whole thing, it seemed to me that that was one of the main points you were making - sorry if I got it wrong and you just wanted another cheap pot shot at Labour.

Even when one of their own coughs up and tells the truth this lot here are still in denial....The mind boggles and thats why you can never believe a word they post....pure fantasy!!!

I suppose you know more than Mandelson who was at the heart of the Labour government

No, but I think Full Fact may be more likely to give a balanced version of events.
As it goes, I'm not in denial about anything - which is why I prefer not to read right wing (or left wing ) newspapers, but to actually try to find out what is happening on the issues that interest me.
If you have any interesting point to make, I will of course read what you have to say, check a couple more sources, and reply to you.

blueturando wrote:-
Even when one of their own coughs up and tells the truth this lot here are still in denial....The mind boggles and thats why you can never believe a word they post....pure fantasy!!!......I suppose you know more than Mandelson who was at the heart of the Labour government

What the hell is the matter with you? Are you just a pathetic right-wing troll trying to make trouble? You’ve made no attempt to discuss the topic and have merely hurled insults around. The “pure fantasy” around here is that post you’ve just made, and an earlier one when you were thick enough to use an article about New Zealand to try and justify the Tory myth of a ‘welfare dependency culture’ in the UK.

Show me where anyone has denied what Mandelson is alleged to have said. You can’t, because nobody has, so that makes a nonsense of your ridiculous message. I’ve explained why immigration was needed (and what I wrote was well supported by sources, unlike most of the crap that you are your mate post), so why would I, or anyone else, care if Labour had actively promoted it? If you’re capable of reading a post that has four links and more than three sentences, I suggest you go back and study it before making an idiot of yourself again.

What the hell is the matter with you? Are you just a pathetic right-wing troll trying to make trouble? You’ve made no attempt to discuss the topic and have merely hurled insults around

A TROLL (Definition).......Someone who does NOT agree with your view

NOT A TROLL (Definition) Someone who DOES agree with your view, so can 'hurl insults' around to their hearts content without a word being said


So should Immigration always be percieved as a problem? And the answer is no, not always....unless you have a government that sends out 'search parties' to find immigrants to, and I use the quote from Andrew Neather the former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett...To "rub the Right's nose in diversity"

So this had nothing to do with the countrys needs or requirments, just using people to score political points...And by doing this Labour have caused many of the working class to suffer through a drop in wage levels and available low skilled job opportunities......Well done, you must be proud!!

blueturando. Still making it all up as you go along, are you? Posting lie after lie, first your comments about our reaction to what Mandelson allegedly said, now you're falsifying a definition:-

Troll - someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. You and your pal fit that definition perfectly, and I didn’t make it up:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

this had nothing to do with the countrys needs or requirments

Yes it did. The birth rate in the UK in 1999 was only 1.7 children per family. The projection was that there would not be enough young people in the country to sustain a rapidly ageing population. This country needed immigrants, especially young ones.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/25/birth-rate-statistics-england-wales

Well done, you must be proud!

As the evidence shows that immigration was what this country needed, I’m very proud. No doubt you’re proud of the Tory record on people committing suicide because they’ve lost their benefits or seen them reduced. No doubt you’re proud of all the lies that Iain Duncan Smith tells, he must be your mentor. Still, millionaires need their tax cuts and ‘The Daily Mail’ says we can’t have people becoming “dependent” on £71 a week or whatever, can we?

Blue, your comments seem to have no context - maybe you could give us a source for some of what you say?

I certainly have no memory of any government sending out 'search parties' to find immigrants, for any reason at all.

Obviously, if you have a respectable source that can confirm your allegation, we'd all be glad to see it.

Never mind, I've found the link
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

This seems to be a report in one paper which I believe has something of a right-wing bias on his opinion, and he acknowledges there are no published documents that back him up - so maybe it's a matter of interpretation?

I don't know - I'm not very political, but I have a sort of respect for the truth.

Just google it Boatlady, you will find pages and pages from various websites all saying the same thing. The comments were made at a Labour activist meeting last week

Speaking at a conference organised by Labour’s Progress group, Lord Mandelson said: “The issue of immigration is more economic than social. The problem has grown during the period of economic stagnation over the past five, six years, because in 2004 when as a Labour government we were not only welcoming people to come into this country to work, we were sending out search parties for people and encouraging them, in some cases, to take up work in this country because we were almost, a sort of full employment economy.“The situation is different obviously now. We have to just realise and just take cognisance that the entry to the labour market of many people of non-British origin is hard for people who are finding it very difficult to find jobs, who find it hard to keep jobs. For these people immigration tends to loom large in their lives and in their worlds.

Is the fact that Football teams, banks and many big industries recruit oversea players and bosses mean that they have been sending out 'search parties' to find immigrants to come and work in this country?

Any one remember when the NHS had to actively seek nurses from the Philippines to be able to cover for the short fall in British nurses?

Various interested segments of British Commerce are, in fact, right now lobbying government to mould immigration laws to allow the recruitment of technical people with specialist skills whether or not they originate from inside the EU.

Is the fact that Football teams, banks and many big industries recruit oversea players and bosses mean that they have been sending out 'search parties' to find immigrants to come and work in this country?

Any one remember when the NHS had to actively seek nurses from the Philippines to be able to cover for the short fall in British nurses?.

Firstly I think Professional football teams should have a limit on the number of non British players, mainly because the influx of foreign players is stiffling the opportunities of our own young players


Secondly...I am very uneasy about the continuous recruitment of Nursing staff from overseas. 1. Because as a country we should be training more of our own nurses and 2. Taking qualified nursing staff from other countries, in particular Africa and Asia is very unfair on their own population who probably require the services of these qualified nurses and doctors more than we do

I am very uneasy about the continuous recruitment of Nursing staff from overseas. 1. Because as a country we should be training more of our own nurses and 2. Taking qualified nursing staff from other countries, in particular Africa and Asia is very unfair on their own population who probably require the services of these qualified nurses and doctors more than we do.

On the face of it, this seems a comment I have some sympathy with.
I don't fully understand how or why it has been necessary for the NHS to recruit nursing and medical staff from overseas.
A few thoughts occur - an aging population, low investment in the NHS, low pay and low status of these professions --- but I confess I'm not fully aware of all the issues.

Perhaps you can throw some light on the background to this situation?
(Preferably not gleaned from Daily Mail headlines)

blueturando wrote:-
Firstly I think Professional football teams should have a limit on the number of non British players, mainly because the influx of foreign players is stifling the opportunities of our own young players…..Secondly...I am very uneasy about the continuous recruitment of Nursing staff from overseas. 1. Because as a country we should be training more of our own nurses and 2. Taking qualified nursing staff from other countries, in particular Africa and Asia is very unfair on their own population.

I suspect (but I don't have any evidence to hand) that restricting who football clubs can employ may breach FIFA regulations and could get us kicked out of international competitions.

12,000 nurses were recruited from the Philippines by Labour in 1997 because of the acute shortage in this country. The Tories hadn’t been training them and the salary was poor, giving little incentive to people to want to train. As the Tories are now busily getting rid of nurses again (estimates vary between 5,000 and 7,000 fewer than three years ago), the problem will no doubt be repeated when Labour has to clear up the mess that’s being made of public services.

I agree that it seems wrong to poach nurses from developing countries but (a), some just stayed for a short while and returned after more British nurses had been trained and (b), if nurses who were prepared to travel hadn’t come here, they might well have gone to Saudi Arabia or the USA in pursuit of much better pay than they’d get at home.

I agree with you 100% Ivan.....Its a travesty that the Tory government of old did not look after our nurses better financially and also cut the training budget...For this alone there is no forgiveness on my side....and I take my hat off to New Labour who made valid attempts to reverse the long term damage caused to the nursing profession in the UK

It's not surprising that a complex problem like the absorption of foreigners into the Community presents many people with a situation to which they have no answer.

Yesterday's appalling scene in East London naturally produced knee-jerk vox populi responses such as, "send 'em all back!" which completely disregards the fact of one alleged terrorist having been born in Britain. Such difficulties are largely of our own making.

I suspect the Little Englander propaganda being peddled in much of the popular press and media is responsible for raising the temperature on all sides.

Due to constant repetition, the word 'immigrant' has become synonymous in some circles with 'criminal' or 'scrounger', while the word 'Muslim' is synonymous in those same circles with 'murderer', 'rapist' and 'terrorist'.

No doubt in many immigrant and Muslim families, the notion of the English is similarly associated with ideas of blind prejudice, hostility and racially motivated violence.

The truth is, as always, much less exciting.

While in opposition, and assisted by their friends in the tabloid press, the Tories stoked up paranoia and anger about immigration. Putting on piously serious faces, telling the electorate you understand their concerns and pandering to your base is easy in opposition.

But with the anger stoked up, the Tories are having a hard time keeping a lid on it while in power. They know restricting immigration undermines growth and deprives the UK of foreign student cash, but they need to please their rabid base. However, those voters who are most obsessed with immigration are moving to UKIP anyway.

Even if you eliminated net migration to the UK, most of the ‘really really concerned about immigration’ crowd wouldn’t notice. It’s something that would only register with them once British-born ethnic minorities started getting deported in large numbers, and thankfully that’s never going to happen. In the meantime, attempts to ‘really address the legitimate concerns’ about immigration are starving universities of cash and causing a major crisis in the recruitment of doctors, which is leaving some services in some hospitals on the brink of collapse.

Tories in the press spent years promoting the type of issues that can now broadly be called the UKIP agenda. Now they are alarmed and bemused that a large chunk of the Tory base has switched to UKIP. Serves ‘em right!

For how long can the fiction be maintained that UKIP is somehow different from the Tory Party?

“If you're not prepared to learn English, your benefits will be cut." (George Osborne)
 
But there are already year-on-year government cuts to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Immigrants are keen to learn English, but unless we have properly funded ESOL provision across the board, it will be increasingly difficult for them to do so.
 
Eli Davis writes:-
 
“I have worked as an ESOL teacher for nearly ten years and am part of the national Action for ESOL campaign, which campaigns against cuts to the subject. I and my colleagues have encountered no reluctance to learn among the migrant population: every year our courses are oversubscribed and students themselves frequently ask for more provision, as well as bringing along their equally keen friends or relatives to classes.

To some degree migrants are an easy target for the government. In times of austerity they are often the first vulnerable group to have access to services removed and there is no doubt that immigrants have already borne the brunt of much of the government’s cuts. Over the last 15 or so years the drip-drip feed of the ‘immigrant = scrounger’ narrative from the mainstream press - and shamelessly pandered to by politicians - has created a climate in which such cuts go unchallenged or unnoticed. (The latest example of this is Jeremy Hunt’s racist political point-scoring over so-called 'health tourism' in the NHS).”
 
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/07/migrants-want-learn-english-why-isnt-government-investing-help-them-do-so

Where (other than here) in the world does the adopting country pay out to teach foreigners (anybody not native) to learn the native language?

tlttf.  You really are so out of touch in your ‘Little Englander’ world, where the only thing that ever seems to matter to you is money.
 
Xenophobes like to spread the myth that immigrants don’t want to learn English, but the evidence in my previous post indicates that to be a load of rubbish. As to “paying out to teach foreigners English”, all but the most short-sighted will see that as an investment. Far better to teach people the language so that they can work, rather than have them sitting at home on benefits for ever because nobody will employ them.
 
As it turns out, lots of countries invest in courses to teach immigrants the language. The first document below illustrates how common that practice is for young immigrants, and the second one gives a snapshot of spending by European governments on courses for adult immigrants. For example, Germany spent 174 million euros in 2008 and 200 million euros in 2009, while the Netherlands spent 260 million in 2009.
 
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/christenseneducation091907.pdf
 
http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC57387.pdf
 
Sadly, the Tories are as myopic as you, cutting funding for such courses, then attacking those who can’t speak English by reducing their benefits. It’s all no doubt aimed at trying to sound tough on immigration and stopping the ‘Alf Garnetts’ of this world deserting the Tories for an even grottier party known as UKIP. They make me ashamed to be British, and so do you.

".... pay out to teach foreigners ...."

Good news for British teachers of English, I would have thought.

More evidence that immigration is not the 'problem' which right-wing racists and xenophobes would like us to believe.
 
Britain needs millions more immigrants to reduce strain of ageing population
 
From an article by Steven Swinford:-
 
The Office for Budget Responsibility said that spending on the state pension, social care and healthcare will rise from 14% of Britain's GDP to almost a fifth.

The report found that allowing more than 140,000 immigrants into Britain a year, equivalent to 6 million people, would help increase the overall number of people who are in work and improve public finances. Its analysis suggests that Britain's borrowing as a proportion of GDP would rise to 99% if there is a steady flow of immigrants. If there was a complete ban on immigrants, borrowing would rise to 174% of GDP.

Cameron has pledged to reduce the levels of immigration into Britain to "tens of thousands" during this parliament. Last year the number of immigrants dropped by 89,000 to 153,000.

The report says: "Our analysis shows that overall migration has a positive impact on the sustainability of the public finances over our 50 year horizon. There is clear evidence that, since migrants tend to be more concentrated in the working-age group relatively to the rest of the population, immigration has a positive effect on the public sector’s debt dynamics."
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10185342/Britain-needs-millions-more-immigrants-to-reduce-strain-of-ageing-population.html

So the problem is not with immigrants, but with ageing Brits. How very inconsiderate of them. They'll be expecting a pension in return to a lifetime of paying National Insurance contributions.

Time to distribute "Logan's Run" on DVD to sixth-form students?

Very true OW.

Ivan, have you fallen for a piece of wishful reporting put out by those that benefit from driving down wages and living standards.
Lets get everybody in this country working for a reasonable wage and living in their own home (be it private or social), lets have an education, welfare and a health service that works for the indigenous people of this Island. Then and only then should we talk about immigration, anything before that is pulling the wool over peoples eyes and unfortunately the wool doesn't have to be pulled very far in some cases.

tlttf. What a pity that you don’t read articles properly before opening your trap and putting your foot in it as usual. I suppose  that ‘Telegraph’ extract was too long for the attention span of a ‘Daily Mail’ reader.
 
The Office for Budget Responsibility was created by your Tory friends in 2010 to “provide independent and authoritative analysis of the UK’s public finances”. Part of its brief is to assess long-term sustainability, and it produced your so-called “piece of wishful thinking”. I would have thought that even you could work out that an ageing population is not sustainable, because it means there won’t be enough people in work to support those who have retired. Maybe, instead of immigration, you’d prefer it if everyone had to work until they’re 80 before getting a pension?
 
The report, which I have no reason to believe is not independent, says that another 6 million immigrants would improve our public finances. I realise it would be a challenge, but why don’t you try reading the whole article before inflicting any more of your ‘Little Englander’ ignorance on us? You might even wake up and see that immigration can be a solution, not a problem.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10185342/Britain-needs-millions-more-immigrants-to-reduce-strain-of-ageing-population.html