BS: UK immigration too high?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 07:31 AM

Welcome back Royston.
Before you left you made the extraordinary statement,"the TRUTH NOW is that immigration is falling through the statistical floor and is not exactly a live issue either NOW or in the FUTURE, based on present levels."
I asked you twice to give a source or any credible person who agreed, but you have chosen not to.
We can draw our own conclusions.

In your latest post you forgot to provide links.
Did you not want us to see the full story?

Now you ask me about Migrationwatch and their views on the current situation.
Here are some extracts from a BBC piece from February this year.

"...the biggest decline - 21% - coming from new EU nations such as Poland.

But figures also show a 290,000 rise in overseas-born UK residents, which hit 6.5 million in the year to June 2008."

"There are no official figures on the outflow of migrants to accession countries but Sir Andrew Green, of pressure group Migration Watch, said the flow from and to Eastern Europe would "come into balance before very long" and the "main pressure was now immigration from outside the EU" which unlike EU migration the government could control. "

"Other figures released earlier reveal the number of people from outside the EU granted the right to settle in the UK was 145,965, an increase of 17% on the previous year.

This was largely down to an increase in the number of people allowed to stay because of their job, which returned to 2005 levels.

Asylum applications were 10% higher in 2008 at 25,670 "

Commenting on the figures, shadow immigration minister Damian Green, for the Conservatives, said: "Even at a time when short-term applications are falling because of the dreadful state of the British economy, grants of settlement are up 17% mainly because of foreign workers who have come here and decided to stay.

"This shows how foolish Gordon Brown's promise of British jobs for British workers was.

"The asylum statistics are ominous, as they show the first signs of a system sliding back into the chaos of previous years. Applications are up 10%, decisions are down 11%, and the number waiting for an initial decision has risen by a third. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7906277.stm

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 08:37 AM

Keith, read please.

2009 figures 50% lower than 2008.

Source UK Border agency.

All your arguments are based on projections from 2006/7 figures and are therefore now meaningless.

Discuss.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 09:14 AM

I can not find where they said that Royston.
Link please.
The BBC piece is from this year, and the figures go up to Sept 2008.

Now you read extracts of my extracts.

290,000 rise in overseas-born UK residents, which hit 6.5 million in the year to June 2008."
" and the "main pressure was now immigration from outside the EU"

right to settle in the UK was 145,965, an increase of 17% on the previous year.

Asylum applications were 10% higher in 2008 at 25,670 "

grants of settlement are up 17%



"The asylum statistics are ominous, as they show the first signs of a system sliding back into the chaos of previous years. Applications are up 10%, decisions are down 11%, and the number waiting for an initial decision has risen by a third. "

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 01:09 PM

Keith

Now I know you are winding me up.

In a discussion that you entitled IS UK immigration too high, please try to stick to contemporary data.

Otherwise call it WAS UK immigration too high.

None of Coleman's 2007 projections.

None of your BBC 12 months to June 2008; which is now 16 to 28 months out of date.

Now, 2009 nearly 2010 please.

My post below contains UK border agency figures for Q2 2009 against the same period 2008. 50 percent fall in immigration.

The link to the source was in the original post on the BNP Conundrum thread. I can't recreate it on a blackberry so go look yourself as you obviously ignored the truth first time round.

On the same day and the same thread i posted a link to a national audit report of August 2009 that held that the border agency were making excellent progress on asylum decisions and removals.

That's August 2009 Keith. Not any other dubious selection by you from history.

You are a fool and a waste of time. I'm definitely tending toward's Azizi's view fo you as something altogether more sinister.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 01:39 PM

In fact, it is as I said some time ago.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 04:23 PM

Royston, here are links to your posts.
thread.cfm?threadid=123889&messages=402#2734032
thread.cfm?threadid=123889&messages=402#2734154
You made them on 29th Sept and we have already talked all about the links in them.

There is no reference to a 50% drop in immigration.
You must have imagined it.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 05:14 PM

Keith there are no lengths you won't go to in order to avoid the truth is there?

'about' a 50pc drop. 209,000 down to 118,000. The second stat was down 43 percent. The next stat was about 46k down to about 26k. Well done. Now have you anything of substance to say?

I prefer your nitpicking to your imaginary arguments about contemporary issues which you base on 2yr old numbers.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 05:33 PM

I thought that might be what you were getting at, but I also expected better of you.
This is what the ONS 27th August said about immigration.

512,000 people immigrated to the UK, little change on 527,000 in the year to
December 2007. Immigration of non-British citizens was 441,000, also little changed
from the previous year. Immigration of citizens of the A8 Accession countries (those
countries of central and eastern Europe that joined the European Union in 2004)
declined by 28 per cent from 109,000 to 79,000 over the same period, but this
decline is not statistically significant at the 95 per cent confidence level.
Got that?
"little change" to immigration
Immigration of non British "also little changed"
Immigration from accession countries "decline is not statistically significant"

What happened was such a huge surge in people LEAVING that NET immigration dropped 44%
What happened last year to cause that?
Maybe the banking collapse and the worst recession in living memory.

So that is your great hope for the future. That the recession will get so much worse every year that it drives away enough people to make room for the continuing huge rate of immigration.

And you call me a scarmonger!

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 05:45 PM

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/mig0809.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 06:12 PM

Now we're getting to the truth of Keith A, it seems.

I thought that you and your friends were only concerned about NET immigration. You said you were not racist, just worried about total population growth.

Now that you agree that net immigration is reducing dramatically you still arn't happy. NOW you point to the problem being not enough reduction in the number of non-british immigrants.

So it's the wrong type of immigration is it Keith? Says a lot, that does.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 02:57 AM

No Royston.
I listed ALL the components of immigration referred to in the report.
It was YOU who singled out non British immigration in order to call me racist.
Despicable, but I am not angry.
It tells me I have knocked down all your arguments, and that is all you have left.
I have shown you that immigration continues as high as ever and your drop in net immigration is due to an unsustainable, one off surge in emigration.
Even if, Heaven forbid, the recession deepens or other catastrophes occur, that surge will end.

Its main components are returning EU migrants and there are a limited number of those, and people bringing forward plans to retire abroad.
There will certainly be far less of those in the future.

The projections are still valid. The best we can hope for is a delay of a year or so.

Your ludicrous claim that immigration has now ceased to be an issue of concern has been shown to be groundless, and all you can do in reply is to wave your arms and shout racist.
A posturing fool.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 03:47 AM

no Keith, all your 2007 projections, for whatever reason, are now meaningless. Your fears and arguments have no substance.

Aside from the fall off in numbers, your projections make no account of the 2008 points based immigration restrictions, as those restrictions were not existent in the years on which your hysteria is based.

At worst a concerned person could say 'I wa worried about immigration but thankfully it has reduced. We don't know if the points system will address our concerns in the event arrivals increase; we shall have to monitor the situation.'

What the debate does not need is people like you stirring things and upping the temperature with out of date information twisted into half lies and hysteria.

The truth now, is 'wait and see', no projections are possible, the old ones are worthless.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 03:55 AM

The Points Based System (PBS) is not designed to limit the number of people settling in the UK. Therefore it is completely unlike the Australian system.
According to Government figures, the PBS would have cut net immigration in 2007 by 8%, when a reduction of 75% is required to stop the UKs population hitting 70 million in 2028.
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/BriefingPaper/document/162

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 04:57 AM

This scheme does not limit work-related migration in any way, and is not intended to. The Australian system which it is said to resemble is, in fact, entirely different; it starts with a limit and selects within that total. By contrast, Tier One is entirely open ended. For Tier Two, employers are supposed to make sure that there is no satisfactory candidate within the European Union but this test is notoriously difficult to police. Nor does it apply if an occupation has been declared a "shortage occupation", nor if the migrant arrives as an intra company transfer.

4. There is no evidence of the economic benefits of large scale immigration.
As unemployment climbs towards three million, the whole justification for a massive system for economic migration comes into question. With a workforce of 30 million, the only long-term answer is to train and retrain British workers. The CBI themselves acknowledged this in their evidence to the House of Lords [2]. Furthermore, the whole concept of skills shortages is dubious, particularly over the medium term. Professor Metcalf, Chair of the government's own Migration Advisory Committee told the House of Lords Economic Committee that "the whole notion of shortages was a bit of a slippery concept" (Q557), since, over time, wage increases should deal with the shortages. This scheme assumes that there is significant economic benefit to the host country from large-scale immigration. However, House of Lords report in April 2007 came to the opposite conclusion [3].

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 06:45 PM

What, in this context is a "non-British" immigrant?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 07:13 PM

"There has been a lot of irresponsible scaremongering about immigration in recent years which was based on the false assumption that high net migration into the UK was inevitable for years to come. As our recent report on re-migration showed, migration flows go both ways and we now need to be thinking about how our managed migration systems can continue to attract and retain the migrants we need to help our economy to recover and grow."


A different viewpoint from yours Keith. I pointed out before that the House of Lords report missed a fundamental trick in its analysis.

Source? The Institute for Public Policy Research.

http://www.ippr.org.uk/pressreleases/?id=3694

Given the rather malodorous views of Immigration Watch in general, I ahve a preference in policy terms.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Oct 09 - 03:05 AM

You are telling us that there are some people out there who agree with you.
Thank you Richard, but I think we all realised that.
IPPR seem to hold a more extreme view that there should be no limits or controls at all. They are certainly very critical of the weak and inneffective points based system.
But there is nothing malodorous about either group.
Why must you people always try to smear anyone who disagrees with you?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Oct 09 - 03:13 AM

You don't think that attacking human rights is malodorous?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Oct 09 - 03:53 AM

Yes , that would be Richard.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: GUEST,Den
Date: 13 Oct 09 - 04:01 AM

It would appear you are becoming very popular Richard on a number of social websites.

Richard please stop attacking Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Oct 09 - 04:49 AM

Guest, your "support" is not welcome.
Go away.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Oct 09 - 01:46 PM

Immigration is too high everywhere. There are just too many people.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 10:09 AM

Mr Happy said on 6th October, "I am wondering what issues/ 'legitimate concerns' are so worrying to some people."

John Denham, the Communities Secretary, could have told you.
I did tell you.
"Some councils have told government they have struggled to maintain the confidence of local people who feel they had been left behind as policymakers have appeared to focus on the needs of incomers.

Mr Denham denied these areas had been largely "forgotten" by policymakers, but acknowledged that some were susceptible to extremist far-right recruitment if people's grievances were not dealt with.

"These are areas where we know that people will often say, I'm not sure that someone is speaking up for us, does anyone really understand what is happening to our lives."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8305906.stm

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 10:49 AM

Yes Keith, we know people have justified concerns about immigration.

The article also lists other community issues;

*Recession

*Loss of traditional jobs - that's industrial change, decay, factories and the like shutting down and relocating to the Far East.

*Collapse of trust in local authorities and services

Just to be sure that people aren't in any way misled, Keith, into thinking that the initiative, and the issues it identifies, are all about immigration.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 11:39 AM

I have to agree with you Royston.
There are other issues facing working class communities.

Immigration pressure is the main one being addressed here as the previous ignoring of it by politicians has led people into the clutches of BNP.
(As I have been saying for months)

Now, why do you call me a racist liar please?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 02:52 PM

Because, Keith, you tell lies to reinforce your own paranoia and that of others in regard to immigration.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 03:15 PM

You keep repeating the slander but you never justify it.
You can not because there is no truth in it.
Just empty abuse.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 03:52 PM

I don't have to prove that which you yourself have said.

Every time you've misled people, I've pointed it out and the record is here for all to see.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 04:13 PM

You have to prove that I said it.
You could easily do that by reproducing it.
But you can not.
Saying that you have seen it will not do.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 05:08 PM

Most people here can read. They can even use scroll up and scroll down.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 05:30 PM

Most people can read so give them something.
Which of my hundreds of posts on this should they look at?
JUST SELECT THE VERY WORST ONE!

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 06:38 PM

http://www.mudcat.org/detail.cfm?messages__Message_ID=2743942

The projections are still valid - Lie, they are not valid. Keith's hysteria was based on a projection of the future that was dependent on net migration staying the same as it was in 2006/7.

-------------------------------------

http://www.mudcat.org/detail.cfm?messages__Message_ID=2743670

The entire post is a lie. It is put forward in the context of a discussion of "now". It is only my wariness of Keith's 'facts' that forced him to admit that the whole thing was dragged out of 2003, including his deliberately reprinted and sensationalist (senstionally out of date) claim of 300 asylum seekers every day.

-------------------------------------
http://www.mudcat.org/detail.cfm?messages__Message_ID=2743382

Now you ask me about Migrationwatch and their views on the current situation - but what Keith actually gave me was But figures also show a 290,000 rise in overseas-born UK residents, which hit 6.5 million in the year to June 2008 - data that has nothing do with now, it is over two years old (the earliest data in the range). Lies, misinformation, halftruths. Designed to mislead.

--------------------------------------
http://www.mudcat.org/detail.cfm?messages__Message_ID=2740614

More 2007 projections put forward as a fact of where Keith claims we are heading.

---------------------------------------
http://www.mudcat.org/detail.cfm?messages__Message_ID=2740304

This message contains a number of sensational statements

"The NAO projects..."

"The latest government household projections show..."

"Immigration is the overwhelming factor..."

When the truth is that the NAO *did* project and the household projections *once upon a time* showed some things that are now no longer true. Making Keith a liar.

Others then proved that in fact birth rate was the biggest factor, not immigration. Making Keith a liar again. And then Keith pointed out that the birth rate was higher amongst citizens born outside the UK suggesting that part of Keith's solution would be "send 'em 'ome"

Enough to be getting on with? I've had enough now, can't be bothered with clickies. Anyone that cares can cut/paste them into the address bar.

And I'm not going in any more circles on this with you Keith. Don't come back and blame it all on MigrationWatch - your impeccable source. YOU found those snippets, you presented them in the way you did and you are the liar.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 08:42 PM

ooops, was logged out earlier when I declined Keith's kind invitationn to take back my remark about mistaking his posts for thinly veuiled xenophobia. I declined because it really is an easy mistake to make. I'm sure I could be easily mistaken over many of his posts. perhaps I'm prone to mistakes.... or.....

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 08:57 PM

I think that immigration levels in recent years give cause for legitimate concerns

The majority of our immigrants, however, are from Africa and the Indian subcontinent

The concern is that EU incomers are very likely to return, but not those from third world countries.

People are welcome to work, send home money, save and return.

The Government claim that immigrants add £6 billion to our economy. What they do not say is that they also add to our population in almost exactly the same proportion as they add to production. Thus the benefit to the native population is very small - an outcome confirmed by major studies in the US, Canada and Holland and most recently by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs. The Government's own calculation, submitted in evidence to that Committee, implies an annual benefit to the resident population of only 62p per head a week (see White Paper Cm 7414 para 2.5).

Meanwhile, there are more than 300 primary schools in which over 70% have English as a second language; this is nearly a half million children.

Especially in our cities, immigration is the overwhelming factor in these issues.

Oh Crikey, how do I keep mistaking this stuff dor thinly veiled xenophobia?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 02:15 AM

Thanks Tug.
Royston agrees with me on the first quote.
He said"Yes Keith, we know people have justified concerns about immigration."
Did you mistake that for xenophobia?

The next two could only be taken that way if you did not read what went before, i.e. points about immigrants returning due to recession.
EU ones might, others probably not, but no suggestion that one sort is better or worse than the other.

Thw work permit system is used by many countries. They can not all be xenophobic.

The economics of migration is crucial to this debate. My protagonists have all given the opposite view but no one else offered this interpretaion. You do want to hear both sides don't you?

The schools thing is one of those legitimate concerns Royston wrote about.

Lastly, "these issues" were issues to do with immigration.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 03:15 AM

Royston, if all that economic stuff on the graph is too complicated, just look at the blue line of net migration.

It shows a steady upward, with short lived dips at each of the last three recessions, that had no effect on the long term trend.

If that is true for this recession, then the projections ARE still valid, and you certainly can not call someone a racist liar for pointing that out.

Every recession has produced a temporary surge in emigration, which soon ended and did not effect the long term trend.
Tell us why you think this one will be any different Royston.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 03:21 AM

Now Royston, re my posts that you and Mr Happy say "prove" me a racist liar.
The first four all concern whether the projections are still valid.
Unless you have some hard evidence that the current, recession driven surge in emigration is permanent, that is a valid point of view.
Do you have such evidence?
If not your assertion that everything is different now could itself be called a lie.
But not by me.
It is a valid point of view.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 03:33 AM

Royston, re your fith and final of my posts.
It was a straight reply to mr Happy who said,

"'people have concerns over the driving down of wages, competion for jobs, shortage of social housing, services like health and education stretched and inadequate, overcrowing of roads and transport systems, environmental degradation and so on.'
Ok, all above true, but how do you arrive at the conclusion that these issues are all down to immigration?"


How could I answer that without showing the link between immigration and those issues?

We are discussing the upside and downsides of high immigration.
You feel free to point out the upside, but if I point out a downside you shout "racist"

You specifically asked me to join this discussion.
I must be allowed to express the issues and concerns that are felt, without being called a racist liar for it.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Royston
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 04:13 AM

Keith, we have reached the limit of your intelligence. Unless you can improve, and quickly, there will be no point carrying on with this.

If you extrapolate a trend line to a future conclusion, then the projection of that line is only valid if the progression of the contributing data series remain unchanged.

If for instance we go through a period where net migration halves from the projected levels, then the remaining progression of the trend is altered irrevocably. The longer and more sharp the deviation from trend, the more significant is the change in future outcome.

Now you really have to think this one through Keith. Carefully.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 04:39 AM

You say "If for instance we go through a period where net migration halves from the projected levels, then the remaining progression of the trend is altered irrevocably"

We have gone through 3 previous such periods.
Every recession.
And they did NOT change the trend.
Just temporary dips.
If that is true for this recession, then the projections ARE still valid, and you certainly can not call someone a racist liar for pointing that out.

Every recession has produced a temporary surge in emigration, which soon ended and did not effect the long term trend.
Tell us why you think this one will be any different Royston

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 06:18 AM

The ONS data)if I have correctly identified the link to which you refer, Keith) only appears to go back to 2000. Which are the three recessions to which you refer?

It seems to me that the present and past year's circumstances are unprecedented apart (arguably, although the causes were very different) from the Thatcher-Reagan recession (which was deliberately engineered) and the "Great Depression" which came from a different type of bubble speculation and was affected by ignorant pre-Keynesian economics.

My present view is that:

1. there is no reason to envisage an upturn in net immigration from A8 countries (their economies will benefit with other EU economies from the Brown-Darling-Obama measures, so long as the French and Germans do not sabotage it, and if they do they will sabotage us as well)

2. there is no reason to envisage an upturn in net immigration from third world countries: the points system should see to that (but if "high flyers" come that will be economically beneficial).

3. there is no reason to envisage a flood of asylum seekers: the removal process has been made more effective as has the detection and prevention of arrival, and more effective "first port of call" enforcement is also in the pipeline.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 06:36 AM

Obviously the wrong link Richard.
I would not dispute your 3 views.

The last three recessions are 1975-1976,1981-1982 and 1993.
They produced larger drops in net immigration than the current one has.
It has always been temporary, with no effect on the long term trend.

Royston is sure that this one is somehow going to be different, but he has not yet told us why.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 07:20 AM

Thanks Tug.
Royston agrees with me on the first quote.
So what?

Lastly, "these issues" were issues to do with immigration.

Indeed, and the selection of material, and the deliberate pose of objective neutrality lead me, unmistakenl;y, to see them as an example of thinly disguised xenophobia.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 07:28 AM

So What?
Its xenophobic for me to say it, but not Royston?

We were dicussing issues relating to immigration.
Which of those am I forbiden to select without earning the X word?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 08:11 AM

And why do you assume my objectivity is a pose Tug?

You are making extreme judgements on my character without any evidence.
That is called prejudice Tug.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 11:46 AM

I'm making guesses. It is not only what people choose to say....questions of style and selection give clues to motivation. These are reasonable easy to spot in verbal interaction, but can also be evidenced in analysis of written output.

Prejudice is pre-judging. I am judging, but only after reading many of your posts in many threads. Most recently a typically misleading post to the 'England 'thread.
   Were I asked to provide a profile, derived from your writing, I would certailly conclude that they bespoke thinly veiled xenophobia,and that non-white immigration mworried youn more than white anglophone immigration.

You clearly DO have views, why not just state them openly, rather than conceal them (not very well) behind what is IMHO, a pose of objectivity.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 12:15 PM

I have now looked at the data you suggest Keith. It is from ImmigrationWatch so may or may not be objective. However, while it looks arguably like a tracker effect from 1990 to 2007 (and not more recently) the immigration is bi-directionally countercyclical from 84 to 90, and untracking in 71/2, 73/4, 79/80, 81/82.

That could well be a happenstance correlation at most, like the legendary case of stork population and live births in Finland (sorry, I don't know the date but it is in all the student textbooks on statistics, or at least it was when I was younger).

Off the top of my head, what would the figures be if you tried to correlate (a) government in power and years from change with (b) net migration?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 02:39 PM

Fascinating Tug, but that is not me at all.
We should meet sometime.
Conciously or unconsciously you have judged that anyone who expresses any concern about high immigration is a racist, and fitted in all subsequent evidence with your preconception.
You have misjudged me.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 02:47 PM

Richard , I would be interested in a lawyer's opinion, not on that, but on the quality of the "proof" offered by Royston that I am a racist liar.
On the other, I am sure you are using a clever lawyer's trick to hide a simple truth.
The graph shows a steady long term rise in net migration, with three dips that coincide with each of the previous three recessions.
We just need Royston to explain why this one is going to be different.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 03:51 PM

no,I believe it is not too high,we are in Europe,Europeans should be able to move anywhere they like.
furthermore that should apply to all nations everywhere,If I want to emigrate to the USA I should be able to do so.