Jon Bright (London, OK): The Office of National Statistics released its figures on migration yesterday, to a predictable and depressing furore. The Telegraph especially provides an object lesson in how all statistics can be transformed into headlines. This:
Last year, 510,000 foreign migrants came to the UK to stay for at least 12 months, according to the Office for National Statistics. At the same time 400,000 people, more than half of whom were British, emigrated...
...Yet despite high levels of emigration and a low birth rate, the population is still growing rapidly because of immigration by the equivalent to a city the size of Bristol every year.
Wait - so, overall, we made a net gain of 110,000 people last year. How big is Bristol again?
Overall in 2006, there were a record 591,000 new arrivals. Only 14 per cent of these were Britons coming home.
So in what sense were those 14% new arrivals? Why should Britons returning from a year abroad be rolled into this figure?
Of course, statistics massaging aside, we are gaining people. At CentreForum on Monday Nick Clegg and Philippe Legrain explained, in slightly pained and world weary voices, that this might actually be a good thing, if we could get over our fear of the foreigners. Legrain argued that New Labour's greatest economic achievement was not independence for the Bank of England but agreeing to let in migrants from Eastern Europe - something which he says has been the backbone of our economic growth for the last 10 years.
Legrain is an economist, of course, so he is watching the market. If more people are immigrating than emigrating, it probably means that our economy is booming, creating jobs, at least in comparison to everywhere else. And the job market is not a zero sum game - people create jobs as well as take them. There are no more "British" jobs than there are "womens" jobs, he says. The state should just stay out of it.
What is interesting about Conservative policy on the issue is that in most other areas they would agree with him. They are all for the state staying out of the market. By proposing migration control, in fact, they are proposing central planning of one of the most vital sources of labour our economy has - with what should be obvious, negative consequences.
As for Labour, it is predictable - Brown plays the game he thinks he needs to. His "British jobs for British workers" speech was another slap in the face for all those to the left of him - simply not the kind of idiotic sloganeering people voted Labour for. Legrain said it on Monday, and Sunder Katwala echoed him. Labour should start articulating a positive vision of the Britain they want to create - indeed, the type of Britain they have already created. That should include being positive about the benefits of immigration.
