大象传媒

As well at immigrants this topic should be widened to include economic migrants. Both these groups of people do nothing for our economy, as they send all spare money home to their own countries for supporting their families or to buy a home for themselves at a later date.

The Polish Finance Minister said some while ago on television that these people sent more than four billion pounds back to Poland, in the last year. How is that benefiting our economy?

Who are on this panel please ?

I don't think the jobs argument is economically sustainable either way, nor housing, or any other put forward.

It comes down to one question only and that is: do you or do you not like foreigners?

Personally, I don't mind them at all. We've only got one world so lets share it.

This Labour govermant has totally cocked up Immigration. They didn't want to address the issue.

Ask the constabulary chief constables what languages they have to employ to get Policing tasks done to see the vast variations of countries in the world they have to deal with on a day to day basis to get an idea of how this battle has been lost!

In order to have steady economic growth, younger people are needed. UK and most of the EU countries have aging population and very low population growth.
The problem in the UK is not the number of people who are coming, but the lack of planning by the government to have the necessary infrastructure and public services in place to cope with the increase in population.

Our traditions will gradually be eroded as more and more candidates of different cultures are voted on to our local councils

As long as dependency on the state is encouraged there will always be jobs for foreign workers and, as long as they pay income tax the state can support the none working indigenous element within our society. When teenage pregnancy is viewed as a career move, with almost never ending welfare benefits being payed, we are as a nation creating a labour vacuum. I accept that it is not possible to drag people from their homes and force them to work however, benefit payments should be based on what the individual has contributed to the "pot" since they became eligible to work. In the short term, we appear to need foreign workers to provide the services that our own young people seem incapable of providing.
Not so very long ago Germany had the same types of policies and their country was flooded with immigrants. I remember how the German economy suffered and ultimately, when they decided that, perhaps the locally born worker would be prepared to carry out various works, it was too late as there were no jobs available.

Cool graphic
Newsnight's answer to "Ant and Dec"

X

it the home office. sex of visa they get Immigration form refugees out and get the illegal immigrants who did the cirme in. we what I call illegal do the crmie we get 5 years in the uk. what the hell going on.

Can an Argentinian come to UK tomorrow as a tourist and find a job? You betcha he can. Can a UK citizen go to Argentina tomorrow as a tourist and get a job? No way Jose.

Can a UK citizen go to Poland tomorrow and get a job that pays well enough to return to the UK in a few years better off - I don't think so man. Can a Pole come to the UK tomorrow and be welcomed with open arms and offered the rights of a well paid job with prospects? Most certainly, without a doubt. Bring the family, it's the EU afterall.

Can a UK citizen go to Australia tomorrow and start living and working like an Aussie? No chance mate - get a VISA and wait for a XXXX long time. Can an Australian get off the plane tomorrow at Heathrow and start living the life of a Londoner? Crikey mate, no probs, that's a no brainer.

Can a UK citizen go to Africa and falsely claim asylum? Not bloody likely, but can a Kenyan masquerade as a Sudanese, can a Morrocan pretend to be an Algerian and falsely claim asylum and see through a lengthy appeals process while supported by the UK welfare system? Of course, that's easy, that's their god given human right.

Can a British family uproot themselves and go and live in France? Of course they can , if they're middle class, own a house and have aspirations of living in a chateau and have the money to support themselves while they spend many months navigating French red tape. Can a French family uproot themselves and come live in the UK and start working tomorrow? Of course they can, no red tape, no French snobbery, cultural prejudice to contend with in the UK!

Can a Brazilian come to the UK as a tourist and find work and a good income next week? Of course they can, just get off the plane, say it's a visit to one of the many thousands of illegal Brazilians in London and then just melt away into the population. They can even do it legally and above board if they've claimed Portuguese citizenship through some dubious distant family line.

UK immigration is simply one way traffic and the average UK citizen has the same rights and opportunities as anyone else, legally resident or illegally. The effect on EU enlargement with no quotas in place, is in effect akin to the USA opening up its borders with Mexico after signing the NAFTA agreement. But of course they didn't, Canadians are free to live and work in the USA of course, as they have a similar high standard of living and there's very few of them anyway, but of course Mexicans who mostly live in Poverty would flock in their millions to escape to a better, more prosperous place given the chance. Basically this immigration thing is common sense, if all countries were equal, with no prejudices, good economies etc there wouldn't be immigration, or need for a debate. What makes me mad is that our politicians are just too scared to discuss it despite knowing that a catastrophe is in the making.

When A country lets large numbers of migrant workers from poorer countries in the capital assets of the country are diminished, The schools are affected. English speaking children are held up whilst the language is taught to foreign children.Hospitals are affected immigrants are seen first because they need a translater who cannot be paid all day.Our people go to the back of the queue,in housing too.The police are affected coping with an influx of imported crime. Meanwhile funds needed to cope with this deluge are being pumped out to The EU.This is about our survival.

Dear Bernard a. Smith,

I do not agree with your statement on the economic migrants. I totally agree that they send the spare money back home to support their families etc. My dear friend that is their hard earned taxed money therefore they are entitled to do whatever they want. Whenever British families go on holiday to france, spain, italy etc and spend millions of pounds the money goes to the individual governments and does not come to british economy.

Richard Bacon being allowed anywhere near Newsnight is surely the final, unanswerable indictment of the 大象传媒. This man knows nothing about current affairs; his Radio 5 show is an unlistenable embarrassment that makes Alan Partridge look like some kind of Reithian colossus. Recently Frank Gardner was on talking about the pernicious influence of Wahhabism on Saudi culture. Several minutes in, Bacon asked: "So the Wahhabis - is that like sharia, then?"

Get this man away from current affairs and back on children's television where he belongs.

I would like to know why Britain has not followed Germany and France, who have refused entry to Bulgarian and Romanian citizens who became EU members last year.

Similarly, why have we have not followed Italy, who have passed an emergency law permitting deportation of immigrants from the same countries, who have no work permits and are believed to a threat public order and involved in crime ?

#10 excellent points.

London, school age - 75% of LAs are now 50% or under White British. Some of the other inner cities will no doubt go the same way. These areas are British, but they'll become more and more Black British and S Asian British as these kids grow up and reproduce at above replacement level given that the White British have had TFRs below 1.8 for years.

99.9% of London's growth over the next few decades will be in BME groups (Lord Mayor's data). These inner city 'regeneration areas' are Labour's electoral heartlands. Urban regeneration?

More spin and money pumping to and from a very naive, easily pleased, ever more poorly educable, electorate. They put money into schools etc which is easy to soak back up. Most people just hear the words, they don't grasp the economics. See Building Schools for the Future. The schools are owned by investors on a long lease. The schools pay for services.

The more immigration there is from the New Commonwealth, the cheaper labour will be and the more votes they'll get as they make empty promises backed up by lowering pass rate criteria etc to 'prove delivery'. 'Education, education, education' (now to go up to 50% at Higher) will just make this worse, worse, worse. Both parties will spar but collude I reckon. It's a sham. They serve the same paymasters.

It's just profit driving all this, the more ignorant the consumers the better. British jobs for British people. This will mean New Britons from the Commonwealth, never mind the EU migrant 'foreign' workers.

Anyone who has been in a London school knows this is the case.

Decades of Cultural Marxism (political correctness) and naivety/dumbing down/hubrism has brought this about. It's now a fait accompli, the time for debate was long ago. It's too late now.

I asked Tony Blair if mass migration to this country was by design or default.He clearly said, 'Not by design'He lied.The massive,unprecedented influx of migrants to this country has nothing to do with the economy,but is about breaking up,fragmenting our nation in order to shoehorn us into the EU.We are being conquered from within.That old adage 'united we stand,divided we fall' is crucial to the inception of a police state here in the UK.

The political classes have no mandate for this massive ongoing damage from immigration.

What time is this discussion going to be on? Will it be on TV or radio?

Will it be during the Newsnight usual slot at 10:30pm bbc 2 or will it be on the radio, time unknown, radio 5?

Come on precisie details please.

Dear Newsnight

鈥� Question -Who is looking after the migrants?

I think the UK is a far more interesting place as a result of people coming here.

My race are the people with the same values as me, who care for others, it is irrelevant where they come from, what they look like or what religion they practise.

To me nationality is dead. It has no meaning to me. I live here, that鈥檚 about it.

But I am very concerned about the well being of new arrivals. Who is looking after them? They have come to a strange country, far from their communities and are often living in pretty difficult conditions at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords and criminals.

When I worked with the homeless we had one landlord who treated his tenants appallingly. The Police were keen to act, and a newspaperman was interested but I failed to get political help to stop him. One leading politician refused saying 鈥業 don鈥檛 want my knee caps broken鈥�. 鈥業f that was the view of someone in authority in a pretty comfortable and safe position you can imagine how defenceless his tenants were. This landlord is now gone but there are others in our communties. I鈥檓 extremely worried that in housing alone serious abuses are taking place against today鈥檚 migrants.

Politicians say that the migrants need less assistance from the state, but perhaps the reverse is true, that they actually need more help?

I sadly predict that in the years to come accounts will surface of how some migrants were treated here. I fear some bad stuff is going on, with as usual no proactive action from the public authorities and politicians,

Perhaps they take the view of a neo liberal I once knew who wanted to see uncontrolled migration, and didn鈥檛 seem to realise that it would create a society of the survival of the fittest. People with his privileged protected background education and health would be ok but others less fortunate (or weaker) wouldn鈥檛 be.

Now people come here, and we are lucky to have such talented and educated people wanting to do so and it seems to me that they are being left to fend for themselves,

If people we cared about went to the migrant鈥檚 countries -how would we want them to be treated?

Shame on this country 鈥揳s usual

Bob

How many immigrant workers are there in Parliament? If there were would they be able to claim as much in expenses as the current occupants?
What a bunch of short sighted politicians. It's about time for a complete change!
As a previous comment say's the British way of life is being speedily eroded.
What a prospect for the future!

Some 18 months ago I attempted to engaga my MP in a dialogue on, amongst other things, immigration.
I attempted to explain to him that my undergraduate stepson was no longer able to obtain a holiday job
{labouring, removals,bar work etc]
because all these jobs were being taken by migrants for less money.
Other points I made to this labour
{marginal seat} MP were to try and
emphasise the inevitable pressure which uncontrolled migration would bring to the housing marktet, to education and to the NHS. I suggested that perhaps such matters had not been fully thought out.
My MP responded to my fears by informing me that my views were
'laughable and unrepresentive.'

It is quite simple - immigration is all about numbers. During the Tory years, only the usual suspects on the far right were bothered about immigration. Since this Government lost control of our borders, we have had a simply unsustainable level of immigration. Don't give me the nonsense about it being "good for the economy" - a society is about far more than an economy. England is now one of the most densely populated countries in Europe - it is definitely well past the time to call a halt. There are quality of life, environmental and societal issues to consider. Get rid of Labour and bring back sensible border controls (includes scrapping the crazy HRA and leaving the Geneva Convention on refugees which is now well past its sell-by date, being used by economic migrants, rather than by genuine refugees).

I was somebody who accurately predicted the size of the Polish guestworker influx.It wasn't very difficult .Poland has a population of 40 million ,the proportion between 20 and 30 is roughly 6 million .If one estimated that 10% of this young population would migrate that yields an estimate of 600000.Do the same calculation with demographically exploding Turkey (80 million and rising).Here there is a much larger fraction that will move if they get the chance .The fact is that you cannot have free movement of labour between countries of unequal economic development.It is madness

Alan Sharples

Much as one would like to admit all people from all countries - it is just not possible. We have to be realistic and realize that the UK is getting "smaller & smaller".
This Government has really done a diservice to this Country and immigrants alike.
It hasn't made any plans for the multitude that they have allowed in - by providing the staff at schools to cope with the many different languages,by providing houses in the same area repeatedly - without the basic infa-structure to cope.
Call me just a little cynical - but is it just a little "Political" to place most of the immigrants in the "South-East" where it is so overcrowded and shortage of housing is already well known - when there is space in the Northern part of the UK - which would benefit from immigration.
Another problem is that immigrants CAN be paid less that their existing counterparts - as we have seen on a local basis. We visit on a VERY frequent basis a Local cafe/rest - where it was totally staffed by local people - but now almost totally staffed by Eastern Europeans - who are delightful (but quite often do not understand your orders). When meeting quite a few of the former staff - they repeatedly tell you that their "Hours" were continually cut - till it was not viable to work there anymore - due to employing immigrants on a "Cheaper" rate. This is where the Government have come unstuck. This is bound to cause discontent.
Yours,
J.H.
Swansea.

The fact is that Britain is subject to a makeover for purely political reasons. The government is not in the least bit concerned about the unknown numbers of illegals. The Government are in fact importing an army of foreign voters, who they hope in the fullness of time, and after an amnesty, will come to outvote the ethnic British on all sorts of issues, not the least of which will be the Euro.

If Britain needed more people surely it would less troublesome, and less expensive to grow our own. The problem of an aging population could have been solved long ago with a better family allowances to support larger families. It would have meant more taxes, but given the alternative I think we would have gone for it.

When it comes to the remodelling of Britain, let us not forget that it was a politicians dream, not ours.

Whilst Establishment politicians such as Cameron periodically call for an open, honest and 'adult' debate on immigration, in reality they want no such thing. Nor for that matter does the 大象传媒 and the rest of the 'mainstream media'. Why? Because the truth is so explosive that it would rock the foundations of the existing political order.

If you believe that this overstates the matter, just ask yourself why Britain's fourth political party, in terms of votes received, the British National Party, is routinely denied a voice in any media-hosted discussion that debates the issue?

The truth? You can't handle the truth!

This debate is definitely overdue. The government and the other parties do seem scared of even talking about immigration. Immigration obviously helps our country, economically, but I think more importantly, culturally. However there has to be a practical element to immigration. If there aren't enough houses, or enough jobs in the country then obviously you can't welcome in lots of new people. But if there are jobs that immigrants can fill, and houses available then what is the problem. However we do now have a housing problem in this country, so we need to look at immigration.

However another problem is that as soon as this debate is brought up, parts of the media jump on it and pump out the xenophobic stories. We need a proper sensible debate about this within our politic system- its all very well talking about it on newsnight but the population at large don't watch newsnight- if our politicians don't start talking about it, nothing can be done.

Cohesion 鈥� there isn鈥檛 any. Setting up a Government department won鈥檛 bring it about. Trevor Philips said last year that 鈥榳e we鈥檙e sleep walking towards segregation. He鈥檚 wrong 鈥� we鈥檙e already there. If he is right in terms of the timing, then can we get there soon if only to protect ourselves from the crime and to preserve (and maintain access to) our education, health, housing and transport.

Economy 鈥� we simply do not believe the government鈥檚 figures on this subject or crime etc.

Government handling of immigration 鈥� I am not aware of ANY measures or deportations, and that鈥檚 just the criminals. We clearly need to remove ourselves from the EU completely. Trade with our Euro friends but let鈥檚 not become their dustbin.

The (indigenous) people of this country have never been consulted on this, or multiculturalism and if you think the latter is working, like Ken Livingstone does, ask yourselves what percentage of the 20 teenage knife / gun deaths in London this year have been committed by and on blacks 鈥� answer 100%.

Then think what damage or should that be negative contribution, this community make to our lives in terms of health, transport, crime, and especially education which is also free to them incidentally). Do you think immigration speeds up teaching or slows it down?

It will be interesting whether your mass debate focuses on EU immigration or non-EU immigration. Don鈥檛 worry, I already know it will be the former!

For Ian lacey @ 23

Thank you. :-)

Dr Emerson in post 28 is absolutely right!

The only Party that has a rational and fully thought through immigration policy (i.e. the British National Party) is always excluded from these debates (not to mention Question Time).

EUKIP has no coherent policy on immigration and, in any case, is disintegrating as a viable political party. Its candidates are routinely receiving derisory votes in every poll that they contest and it is riven by internal dissent.

The BNP has now become the "official" opposition to the One Party With 3 Names (i.e. the LibLabCon-spiracy) and is the frontline of the British Resistance against the creeping totalitarianism of the Establishment.

Why have the British National Party not been invited to this debate?.The three main political partys have no clear solutions to the problems the indigenous people face because they are the ones who created this mess in the first place.This debate is nothing but a joke and i think the majority of people who have not been brain washed by the far left luvvies of the Byast Broadcasting Corparation know that the show will end with Immigration is the best thing since sliced bread and that Diversity is strength.And anyone who opposses their views is nothing but a little Hitler in disguise....

I feel that the scale of the immigration is what the Labour government wanted. The stops and checks at our borders have been virtually removed as the government wanted as many people as they could get to enter the UK. This was because the prime support to our economy was the housing market, in particular a RISING housing market. Rising wages through the late 90's drove the market higher and in turn drove the economy. The "wages" driver stagnated in the first couple of years of the 21st century. So to keep this economic force the government realised it had to increase the other controlling factor, demand. This is why all stops were dropped at the borders and why all criminals, low level to violent to gangs, streamed to the UK knowing they WOULD get in and have fresh picking.
Now there are a vast many of hard working eastern Europeans here, and good luck to them. But, the government has to act hard now as Britain's identity is being swamped along with vast areas of beautiful countryside being turned into housing estates. But I fear that the Government actually had a hidden policy to vastly increase the UK's population. Also as this whole subject is easily skewed to "racism" which scares the hell out of politicians, another reason to do nothing to prevent more pressure in the UK. "Racism" fears has enabled Mugabe to wreck Zimbabwe without fears of US, UK, France etc. intervention and I suspect it will have some role in the Labour party destroying the UK.
The road the government has started us down will turn living in the UK to be not unlike living in an ants nest of over-crowding upon over-crowding.

Politicians of all parties over the last 50 years have betrayed the indigineous population.
Who in their right mind would have continually voted for millions of immigrants to pour into our small country with no controls.
Any immigrant should have had to speak english and had a job to go to.
Not allowed to become a citizen until after 5 years and not to have commited any crime.
Churchill if he was alive would have deported all the immigrants who commit crime a long time ago.
GOD HELP OUR POOR OFFSPRING IN THE FUTURE!

I have been looking at some statistics that, I believe, are generally accepted as being somewhere close to actuality.
We are told that immigrant labour contributes about 6 billion pounds P.A. to the economy.
We are also lead to understand that the percentage of foreign workers is somewhere between 8 and 12 percent of the workforce.
The Gross Domestic Product is currently about 1,250 billion.
Therefore, the value of immigrant labour, even at the 8 percent level accounts for under one half of one percent! Hardly a "good deal" for the rest of the workforce!
The second row of statistics is even more disturbing.
There are about 2 million Muslims residing in the U.K.
In a recent poll, 28 percent when questioned, expressed sympathy towards the London bombers. 44 percent wished for Sharia Law to be introduced into their communities.
Now we are told that 2,000 people are KNOWN terrorist suspects. This is only 0.1 percent of the Muslim population. I find this very hard to accept as a true figure of the potential threat to our peace and security.

Can you ask the panel:

Who is going to pay the pensions of the immigrants in 30 years time?

Britain needs a fair points system for economic migrants, just like that which the US and Australia has. Without a fair and transparent system, non-nationals are victims of ignorance and predujice, as the Page 3 newspapers attack immigrants, and not Government policy. The Big debate is long overdue.

I am not ageist immigration but I think it should be controlled, the interesting point is, some of politicians say: how come Polish people can find a job here but still many people whom are British are living on benefit.
The thing they don鈥檛 know is that when 10 polish worker can live in a 2 flat bedroom they can put up with low paid jobs (拢5/h), but a person who has got a family to take care of can not live on same life style and wage, so it is cheaper for them to claim benefit then go to work (specially single parents), why one of them even for ones not trying to live the life of a single mom in east London. Don鈥檛 they know about the big gap between their life and poor people, which is increasing everyday? Don鈥檛 they know that it is impossible for young people to buy a house?

The indigenous population of Britain have over the last decade or so become too complacent in their attitudes to work and holding up a full-time job because it suits them.
They seem to be becoming all too accustomed to foreign nationals and EU migrants doing skilled and non-skilled jobs while they either push for higher pay and shorter hours or are content with life on the the dole because its easier and/or better that way.
Why dont they understand that if they were prepared to graft like previous generations then perhaps this so called 'migration influx' would not have materialised.

In the current climate, immigration is a necessary evil and our governments should plan ahead to grow our infrastructure using the economic gains, they declare, effectively and build on the present resources in education and training, health, housing and transport.

Multicultural Britain is a fact and integration of different races and cultures is the real problem and an almost impossible challenge for the politicians. Cohesion is the latest strategy which seems to be a better description implying that everyone has their different backgrounds but can come together as one community!

Ash
Manchester

Replying to # At 05:09 PM on 08 Nov 2007,
# mark jeffries wrote:

Mark, both France and Germany have lower barriers to entry for Romanian and Bulgarian nationals than the UK does.

For example in France there is unconstrained access (barring administrative registration) in 61 sectors of the economy.

As to the Italian law you mention, I doubt it will withstand challenge in either the Italian or European Courts

Our economic need for migrants is a politically-motivated LIE. With 1 million plus british 'workers'currently receiving unemployment benefit how can the continued influx of foreign workers be justified?
Besides, who will replace the foreign workers when they in future generations decide that they do not want to do the unskilled jobs? Do we simply invite yet another group to replace the present migrants????

Immigration is fine as long as those immigrants that travel to this country (or any country) seek employment and pay taxes.

If they do not then they are a net drain on the economy and resources of thier host. What steps would the panelists take to ensure immigrants "pay thier way"?

I'm intrigued to know why Cameron wants to limit non-EU migration but feels he can't limit it from Poland and the other accession states.

Every other EU state apart from the UK and Ireland sensibly decided to impose restrictions because of the economic disparities. The govt, as always, totally messed up its forecasts and as a result the UK had c600k migrants flooding in.

I appreciate the govt couldn't send back the E. European migrants who are here, but they could surely impose restrictions from here on in.

Oh my god. Tonight's programme is the ugly love child of Down the Line and Any Answers - it's horrible...

Let's play Call In Bingo. Points for the first caller who says
- the country is flooded
-Britons being too lazy to work

and the minister who says that
- ID cards are the solution

Tiresome, ill informed bollocks and not at all what I expect from Newsnight.

Grr.

This debate as been hijacked by the left for to long and we are now seeing the folly of this.The bbc and other media have been kept away from this subject by the people whom by and large earn their money from the race industry from the tax payer.The leaders of the main parties need to get there act together asap for what I see is a country that is in a state of disaray.When I go out almost without question the first tongue I hear is foreign and I live in a town of twenty thousand with no need of casual labour but with the power of the casual labour agencies they are trying to reduce the pay of the common worker.This will end up with me on the streets and a immigrant in my house .I would like to clarify that I and my wife are full time workers with three children paying taxes.If you are fool enough to think this is the rant of a nasty racist you should be very worried because im just the ordinary person that gets by on the fruits of my endeavors and strangly everyone I work with including the last wave of africans that have arrived here in the last five years.It says it all when they are telling me they don,t agree with all these poles coming into this country something funny in that.
richard

This is the first time I have ever turned Newsnight off in disgust. Radio 5 live phone in? No thank you. Don't dumb down, there won't be anyone else on TV left.

I'm 31 male, lived in the UK all my life and always paid high taxes which a big portion goes to "helping out" immigrants which just take our country for granted, we are an easy touch and that's why they all come her and us normal British tax payers end up without jobs as cheap labour comes in.

most of my wages goes on renting a small flat in Sussex, where down the road you have immigrants that have a free house and don't have to work! i just wonder why i bother paying taxes in the government "system" they need to get there priority's right, we have to wait for health care, wait for housing, pay for medical treatment etc. i just think its obsurd that immigrants get all this for free and then rip off us tax payers and the government.

If this Carry's on all Britons will end up living elsewhere in Europe and the UK will be filled with lazy immigrants and the country will go down the pan, increase of violence, racism etc.. we need some sort of restriction!

all immigrants should take out a strict points based test like in Australia, based on skill and use to the country!!!!

Reading most of this backs up what a white South African said to me recently
`the British are the most racist people she had ever met` every day I hear the same old thing that has been said for years all these foreigners coming here and taking our jobs homes etc etc.These people come here do the jobs we don`t want to do and work damn hard,they pay taxes and spend money here adding to our economy,most of these people are treated badly by employers paid minimum wages,making them only being able to rent places by sharing with more than should be in a house or flat.Maybe if people spoke to these immigrants and find out the truth of is really happening>

Who is going to pay the pensions of the immigrants in 30 years time?

I have just switched off Newsnight 10 mins into the programme.Why have you let Radio 5 take over Newsnight? Please bring back the old format I do not wish to listen to or watch a scruffy individual from Radio 5. Bring back the old Newsnight and lets have a sensible debate.

This is the first time I have ever turned Newsnight off in disgust. Radio 5 live phone in? No thank you. Don't dumb down, there won't be anyone else on TV left.
In total agreement with these comments.

Horrible.

With the changes happening all over the world, immigration is inevitable. British are the most people migrating to different country. We need immigrants as much they need us.

Most people unthinkably are supporting politician on foreign policies example, Iraq war, where do we expect all those people who are now homeless after the bombing to go鈥︹�︹��. .The papers ..鈥橲UN鈥� need to start writing facts and and educate the public.

It is important to bear in mind, as mentioned on the programme, that there is at least a similar number of British living abroad. Often these are retired Brits that benefit from the public healthcare systems of neighbouring countries WITHOUT actually contributing to their economies. You can argue that there are probably ver few immigrants coming to the UK for retirement or just simply to benefit from the healthcare system....arguably one of the worst systems in Europe.

As an foreigner living in the UK for 7 years, I find this whole discussion absolutely disgraceful in this day and age. How on earth can a PM of a country that has benefited so much from immigration publicly claim that British jobs are for the British. A Britian without foreigners will stand no chance in a global economy.

In my opinion, much of the worry about immigration is to do with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of competition for resources. People need to stop fearing immigration and immigrants. Throughout history, Britain has always accepted people from overseas and as a result we have one of the most diverse, vibrant and developed societies in the world.

Nobody speaks about the category of immigrants that bring a lot of money to this country : investors,foreign students who pay massive amounts of money compared to uk students, gighly skilled people. This amounts to around 1 billion pounds year.

They are so many illegal immigrants who are not in the system and they are not paying tax, why not first deal with them. We are spending so much money deporting and locking them up.

Amnesty is the only solution to know who is in and then control the boarders. Allow them to stay but no benefits. They need to work and pay in. Something like green card system.

I am a Romanian imigrant. Have recently graduated with an MSc from a prestigious London University, I am in full time employment, pay my taxes and do voluntary and community work. I also support a number of charitable causes. I do not want to be ashamed of my origin nor of the fact that I am an imigrant.

since when was the 大象传媒 a promotional tool for the BNP?

Disgusting. Richard Bacon you are rubbish - allowing such bigoted views to go unchallenged. Jeremy Paxman would never of let them get away with that.

What are you like 大象传媒? We despair

What a dreadful example of lazy journalism. Calling something a 'big debate' doesn't abdicate the responsibility to frame it to have some relevance to reality. All kinds of distinct issues - free movement of people within the EU, skilled labour shortages dealt with by work permits, asylum, legal immigration, issues about measuring population, issues about 'integration' or otherwise of 'immigrants' who came here decades ago, and more, all lumped together with no editoral sifting. Instead the usual 大象传媒 laziness of reducing a complex set of issues to 'two sides to every argument'. Really a new low for Newsnight, letting the politicians and the contributors, whatever their positions, off without having to explain or justify anything they said. Very, very, very poor.

I wonder if it is more helpful to seperate many of the imigration issues from issues of racism. Whilst there may be some overlap, they are often very different.
Untill this happens many people won't realise what they are actualy concerned about.
I would also like to point out that immigration has played a very important role in the history of our nation and a great deal of "British" people's ancestors would have been immigrants.
The most important factor to consider is the careful management and planning that should be integrated into immigration systems.
Many of the issues we face regarding objection to immigration can be directly attributed to poor management and planning.

I foresee in the very near future a candidate from the BNP becoming an MP and it will be in a previously held working class Labour constituency.

the callers to radio 5 were not newsnight viewers. i think the point was to acknowledge the voice of the working class.

if i were an immigrant i would have been shocked by the lack of diversity of panellists. there needed to be another five in the studio representing established, new, economic, asylum and by marriage immigration.

but once again the issues were not teased out. i don't believe the problem is uncertainty over the figures. lay epidemiology has already made an assessment of number.

the question about whether it matters if we dissolve into city states depends entirely on how the city interacts with the rest of the uk. many cities have unique cultures but enjoy a positive identification with the broader british culture. it is those communtiies that set themselves up as autonomous rather than as team players that upset the host popn.

the ippp guy (was he australian?) and the romanian lady clearly made the case that immigrants have a right to be here. but it is this lack of sentiment for the country's history, to be viewed merely as an economic opportunity, a piece of territory to claim, that deeply upsets a proud nation.

today i watched the films from the 1920s on 大象传媒4. it was very moving and made me very proud. everyone who comes to live here should be able to learn to love our history, warts and all, not just our money.

That was absolutely dreadful.

It's bad enough that I have to listen to uninformed rants on fivelive during the day thanks to my work colleagues' taste in radio stations. Please don't subject me to the same thing when I get home at night wanting serious discussion of serious topics.

As Jeroen mentioned,there is a huge number of UK immigrants living abroad. I can only speak for Romania, until recently the land of every opportunity. British citizens were given the red carpet treatment, they all had huge salaries compared with the average earnings,vast majority living in high standard accomodation and most important, they all had off shore accounts! Exactly, none of them paid any taxes to the Romanian government nor to the British one. Add that to your debate on immigration. There is a tendency to portray the immigrant in the UK as some sort of pest, but the British Citizen abroad as a coloniser or a blessing in disguise. The situation it is not black nor white. Why do I sense stereotyping, prejudice and abuse in all this immigration debate?

It seems to me that until someone with credibility stands up and says that much more of the population than the liberals would like to admit actually do agree with Enoch Powells comments - and aren't frightened into immediately rejecting that for fear of being tarred as a racist by the 大象传媒 - then we are not going to get into serious debate territory. Look at the comments in this blog. A lot of us are worried by immigration and no one is really considering that this is a valid opinion, only that the one we hold is not one that belongs in a "vibrant diverse society". But this is England.
It is not vibrant and diverse everywhere. In some places we are happy being old fashioned and English because this is what we actually like. No one ever asked me if todays England portrays the social cohesion that I wanted.

This debate needs to consider:-
1. The need for far greater teacher numbers to teach immigrants our language who are themselves multilingual - in a society in which 'text messaging' will be the communicating force of the future
2.The consequent pressures, leading to the overstretching of public services, such as in Slough, where the demand for new schools / hospitals etc will be huge
3.Control of immigrant numbers is vital if we are to stave off the further fragmentation of society which gives rise to more discontent / radical splinter groups/ terrorism etc
4.Responsibilities which should accompany the right to become a British citizen, which MUST INCLUDE certain allegiances by the individual as a condition of being here.There HAVE TO BE certain basic fulfillable conditions attached.

I switch on Newsnight anticipating structured analysis and insight, often presented via innovative and creative graphic devices. If I want to hear an unorchestarted cacophony of people sounding off, there is plenty of that kind of nonsense elsewhere.

The whole of tonight's "debate" - I use the term loosely and somewhat ironically, which is more than your presenters did - was riddled with confusion: were we talking immigration here, or ethnic minority communities? Has it escaped the notice of the participants and (inexcusably) the presenters that the two are wholly different?

Is this just a one-off, quirky experiment? Or a dreadful harbinger of what Newsnight will become if the 大象传媒 budget cuts go ahead? I think we should be told.

Considering the fact that there are 600 000 Poles in the UK and that they sent back 4 x 10^9 that makes on average 6 666 per person per annum.

You should agree that the amount of money they spent on living plus taxes they pay way above 6 666 per person per year therefore this does benefit the UK economy.

In this respect Mr bernard a. smith (post 1) views are clearly shortsighted and the figure is taken out of the context.

In reply to No 49, Jeroen.

The ex pat Brits who you seem to suggest have no rights, have for the most part contributed to this country's NHS and tax structure, (also, unfortunately, the 大象传媒), since they started work. The point you appear to have missed is that when they chose to leave this country they almost allways adopt to that choosen countries norms and do not insist on translators or religious edifices being erected or protraying themselves as 'disaffected' victims housed within ghettos of their own making.
I personally only know two immigrants and yet both of them have received ongoing treatment within the NHS. One, for an injury received as a boy playing football in his native Poland and so far requiring two operations to help rectify his problem, and the other is apparently suffering from depression.
If you asked those ex pats why they left the UK then perhaps the 大象传媒 would fund another debate into their reasoning but I very much doubt it. Instead Kirsty has spent the budget on another 20 minutes of pap.

Things I鈥檓 sick of pro immigration pundits using as their argument.

It鈥檚 good for the economy!

Yes if you are an employer so you can pay, you're workers a low wage, so you can have a nicer house and a new car. If you鈥檙e working class, you are going to have you wages slashed or lose you job. So you can just forget about ever getting on the property ladder.

We need them because British people are lazy and will not do some kinds of jobs!

This is always a middle class over paid corporate type who says this, probably with a polish opare at home. He/she thinks they are liberal, cosmopolitan, and repulsed by working class British culture. If this person were a politician, why would I ever want to vote for you, after patronising and insulting me with this comment?

To be against immigration, means you are xenophobic!

This hardly ever said, but implied mainly by some smug do-gooder trying to make them selves out to be a nice guy. Race has nothing to do with this; it鈥檚 all about corporate profit and more money for the rich by giving less to the poor.

My conclusions are, we have a class war going on, the corporate middle class hate the working class and want to use them a virtual slave labor, turning back the clock to some Dickensian period when workhouses were normal. Now some of the working class have started to realize this, if thing continue on the current path social unrest is inevitable.

The fact that Richard Bacon is employed by the 大象传媒 at all is bad enough, that Radio 5's tabloid rubbish is allowed on Newsnight was a predictable disaster; what were you thinking?

I agree with Wappaho (64). When you emigrate you do so to seek a better life in financial terms, because it seems to be easier to get on in another country for whatever reasons. That is why the Puritans went to America for instance.

You dont migrate because you love a country and its culture, you don't migrate for love. You migrate for money - Brits do it all the time. Without love nothing works for long.

The Puritans didn't love the Amerindian way of life, more's the pity. They thought theirs was better, though it seems to have ended up causing most of global warming. Now we seem to be getting it back in spades - but there is one problem. None of the native British is someone who waltzed off abroad and stayed there and overran someone else's country. So it is not justice, or karma, just frightful injustice.

By the way, the reason a lot of Brits are forced to migrate these days, and were in past centuries, is that this supposedly rich country does not pay most of its WORKING people a living wage. Benefits is a red herring. You absolutely cannot live on an average wage these days, you cannot have a family, you cannot save, you cannot buy property. You might as well kill yourself - or at least go on benefits. There is no point doing slave labour for 40 years and ending up where you started, or worse off probably. No-one actually wants to be on benefits. But it is marginally better than some of the disgusting work you have to do for long hours and yet still be worse off than you were on benefits. It wouldn't matter if these were jobs with prospects - but they never are.

I also agree with Wappaho about the wisdom of linking with Radio 5. It was vital to hear from a wider section of society than Newsnight's audience even though I am sure a very wide cross-section of people do watch Newsnight. I thought Richard Bacon did a wonderful, diplomatic job and I was actually struck by the old-fashioned kindness with which he thanked contributors on the phone.

Going back to the main point, it is completely useless to talk of the economic benefit migrants bring to this country. They probably cost more than they bring if you factor in hidden costs like natives not being able to get jobs because migrants are easier to exploit (all our students are experiencing this these days, and it is not only students). But in any case it is reductionist to think of everyone and everything only in terms of monetary value, this is actually what communism does, capitalism is supposed to have more soul but clearly it does not.

thank you edith. your post highlights the atrocious snobbery that goes on in this country.

the outraged indignance on this blog about the programme last night shows the depths of inequality between our two indiginous cultures - the elite and the ordinary (those are the elite's categories - anyone in the ordinary category will probably better recognise the labels pseudo-intellectual and sane).

and the lack of intelligent interpretation suggests to me that many people have tinted glasses on.

to do certain jobs as an immigrant is respectful to do certain jobs as a white or black or asian english, welsh or scots person incurrs huge amounts of stigma.

if the policy class wants to carry on cow towing to people like the ippp chap who are basically saying 'actually its not up to you to say who lives here', then let them. they are the same people who banned fox hunting and would ban hoodies if they could. they are the what created Blair and brought this country to its knees so i for one am no longer listenming to them.

there's your anwer NN. there is a huge groundswell of dissatisfaction in this country - now what are you going to do about it? more asbos? more dame leslies looking down their nose at us? more restrictions on protest and free speech?

in 20 years the country will be run by 'britz' and i feel sure that having eradicated britishness (you know, that gentle consideration and awareness of others), they will then flog the 'british' label to death.

The should be a referendum on whether further immigration should be allowed.

the British people were never given the opportunity to voice their views back in the fifties.

All poll figures are distorted in favour of immigration for immigrants and their families are included in the polls and turkeys don鈥檛 vote for Christmas.

The indigenous English, Scots, Welsh and Irish should be given a separate voice. After all it is our Country.

Call that a debate? Last night's programme was a very predictable demonstration of the pretence of debate. Can't say I'm surprised though - this IS the Beeb after all.

Newsnight links up with Radio Five Live.

Ladies and Gentlemen, quality broadcasting has left the building.

Most of the 79 comments I have just read are fueled by hatred of other humans. Are there no nice people left in this country who uphold our traditions of tolerance?

My favourite pop record of recent years is 'Where Is The Love?' by the Black Eyed Peas (2003). The words are a good guide as to how we should respect one another.

Hi Newsnight

Keep pushing the envelope, taking risks, well done for last night

My thoughts are positive about this, the only thing that crossed my mind where this might differ from what you have being doing on the website for the last couple of weeks, is that you have being asking for ideas, questions etc, that you then filter and put them into a context with your presenters asking the questions,

last night for some of the time people asked the questions directly which is a bit along the Question Time route, with all this entails, plus probably causing high anxiety for all your production team (?!)

But there again occasionally giving people direct access may be a good thing although it might be a lot easier for your guests than if say a viewer鈥檚 question was put to them by one of your presenters or journalists?

I thought it was really interesting linking up radio and tv

keep being creative and risk taking
best wishes and thanks
Bob

What a charade THe so called "debate" on newsnight was.Where were UKIP and the BNP to put the case against unlimited immigration? WE were given the LibLAbCON parliamentary clique who have presided over the disaster that is now called England and all squabble over the "centre ground". Immigration must stop now.A debate (pseudo or otherwise) is irrelevant.A referendum on the EU "treaty" is crucial if the British people wish to preserve any last vestige of their country.

uninformed rants on fivelive

are scientifically-speaking the untutored expression of lay epidemiology

that does not negate the perceptions

lay epidemiology is often very accurate

just because you feel persecuted doesn't mean you have a complex

it is more shocking to see the eloquently phrased prejudices made by educated (at tax payers expense) people on this blog about their own countrymen - countrymen who took us through 2 world wars and are taking us through a 3rd right now with very very little gratitude from the middle class

the issue is not race vs numbers, it is culture vs numbers

numbers are one thing but the everyday experience of interaction with the numbers is cultural

that is why people say they like being english - there is a known procedure for interaction which creates security and not irrelevantly is time saving

but really the main problem is not ethnicity but the rights culture whipped up in this country

rights culture goes exactly against the british mentality to observe etiquette, to take one's turn, to wait to be introduced, to give way (especially on the roads) and so now people are quite rightly feeling 'what about my rights?'

but this morning i decided that probably tony knew very well what he was doing. his strategy was economic, ultimately it is the city that benefits from immigration, and he gambled that no one would be able to stop him because of race sensitivity

but it is as much the pakistani and afro-carib communities that are losing out from immigration as it is the white working class

and i would like to see us start to make more effort to find solutions for these communities because they are here, they are going to stay and they have a lot to offer

i'm glad the poles are here. the story of poland is a travesty. wwII started when hitler invaded poland but the allies couldn't win without the help of america and in the final negotiation with stalin, eisenhower traded poland behind churchill's back

that said we don't have the room for all the east europeans who want to come here and so we should devise a structured system that allows a fair crack at our country for them and preserves the infrastructure for us

but i think anyone would say that the most frustrating aspect of immigration is the criminal element. and it is here that we need the support of our police. so i'm really at a loss to understand why the media is so intent on bringing down iain blair. nobody resigned over hopsital infection and there were far more systematic and systemic errors overseen by the trust managers, and more deaths, and i expect a groudswell of feeling amongst hospital staff that the managers were incompetent, which cannot be said of blair

we spend all our time talking about the need for good leaders and whenever we get one the media sets itself up in competition!

Except for the lead piece by David Grossman, I thought the programme was biased, shallow and a flop. In the Radio 5 phone-ins, Bacon subtly managed the calls in such a way that anti-immigrationists were made to feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. Overall Newsnight/Radio 5 producers seemed determined not to deter potential immigrants and not to make those already here to feel unwelcome, which, given the circumstances and the availability of the programme on the web was quite right and understandable.

I've said all this before, but I'll say it again, in the hope that a few more will pick up on the theme and explore it. The fact remains that birth rates in the indigenous British population (like the rest of the EU) is well below replacement level of 2.1 and the only reason it is not still falling is as it is throughout Europe is because of immigration from outside the EU. When people say it is rising in the UK (currently about 1.8, but some EU states are as low as 1.5 or 1.3), that's only through the much higher than replacement level TFRs of S Asians and to a lesser extent, Africans. That's the issue to focus upon. That, and the fact that encouraging the brighter 50% to go into higher education and the workplace will mean delaying motherhood in that half of the population and thus tilting the birthrate towards the less cognitively able, i.e swelling the numbers in the lower half of the distribution, which is already being swelled by increased S Asian and African immigration and their higher birth rates. So in time, there will be lots of workers, but not many chiefs. This is not about race, skin colour etc, it is all about behaviour - reproductive/kinship/family behaviour.

Anti-Sex Discrimination legislation and female emancipation is probably the major driver of compensatory immigration from outside the EU, and to the extent that the indigenous population pressures THEM to adopt their secular ways, they will in fact pressure them to join them in what is demonstrably reproductive-unfitness i.e. a genetic suicidal pact (TFRs in S Asians are falling, and one does seem them becoming secular). They are right to resist, yet the indigenous population is encouraged to vilify Islam as sexist and subversive.

There are all kinds of pressures for females to go into education and the workplace today, but it is that which drives the birth rate down, especially amongst the more educable. It is this which is driving EU governments to open their doors to non-EU immigration.

In a nutshell, the very thing which the developed world is most proud of and which NGOs try to impress upon other non liberal-democratic nations under the auspices of UN charters, i.e. equalities and human rights, is in fact their nemesis. Those nations resisting self-destructive imperialism are therefore wise to resist are they not?

This has the hallmark of demographic warfare blowback.

Dear Newsnight

鈥� Question -Who is looking after the migrants?

I think the UK is a far more interesting place as a result of people coming here.

My race are the people with the same values as me, who care for others, it is irrelevant where they come from, what they look like or what religion they practise.

To me nationality is dead. It has no meaning to me. I live here, that鈥檚 about it.

But I am very concerned about the well being of new arrivals. Who is looking after them? They have come to a strange country, far from their communities and are often living in pretty difficult conditions at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords and criminals.

When I worked with the homeless we had one landlord who treated his tenants appallingly. The Police were keen to act, and a newspaperman was interested but I failed to get political help to stop him. One leading politician refused saying 鈥業 don鈥檛 want my knee caps broken鈥�. 鈥業f that was the view of someone in authority in a pretty comfortable and safe position you can imagine how defenceless his tenants were. This landlord is now gone but there are others in our communties. I鈥檓 extremely worried that in housing alone serious abuses are taking place against today鈥檚 migrants.

Politicians say that the migrants need less assistance from the state, but perhaps the reverse is true, that they actually need more help?

I sadly predict that in the years to come accounts will surface of how some migrants were treated here. I fear some bad stuff is going on, with as usual no proactive action from the public authorities and politicians,

Perhaps they take the view of a neo liberal I once knew who wanted to see uncontrolled migration, and didn鈥檛 seem to realise that it would create a society of the survival of the fittest. People with his privileged protected background education and health would be ok but others less fortunate (or weaker) wouldn鈥檛 be.

Now people come here, and we are lucky to have such talented and educated people wanting to do so and it seems to me that they are being left to fend for themselves,

If people we cared about went to the migrant鈥檚 countries -how would we want them to be treated?

Shame on this country 鈥揳s usual

Bob

Shame the potential idea was so good but Bacon was not the presenter for this sort of debate,he's a child and carries no depth,respect or weight in Broadcasting.

Well done Newsnight. You dared to allow viewers and listeners to contribute to a debate on the number one preoccupation of the British electorate. And thank you for allowing them ot comment here.

What a tedious program.
As an avid Newsnight watcher I feel that this, hopefully short lived experiment, would have been better suited to 大象传媒3, or preferably not aired at all.
If we want to listen to what the average 'Joe' or 'Joanne' has to say we can either go down the pub, or talk to friends. Question Time, on 大象传媒1 provides a better format for members of the public to air their views, as does 'Any Questions' on the radio. Crazy that the first attempt at this fatuous format should be on at the same time as Question Time on 大象传媒1.
The dumbing down of one of the Beebs flagship programs should be deplored and Gavin Eisler should distance himself from it as soon as possible before his repetition is permanently tarnished.

Thank you again Wappaho - can I amend my request to you on 7th November blog, please apply to be Queen of the UK, not just Governor of dear Auntie 大象传媒. Though actually, I suspect the poor Queen would sound exactly like you, if she was allowed to speak. The poor woman has been gagged from birth though.

Thanks also to Stephen (no. 74) - this post had not appeared when I wrote mine. This is the kind of summary of the situation that is put as a test for Oxbridge entrance and the top flight of the Foreign Office - and you have passed it with flying colours, although somewhat misspelt, but that just proves the point that there are millions of people with massive IQs left floundering and gasping for air by moneyed queue-jumpers (including immigrants, believe me if you are poor in a poor country, you can't afford the fare down the road, never mind to the UK).

A Debate? More like another reading out of random? e-mails. What happened to all of the comments above that were asked for by Newsnight the day before the broadcats discussion?
These should have been classified into representative comments of public opinion and read out as part of the debate, but seem to have been totally ignored.
More manipulation by the media, seeking to put a nice tidy end to any meaningful debate on one of the most important issues about the survival of our English culture.

Stephen's (#74) is the most balanced opinion on this blog.

It gets to the heart of the matter.

Dumbed down or low brow opinions can still make valid points!

Suggesting that the country is overcrowded is not always triggered by racist tendencies. I am black, 3rd generation of immigrants, and share this opinion too.

Infrastructure does not just refer to the benefits system, but includes policing, housing, schools, hospitals (NHS or otherwise), food etc. In short, all the facilities required to sustain a living.

All these things have a finite capacity!

We are always told that we, as a society are a tolerant bunch, i am in effect been told to 'put up with' or deal with something that is 'unfavourable'. It has to be said that immigration that we have witnessed certainly over the last 10yrs has created great resentment from the rest of us indiginous Britains and when we voice our concerns we are shouted down as Alf Garnet bigots; this charge does not stick anymore. There are no grey areas when understanding what comes with multicultural and multifaith societies, and as history will always tell you, they will always be problematic, its fairly cut and dry. No need for any long list of what these problems are, as most of us are fully aware of what immigration brings, immigration that is uncontrolled and we are surely going to pay a heavy price, certainly when the economy takes a nose dive... some unfortunately already have paid a heavy price..with their lives.

thank you edna, yours is an interesting voice and one that we need to hear in this debate

and thank you edith although the eds will atest to a certain verbal tourettes that might debar me from office!

as for some of these others who call themselves educated!

joe and joanne?

supposing i said i didn't want to listen to abdul and abdulla or petrov and petrova?

the reason why 5-live viewers do not watch newsnight is because newsnight targets a different culture

every time you insult joe and joanne you are inciting hatred against a cultural group, with clear markers such as gender roles, leisure activities - in fact a lot of people live a very local life that would be completely alien to the socially mobile professional class proponents of localism who watch newsnight

as it happens i don't want to listen to abdul because i fundamentally disagree with his gender politics

nevertheless, as i've said, i do want to support people who already live here, abdul and all the rest

it's just like a night club. at a certain point in the evening you may need to close the door for a while, sort out any trouble makers, keep the atmosphere below hysterical etc.

a systemic crash is not going to do anyone any good and it really isn't the point that the middle class are ok with immigration the point is that some others are not and if the middle class keeps ignoring them we could have civil unrest

i would be in favour of allowing the bnp a full voice on nn. after all i've listened to enough anti-british, anti-western, anti-christian, anti-english, anti-gay, anti-female rubbish coming from other sources over the last two years, what could the bnp say that is worse? and the one time i did hear the leader speak on sky he said that the close affiliation between the blair government and the city is typical of fascist economies. i don't know if this is true but it made me sit up and listen. maybe we should let them put their point and it won't at all be what we think it is? maybe they are not racist maybe they just want to be allowed a corner of this land to be forever england?

Newsnight ...have you got the message?...Mr Brown have you got the message? the debate is overwhelming in the aforestated posts... the majority are saying enough is enough.. stop the unfettered immigration NOW! This government has put the lunatics in charge of the asylums & unless they do a complete u-turn(at least something they are good at)the UK will face terrible consequences in ethnicity's & infrastructures.

I was deeply disappointed with the 'debate'. While the concept seemed right, the execution was poor. I agree that bringing together Newsnight and Radio 5 public was very good. However, it put us in two different camps - Newsnight viewers were passive while Radio 5 listeners had a chance to speak to us all.

Panel choice in the studio was not conducive to debate that would bring anything new or clarify current problems. I found that to be the worst part of the programme. Politicians kept to their own scripts and did not wish to answer anything that was specific. Bacon asked about numbers and NOONE in the studio did anything to answer this. Moreover, Gavin did not press them either. This was the case for other questions also.

So, what did I learn from all this? First, do not expect much from being asked to contribute ideas and views in advance - they will have no impact.

Two, debates that include politicians coached in evading answers to questions do not enlighten anyone - they only serve those given time to talk to air their own points and prejudices.

Third, do not expect anyone to change their view as the result or any specific action to occur subsequently.

Fourth, get the environment in the studio more conducive to exploring issues and less like the old fashioned debate of opposites - Newsnight round table is fine. This would also allow for more diverse panel as speakers could change between specific themes while Radio 5 was broadcast.

So much for me. It matters much more what 大象传媒 learnt from this. We should hear from the people who tried the 'experiment'.

For me, the main concern about our current high levels of immigration relate to firstly, the inadequate resources to cater for the sudden influx of migrants, and secondly, the lack of social cohesion. I also think we should be carefully distinguishing between migrants (mainly EU citizens who are allowed to come over here to work) and refugees/asylum seekers who have always been welcomed here so long as they have a well-founded claim to be fleeing persecution or genocide.

On the first point: it seems that it is the fundamental responsibility of the Government to anticipate, and then to plan for, the large and sudden increases in our popolution, especially in our major towns and cities. The Government has failed to discharge their responsibilities here properly, and I agree with those on this blog who have accused them of incompetence etc. There is no doubt - both in terms of economic statistical and anecdotal evidence - that the huge influx (particularly of migrant workers from the newest EU accession states) of new arrivals has placed enormous strains on our public services - such as our schools, hospitals, social services and our transport infrastructure. Added to this, is the enormous pressure on our housing stock; already as a country, we have a huge housing shortage and unfettered immigration has made that crisis a lot worse. It is worth pointing out, though, that in terms of housing, many of the migrants themselves are suffering as much as the indigenous population, since the evidence does suggest that many of them tend to live in the poorest quality rented accommodation, and under over-crowded conditions. It seems both reasonable and logical that the level of immigration should closely correlate to the availbility (or scacity) of resources and infrstructure. We should, in effect, be cutting our cloth according to our size: levels of immigration need to be controlled so that the pressure on resources does not move from being a crisis to being catastrophic. And it is the responsibility of the Government to do this; they should not simply be passing all of the strain on to our hard-oressed Local Councils.

My second concern relates to the lack of proper social integration that has accompanied mass migration into the UK over the last few years. In the past, when we had waves of immigrants seeking to settle in the UK, many of them accepted that they had responsibilities to integrate culturally and socially into the mainstream of our society. That meant, among other things, learning, writing and speaking our English language. The problem with recent waves of migrants and refugees has been that many of them do not seem to see it as a priority to integrate socially, or to learn and speak our language. Thus, they come over here, settle down in our towns and cities, have children etc - but still retain their mother tongue as their principal spoken language. I think that being able to speak and communicate reasonably well in English is an ESSENTIAL prerequisite to proper social integration in our society. A common language is the glue that binds everyone together, and which makes it possible for people to understand one another better. When we all speak a common language, some of the barriers amd misunderstandings that often occur within different ethnic groups, and between the ethnic minorities and the indigenous population, are less likely to occur. I also feel that it is basic good manners if you are going to live and settle in another country, that you should make an effort to learn to speak and write in the predominat language of that society.

The character of our inner cities has changed out of all recognition in recent years as a consequence of mass migration into the UK. A lot of the unease and hostility which many people feel towards immigrants I suspect stems from the fact then in our streets, buses, trains, public places, schools etc we notice so many people nowadays not speaking English, and often not even knowing how to speak English at all! I suppose that by not conversing in English as their main language whilst they conduct their everyday lives, many migrants separate themselves from the wider society, and mark themselves out as 'foreigners'. Of course, the process of social integration is much more than requiring refugees and migrants to making an effort to learn and speak English. And I also accept that the responsibility to integrate cuts both ways in the sense that the indigenous population also needs to reach out to and be much more friendly and welcoming to migrants and refugees - I'm not all that sure that we do enough to accept migrants either! You only have to read the often xenophobic and racist columns in our tabloid press to see evidence of our unacceptable prejudices towards migrants. Nevertheless, unless much stronger efforts are made at Government level to foster much better social integration in our society, especially through requirements for refugees to learn and write in English, and through a massive expansion of educational access to ESOL classes, our country will continue to fragment along ethnic and racial lines, with disastrous social and political consequences for the future.

brilliant post by ben james

we seem to be discussing the real problems now instead of vying to see who is more pc

one thing i've noticed is that the non-english speakers are posting to a different 'programme' on this blog and there is some very strong resentment to the sort of thing that is now predominantly posted here

to play devil's advocate, where ben says 'the indigenous population also needs to reach out', i would draw attention to a tv programme not so long ago which clearly depicted a white population around halifax timidly expressing absolute fear at the growth of the 'no go' pakistani area. pakistani people were also shown saying that it is not safe for white people to enter those streets. that sort of situation is frankly appalling and i feel very angry that the government has left those poor second and third generation children to cope with the cognitive dissonance of living in a community that has been allowed to become so segregated, allowed by us out of sheer laissez-faire liberalism.

and again on newsnight not long ago, a bangladeshi lawyer was pleading for the state to end the 'tolerance' that has resulted in non-english speaking women remaining isolated their homes

our policies of pc multiculturalism have been unfair to many people and not least immigrants themselves. we have promised something we cannot deliver because ultimately integration will be required for harmony

Ed (#96) - It can't be good for a nation state as in the longer term it means extinction (with a TFR of 1.1 a population halves in several decades). In the shorter term one should note that the half of the population sent into further/higher education is not random, but selective, i.e. it's the (largely genetically) brighter half of the population. This skews the already low birth towards the less able given the brighter females halve less children than those in the lower half. This is differential/dysgenic fertility and it impacts on GDP. As it is a slow, trans-generational process (taking a generation as 30 years), most people just don't notice. This has been going on for decades.

New Labour's policies (and the Neo-Conservatives before them have been revolutionary, but few appreciate how. What neither like is Old Labour as it, like Stalinism, thwarted the anarchism of liberal democratic free-enterprise.

In all, I see it as having been a very bad thing for UK nationalism, but a very clever way to break up the UK in pursuit of the EU and wider Social Internationalism(SI)/Trotskyism/Neo-Conservatism/Globalism, call it what one will.

Finally, to repeat a point made elsewhere, one can not compare the industriousness of A8 workers with that of indigenous workers as their earnings here have much higher earning power back home. In terms of disposable income, they earn a lot more for doing the same job, so of course local workers will not be as motivated.

I fear we are in the midst of a strategic revolution by the 'Internationale' and that it purposely does not take into account the inequality of man genetically, in fact it censors it via Cultural Marxism (political correctness):

So, if one is a national socialist like Old Labour, no it's not good. If, on the other hand, one is an internationalist (Trotskyite), it's probably a very good thing. Personally, I think the latter just want cheap pliable labour, and use the language/spin of Workers' Democracy and 'choice' etc as a subterfuge. Demographically, they are effectively breeding service sector proletarians whilst thinning out the competition/intelligentsia.

Thanks to those who liked my summery, yes my spelling, grammar and sentiment have given away my background. Very poor education start in life, but that鈥檚 another story. However, I hope someone with a better one will listen!

Thanks again Wappaho (97, et seq.). What do you mean verbal Tourettes? Do you mean what Mozart had (see film "Amadeus")? Which carries with it an automatic INability to drop bombs on innocent people? I rest my case. Wappaho for Queen (together with real Queen), 大象传媒 Gov., and Prime Minister. No need for expensive elections then, with fake fights between nasty people all on the same side really (Mammon). You could be trusted to Do The Right Thing.

Thanks Edna (94). If you too can spot that Stephen (74) has an IQ of over 160 through the fog of Shakespeare-type spelling, you have a similar IQ. We need you 160+ types to stop hiding your lights under a bushel. You sound like someone that can run a tight ship, manage household finances well and FAIRLY without setting a debt example, etc. Edna for Chancellor of the Exchequer, eclipsing all those appointed since the post was invented.

Thank Ed Iglehart (99). The quote is hilarious. Who is it?

Thanks Brian Kelly (98), for pointing out what all of us in our "divide and rule"-induced anxiety have not noticed - the overwhelming solidarity and mass numbers of "public opinion" (i.e. real people not artificial constructs of our competitive, anti-life, anti everything except Money, education system).

Thanks to the latest educated posters who have deigned to come out of the woodwork just now. Not all of us are collaborators.

Well, well, well!

The real breakthrough in this debate has been that people have actually been allowed to debate ! Incredible and if this spells the start of a end to the gagging of debate by the thought police hysteria ( the P C brigade ) then its a big day for the future of this Country.

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL !!!!!!!!!!!!

The British National Party deserve our respect for standing firm and continually broaching subjects like this one - well done BNP.

Why was there not a BNP representative invited onto the show ?????????????????????????????????

This so called debate was flawed. The race card was played a few times and the panel of MP's were inept. The stricter controls mention by the Labour woman might amount to putting up a polite sign at the border saying "we are full please do not enter".Very dynamic action for this Labour government.
The single fact that 216 houses a day will have to be built to house the swelling immigration addition to the UK's population. Can our country achieve this build and then sustain it? NO.. debate over.

In reply to No 49, Jeroen.

The ex pat Brits who you seem to suggest have no rights, have for the most part contributed to this country's NHS and tax structure, (also, unfortunately, the 大象传媒), since they started work. The point you appear to have missed is that when they chose to leave this country they almost allways adopt to that choosen countries norms and do not insist on translators or religious edifices being erected or protraying themselves as 'disaffected' victims housed within ghettos of their own making.
I personally only know two immigrants and yet both of them have received ongoing treatment within the NHS. One, for an injury received as a boy playing football in his native Poland and so far requiring two operations to help rectify his problem, and the other is apparently suffering from depression.
If you asked those ex pats why they left the UK then perhaps the 大象传媒 would fund another debate into their reasoning but I very much doubt it. Instead Kirsty has spent the budget on another 20 minutes of pap.

Disappointed with the "Big Immigration Debate", it wasn't really much of a debate. It was a rather patronising one sided affair. Anyone who just tuned into the broadcast but didn't read the blog would have gone away with the impression that immigration was the best thing since sliced bread; and I can't help but think that this is precisely what the 大象传媒 intended. I feel sorry for those who don't have internet access and only got one half of the debate, they are left in the dark. I shouldn't be surprised; the 大象传媒 has traditionally always been a strong supporter of mass immigration and this 'debate' was no different. Richard Bacon was quick to jump down the throats of the callers who were critical of immigration, but let caller from Dafur ramble on for ages. The State Broadcaster isn't the right media node to tune into for a proper debate on immigration. The 大象传媒 has a habit of rigging the debate on subjects like this, just like how it rigs the Blue Peter phone in competitions.

Last week on the 1st of November, 大象传媒 Newsnight went to Slough to investigate immigration and they went to a school to ask a headmaster what he thought about the situation. But the catch was, they didn't go to any old school and ask any old headmaster. 大象传媒 Newsnight carefully selected a Catholic school with a headmaster who was an immigrant from Ireland (judging by his accent). They then asked him what he thought about the influx of Polish children (who are Catholic) to his area and surprise surprise, the headmaster of the Catholic school was delighted at the prospect of more Catholic children coming to his area. The 大象传媒 already knew what answer he was going to give before they even asked the question. That's how 'debates' are conducted at the 大象传媒.

The State Broadcaster must have thought of this 'debate' as another opportunity to grind the critics into submission. This quote from Andrew Marr, writing in the Observer newspaper, reveals the mindset of those who work for the State Broadcaster:

"And the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of State power to coerce and repress. It may be my Presbyterian background, but I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good. Stamp hard on certain 'natural' beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off."

So after this very civilising 'debate' on immigration, we can conclude that it is the best thing that has ever happened in the history of Britain..... because the 大象传媒 says so.

I have been reading all the blogs above, as well as other sites. What i can't understand is, most of the people posting are NOT racist (sorry Government) but tend to have the same views on immigration. And yet no one in either party does anything. I actually feel they don't give a s***. It doesn't affect their lives directly. Immigration is/ and has been a part (and generally good) of this country for generations, BUT it is the speed and lack of controls that worry me. And yet amid all this the Government tells the British people that WE have to accept/put up with/change our habits etc etc and not the immigrants. Just look at Italy, the resentment is growing and it will all over Old Europe. In the last 10years immigration has got out of control and now we are all talking about it. My Granddad use to have a saying for things like this "that it was to late to shut the gate once the horse had bolted" I am proud of my country and what we have done over the many generations (I am only 36) and yet I feel sorry/worried for my son and his generation and what country they will inherit. All I can say is "will the last Brit turn out the lights"

David Grossman's piece at the beginning used the old statistic of 52% of new jobs going to foreigners. The latest government figure now stands at 81% of new jobs going to foreigners, as reported in the Sunday Times on the 4th November. Here's a quote from the article:

"The ONS figures thus show that 81% of jobs went to people born abroad. Since 2002 the number of foreigners working in Britain has climbed by 964,000 while UK-born employment has dropped by 478,000."

Link to the article here:

Why didn't Newsnight use the latest government figures?

So the phrase "They're taking all our jobs", should actually be: "They're taking 81% of our new jobs"

@114 "Ah! Now I see it! Dysgenic bad, Eugenic good! Let's remember that it's cleverness what got us in the present mess!"

No, not quite. Dysgenic fertility and progressive selection and reinforcement of verbal > spatial IQ is what's got us into this mess.

If one truly wants to see why spin/appearance now takes precedence over reality (and few do), take a hard look at the distribution of the above pattern by a) gender and b) ethnic group.

Then look into hegemony/poverty.

@117 - The problem is, 'born abroad' could cover naturalised immigrants from New Commonwealth countries or elsewhere, and they could have been naturalised any time in the past. One could be a British citizen but born abroad. Elsewhere, in te registration of births for instance, although it's recorded whether a mother was born in the UK, her ethnicity is not. So 'born here' does not mean native British (whatever that means these days) so second or third generation S. Asians (for example) will be down as 'born here'.

The classification and counting of race, ethnicity and nationality is far more difficult than most people think. One has to look very closely at the rules of classifiction which classifiers follow.

What do you mean verbal Tourettes?

I mean some of my posts have been censored but as not all of them contained swear words I think it was because I didn't take the time to couch a racially sensitive point in acceptable language by using long words and impersonal/objective analysis, like Adrienne and Ed. I often talk anecdotally and I think that probably gets censored for being too personal

anyway. quite a lot happened over the weekend. I spent all saturday fuming over the latest MCB islamic propaganda. and today we have more pc propaganda from the guardian and liberty. now we see liberty in full party political colours i hope the bbc will stop featuring liberty as the voice of the people, it is clearly not. it should always be balanced by a right wing think tank and then perhaps the majority in the middle can be better informed of the options.

digression - ed - what's this about paint in the middle of the road? does it ocur to you that perhaps a road is not the best analogy for 'life', especially in this anti-travel era?

I never thgouht I 'd say it but maybe we should take a leaf out of Italy's manual - they have taken steps to protect their culture and apparently they can detain suspects for up to a year.

now legally or bureaucratically there may be many differences between what Italy has done and the detention without trial for terror suspects but ethically I see no difference. the Italian suspects were detained on the basis that their statements didn't add up so presumably the evidence was insufficient to press charges. that is no different from the situation with terrorists. we know that terrorists lie to the police, they have told us so on television many times, because they do not recognise the legitimacy of Brtiish law and the requirement to tell the truth under caution.

as for Italy removing migrants - I've said elsewhere, underneath pc is a layer of arrogance. those who backed multiculturalism believed that british culture was so strong that nothing could destroy it - that iropnically is the same type of thinking that led to the collapse of the empire in india - Italy on the other hand are more protective of their culture - you could say a similar contrast could be made with the way the two cultures look after their children!!

jock stirrup spoke very well on andrew marr's show - he said the same thing, that he felt some people today are so comfortable that they don't beleive things could change (only he used more formal language). he was a refreshing to listen to after hearing shami's rant on any questions radio4, she can string together buzz words but she fell apart when david blunkett challenged her with reasoning, and anger exposed her intellectual shortcomings.

as for cameron. i think his latest comment about rape is a recognition that women are being unsettled by the islamification of britian but at the same time a recognition that if he overtly backs the catho-islamic lobby on 'the )perfect) family', that that will alienate women voters.

ciao, Edith!

Ed (#124) - I do have an answer of sorts, and it's one which I believe I've offered many times in this and other NN blogs. However, my main objective here is to stimulate a little more analysis of what may be going on. My solution is not going to be a very popular one, so I suspect many will respond to it either with indignation, or just gloss over it altogether.

The two groups which already practice the 'solution' (albeit in ways that require some refinements in the interest of social justice) are the Muslims and the Orthodox Jews (it is relevant perhaps that many of the influential femininists have been Jewish). What I propose would clearly require a radical change in the way that we structure developed world liberal democracies, which at present is clearly inconceivable to most of us.

As I see it, the only solution is to return to traditional (i.e. conventional) sex roles as men can not bear children, and to repeal, or rewrite, EU FCHR equalities legislation so that it better takes into consideration the realities of sexual polymorphism along with the subtle complexities of gender overlap as a consequence of genetic polymorphisms such as, for example, that expressed as NCAH via the CYP21 polymorphism which subtly shifts sex-steroid synthesis pre and post-natally. This is the most frequent autosomal recessive polymorphism known to man and it differs in frequency by ethnic/racial group with the Ashkenazi Jews being the most prevalent with 1/3 being heterozygotes and Blacks having the lowest prevalence. I emphasise that this, like IQ, is just a relative frequencies issue. NCAH is more common amongst Ashkenazi Jews, but it is found in all other groups too. Endogamy clearly limits gene flow.

I suspect this may have a lot to do with brain gender shift in verbal > spatial IQ in 'females', and spatial > verbal in 'males', and that this explains why some groups e.g. Ashkenazi Jews are more highly verbal, I suspect through greater feminisation of more of their males - hence their shorter stature, and perhaps other behaviours such as the extreme behavioural stress responses through greater estrogenisaton) do better in some cultures than other groups do, and why others (e.g. Blacks, lower verbal, i.e. more androgenised males), are seriously disadvantaged. These differences will not change through education. In fact, efforts to do so will just cause frustration/aggression and low academic attainment to the extent that the curriculum is feminised (highly verbal).

We have to recognise that individuals and groups are genetically diverse and that such diversity has been selected over a very long time by environments.

Our liberal democracies have become progressively more highly feminised over the past century, and I see sex as far more complicated than our legislation and social mores currently recognise. I've spelled this out in more detail in much earlier NN blogs.

Basically, I fear we're currently making a mess of things through letting ideology dominate too much at the expense of science, which is of course known as Lysenkoism.

Help - don't know which one to post on. This one I guess as it has less than half the posts of the other one.

I guess most people look at both, so it is not a sinister attempt by Auntie 大象传媒 to divide and rule. If it was, it has not succeeded because it seems to me nearly every single post is strongly anti any further immigration, for a variety of truly excellent, sensible, goodhearted reasons.

Has any one counted how many pro and how many con? And how many don't knows (not many of those I think).

Also, surely this is the tip of a truly massive iceberg?

I still think the most insightful post of the lot (i.e. nearly 600 posts) is Stephen's (74). You see, he has identified the root cause of the problem which is that the professional classes in this country sell their own poorer compatriots down the river, and always have done. As the numbers of highly-qualified people in high-paid "educated" work grow and they become ever greedier, they need more and more immigrants to service their needs without complaining. And they trample their own disadvantaged people further and further down. The Chartists warned in 1840 that Education would just be used to make the divide between rich and poor even greater - and that is what has happened.

Already this blog is being dominated by educated people - nothing against them, I am one myself, but the sole aim of someone educated should be to listen to, and if necessary speak up for, all those who have been condemned to a life of slave labour or unemployment and who are (or were) doing the real work that will be missed if it stops. To quote Peter McKay in today's Daily Mail, "Oh dear me, the world is ill divided / Them that work the hardest are the least provided", which he says is an old folk song about jute mill workers. Last I heard, the Mail is not a Socialist paper - but the problem identified by Stephen has got so bad that even non-Socialists can see it. In fact sometimes it seems that only non-Socialists can see it.

I think all our political parties are sleepwalking to disaster if they think they can solve the absolutely furious state of our pauperised young men (and women) by getting tough with them and forcing them to take slave-pay disgusting jobs for life just so they can carry on earning 拢50,000 a year or more. They are descending into outright sedition and arson - and if you have sedition, you must address the cause of it. There is a huge difference between seditious "crime" and normal crime (which is mostly comitted by people like Conrad Black and Robert Maxwell anwyay). Between 1750 and 1850 Southern England saw an avalanche of rural crime and political protest because, as Cobbett pointed out, a felon actually had a better life than an agricultural labourer, so "Does there want any other cause to produce crimes?" A favourite crime was arson - at one point half of southern England was ablaze.

Firestarting is still a favourite - and a favourite target is, guess what, secondary schools. All the Chartists in heaven must be shrugging their wings and saying, What did I tell you? But even they did not predict the killer blow - mass immigration INSTEAD OF proper wages and proper housing for the native workforce after generations of toil.

Adrienne, though you provide us with many valuable statistics, your conclusion is speculative.

Humans are capable of creating their own future. If that wasn't so we wouldn't be threatened daily with food and exercise regimes and identity cards.

The question is what future do we want and how do we achieve it?

It really wouldn't take much to extend a 'give birth' campaign to the population if that is what we require. The baby boomer generation have survived the stigma of being part of a period of high births. And such a campaign can be accompanied by full nursery provision and support if that is what women choose.

The present situation was arrived at by following a goal of profit not social fabric and the solution lies in redressing that balance in order to advance cultural evolution. To run cowardly back into religious dogma is no solution for an evolving species.

Ed - I can't imagine travelling in one direction all my life, I need to visit the points!

Edith, you inspire me. I wrote a long post but decided just to say - watch out for the diversity discourse both in immigration and localisation because together these are a recipe for creating a multi-racial globile elite - an elite with global mobility for jobs and living - with a hinterland of multi-racial localities, community policed, inappropriately educated, prescriptive (not diverse) life-styles, a tame service sector.

#131 "It really wouldn't take much to extend a 'give birth' campaign to the population if that is what we require."

Not so. Singapore tried very hard between the 60s and 90s, and failed dismally. What we see today is a product of liberal democracy, and if Singapore, (which many would dispute is anything like a liberal democracy) failed on this score, what hope is there here? To the extent that what I've outlined is projective, it is, surely by definition, somewhat speculative as it is all a matter of trends? Political correctness has a lot to answer for, and runs far deeper than most appreciate. If we had control over our population, we wouldn't be opening our borders to immigration. The FCHR makes control even less likely. 'Red lines' aside, it makes it illegal.

I urge you to watch the ETS video and read their report (and ours by Lord Leitch) and re-consider Frattini's proposals for the EU's future influx.

People who generally think what I'm saying is speculative are often I find, in romantic denial. They tend not to know the evidence or else have inflated views about what people can be urged to do in liberal democracies. Low TFRs are now a major problem for the developed world, and its people have far less control over their 'choices' than many like to think. My solution has little to do with religion per se except to point out that religions tend to be evolving social systems based on experience (I have pointed to Islam and Orthodox Judaism as successes). What matters here is biology. Why do we think female primates/mammals are physically shorter and weaker than males? That's natural selection at work creating inequality in the interest of reproduction and genetic survival. Why has the developed world been trying to erode what millions of years of evolution has effectively selected, and, to the extent equalitarianism 'succeeds', what does one expect to happen?

A thought or two on choice etc:

Ed (#133) Raptors are extinct.

What we're seeing now is what I said was only to be expected i.e. lots of veiled argumentative denial, or 'Oppositinal Defiance' ;-)

If we can't sort this probem out domestically, what makes anyone think we can sort it out for other countries? Brown made it perfectly clear in his Lord Mayor's Banquet speech that he's an 'internationalist'. Is that not just an excuse to do even less domestically and spin more empty rhetoric?

Ed (#135) Don't shoot he messenger.

1) Birds are not mammals.

2) "In spite of the recent enlargement, which has pushed the EU's total population up to some 490 million, the number of people living in the EU is set to decline in the next few decades. By 2050 a third of them will be over 65 years of age. Labour and skills shortages are already noticeable in a number of sectors and they will tend to increase. Eurostat's long-term demographic projections indicate that the total population is expected to decline by 2025 and the working age population by 2011.

Although these are forecasts and average figures, and should therefore be considered with some caution, some Member States (Germany, Hungary, Italy and Latvia) are already experiencing a decline in their working age population, while others will later (e.g. Ireland from 2035). The challenge posed by an ageing population 鈥� and its consequences on the national labour markets 鈥� will therefore not affect every Member State at the same time and on the same scale, but is nevertheless a common trend. And it is a challenge not to be underestimated.

Today our job market is mainly led by technology and information. This means that the future structure of Europe's job market will depend on technological changes, which tend to be swift, extensive and hard to predict. Many jobs, however, are no longer available in Europe's job market. For example, several European manufacturers have outsourced work or shifted to more automation. Other manufacturers have decided to close down or scaled back their operations. The same holds true for electronic equipment. In political terms, this means that Europe's role is to keep a close eye on evolving job market and examine its absorption capacity in terms of new jobs for EU citizens and newcomers."

Franco Frattini
European Commissioner responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security
鈥淓nhanced mobility, vigorous integration strategy and zero tolerance on illegal employment: a dynamic approach to European immigration policies鈥�
High-level Conference on Legal Immigration
Lisbon, 13 September 2007

Edith (#129) Sorry for the length of this, I appreciate your populist aspirational stance, but does it work or might it make matters worse? Do you really think the blog should be dominated by people who are not educated/educable? Did you watch the simulcast last week? My point is that we are denuding our intelligentsia,a nd if we continue as we are, who will speak for, and serve the 'have-nots'? (See my response to Ed @136 - These points have been made to the NN blog for months, and before that to teh Guardian CiF).

Are you sure of your demographics (or your politics?). I ask because it seems from the available evidence that the reason why there are so many 'have-nots' ('the underclass') is because even though the UK (and EU, though The UK is better off than many other EU states) birth rate is below replacement level at about 1.86, which is INFLATED by the higher birth rate to foreign born mothers (over 20% of births are to such mothers) it is still higher in the bottom half of the cognitive ability 'Bell Curve' (which is also the SES lower half) than it is in the top 50% of the curve (where the rate is driven lower because female emancipation results in more of the brighter (educable) women pursuing careers and thereby delaying motherhood.

The UK data (like the USA - see the ETS video although the figures are from the US Census Bureau for differential fertility) indicate that up to 1/3 of UK graduate females who have completed their fertility period (age 16-45) remain childless.

The differential birth rate is also a function of 'race', with the differential in the USA being steepest for Hispanics, then Blacks, then Whites.

It now looks highly likely that it's because cognitive ability is largely genetic and because people assortively mate that the numbers of 'have nots' have been growing out of proportion to the numbers who have the ability (note, from this perspective, education resources ability, it doesn't create ability) can then provide the professional services you rightly say are in high demand. But have a look at what happens when this differential gets out of hand especially in sub-Saharan Africa:

It seems that education doesn't make people any smarter (if it did, SEAL, HeadStart, SureStart etc would work), it just a) resources abilities that are already in ones genetic/behavioural repertoire and b) protects some kids from injury and other environmental assaults which LOWER IQ. That being so, logic dictates that the more (educable) females one sends into higher education and the workplace, the greater the divide between the 'haves' and 'have nots' will become. If that is not the case, explain why it is not so.

What if it's not sinister exploitation of the 'haves' but just relative OVERpopulation amongst the 'have-nots' that's the problem, i.e. a burden on the infrastructure which so many lament today is why we can't support so many immigrants? Isn't it the same if the indigenous population grows disproportionately at the low end given that they are more prone to alcoholism, obesity, drug addiction, crime etc through being more vulnerable to 'market pressures'? What if the reason they have such low Socio-Economic Status is primarily genetic, i.e there are more uneducable people in that part of the curve (i.e it's 'positively skewed'), and that jobs now are progressively more automated reducing the need for labour? Surely providing money and other resources won't help matters as it will just be leeched back by predators inflaming what's already a worsening situation in terms of the higher birth rate in this sector?

The Edwardians better understood this. Nearly all of the founders of modern statistics and quantitative genetics made this point in the 1920s and 1930s. They were 'eugenicists'. Eugenics just meaning 'good breeding' (it doesn't mean 'culling', that's just a negative spin put about by Bolsheviks and other 'anti-nazis' who want to sway electorates against state planning (hence the vilification of Germany and Soviet USSR, and now Uzbekistan - see last night's NN yet again). Note that China implemented 'eugenics' legislation in 1995.

China, note, is not Bolshevik, it's Stalinist/Maoist, i.e state capitalist.

I think you're right to draw attention to the fact that education just increases the divide. The (Old) Labour Manifesto after WWII was drafted by Michael Young who went on to write the satirical/dystopian book 'The Rise of the Meritocracy' in 1958, which inspired Herrnstein to write 'IQ in the Meritocracy' in 1971;1973 (the forerunner of 'The Bell Curve 1994 which he wrote with Murray, see below). At the end of his life Young complained that Blair's New Labour was abusing the term 'meritocratic' which Young had created as a warning against social injustice, asserting that Blair did not understand the concept for the very reasons you say. But what if Blair's New Labour did understand, and his government has as much in common with Old Labour (which is basically Stalinist if you look past the black propaganda) as Militant Tendency (Trotskyite) did?

What if the plight of the swelling 'underclass' 'proletariat, 'have-nots' (60% up below 70 IQ in 5 generations whilst the cognitive elite 130+ has shrunk by the same proportion through dysgenic/differential fertility) hasn't been through anyone oppressing or exploiting them, but because the birth rate in that sector (perhaps half) of the population has been so much higher over the decades whilst the others half has been too frightened to have kids? What if progressive automation has made many manual/unskilled jobs redundant? What happened to family planning (which is basically what 'eugenics' is all about - is it just for the educable)?

Failure to look a this possibility empirically (I don't like it either) is where the Chartists and Bolsheviks may have got their model of social justice/human rights (FCHR) all wrong. This is at root a demographic and differential population management (birth/eugenics) issue. Trust market forces and emotion/hedonism and we must expect the worst.

The problems are made worse by so many immigrants/economic migrants. I've suggested why the EU A8 better educated temporarily take low-skilled jobs, i.e. it's because of relative purchasing power given prices at home, much the same reason Amanda Lamb gives for the bargains to be had in Bulgaria etc). But surely the main problem is a failure of effective population self-management/government? Is that not inevitable in an anarcho-capitalist free-market economy, where effective government (despite appearances) is kept minimal by design?

Campaigning for the 'have nots' may not bring about the results one envisages. Quite the contrary in fact, it may bring about precisely what one sees in the over-populated, corrupt countries that we see falling apart on our screens almost daily. The very places which so many of our extra-EU immigrants are fleeing from? But to do what? To reproduce the very same problems here perhaps, and be encouraged to do so by equalitarians who do not look at the empirical evidence for inequality and its basis, but campaign emotively like children just as many did in response to Jim Watson last month?

'The path to hell is paved with good intentions'.

See the last Home Affairs Select Committee evidence session on 'Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System'. The chairman of the committee has since changed.

There's no point putting this to popular vote, as turkeys don't vote for Christmas. That's why democracy will never solve this problem. Might that be why democracy was abandoned in Germany in the 1930s and why countries successfully grappling with these problems today are, like those of the past, one party states or dictatorships which resist liberal democratic pressures to democratise?

Thanks wappaho. YOU inspire ME. We should communicate better than through this website. Would it be dangerous to give a postal address that is not mine? - I am not very computer literate, have only just started using my daughter's computer regularly, and that only because it is hooked up to the internet on some unknown neighbour's connection.

I worry about Adrienne - she sounds like she is arguing when in fact she is agreeing, in rather impenetrable language. If she could use the vernacular, she would find she is connecting instead of getting no reaction because people are simply overwhelmed, not because they disagree.

I think the best thing she or anyone could do in respect of which parts of the brain to bring to the fore in an emergency, is the article at the end of the Die Off website which Ed Iglehart has so kindly led us to. It is in the Odds And Ends section, and is about something the human race has known for a very long time and which has recently been scientifically proven by neuropsychiatrists like Dr Robert Hare. (The Ecologist did a feature on him a while back.) It is the fact that only the centres of reason in the human brain can lie - they don't always lie, but they are the only part of the brain that CAN lie.

To my personal taste, the best account of this phenomenon is given by Milton in Paradise Lost in his characterisation of Lucifer and how he managed to tempt Eve. Lucifer produces a cool, attractive, highly rational-sounding argument as to why Eve should eat the apple - and for this Milton uses the words "gloze" (a verb not in use any longer) and "specious" (not in wide enough use).

By the way King Solomon knew all this too - that is why, when he could not decide which woman was telling the truth he suddenly put on a Mafioso act and said, Right, I'm gonna cut the baby in half and give you half each. This immediately produced the truth. Run this test on most, or all, of the people running our world and they will all turn out to be lying, to themselves as much as anybody. They will all accept half a dead baby rather than return it to is true mother (or father, I am dead against gender distinctions, there are differences but they are superficial and in fact Dr Hare has pointed out that as many women are non-violent sociopaths as men).

Ed, I am sorry you have been banned from the other place. Can your system generate a quote for "The harsher the truth you are telling, the more likely you are to be arraigned for seditious libel"? What on earth can you have said - but don't try and say it here of course or you will go from this one too. I'm sure we are all dying to know. Because you can say quite a lot - the reason being that those in power feel even less obliged to pay attention to it than they did in Cobbett's time. We have obligingly gone to self-harm like the Aborigines, rather than burning down Parliament (1834 - there was cheering in the streets so obvious that Cobbett felt obliged to explain to the great and good why the people were cheering, as MPs were more upset and surprised by this than the actual fire which COULD have been an accident).

Ed (#139) You selectively quoted and translated.

Edith (#138) You are worryng about entirely the wrong things.

Hare incidentally, is a psychologist not a 'neuropsychiatrist' (which is just a silly modern buzzword). His specialitity is psychopathy. There are no 'centres of reason' in the brain either. Listen to 'On Having A Poem':

and perhaps the other links if you really want to understand what controls our behaviour(s) ;-)

Ed #142 - Obviously not, but then, that's the basic problem with mentalistic language ;-)

/dna/mbreligion/F2213240?thread=4707975&skip=0&show=20

My point throughout has been to draw attention to the possibility of there being a dearth of skilled people to support the 'have nots'. Technically, this amounts to assering that the cognitive ability distribution for the UK & USA populations (at least) must, statistically speaking, be 'positively skewed'. I don't have the empirical evidence to substantiate this, i.e. it's speculative, but it's suggested by the data that female emancipation (and especially 'education, education, education' for 50% of the population) may not just be counter-(re)productive but a dysgenic accelerator.

Whether this makes New Labour an entyist cabal of Jacobin Trotskyites or not, other will have to decide for themselves ;-)

Adrienne #132, thanks for your reply

Culture is only partly genetic, a minor part. Your 'If thens' ignore the fact that the behaviour of liberal societies is not predictable from that of non-liberal societies nor is it in a directly opposite or some other predictable variation, it's a different animal altogether.

"If we had control over our population, we wouldn't be opening our borders to immigration."

This is spurious logic too. You have ignored politics in your bio-analysis.

If I were in romantic denial I would agree with you that the way forward is backward - to traditionslism, but I don't. The way is forward into as yet uncharted liberal ground - to find the right population-economy balance without sacrificing gender equality. I see absolutelty no evidence that westernisation is a two way highway. The number of people who de-westernise such as Cat Stevens, is minimal, the number of women who de-westernise - who?

Ed #142 - Obviously not, but then, that's the basic problem with mentalistic language ;-)

/dna/mbreligion/F2213240?thread=4707975&skip=0&show=20

My point throughout has been to draw attention to the possibility of there being a dearth of skilled people to support the 'have nots'. Technically, this amounts to asserting that the cognitive ability distribution for the UK & USA populations (at least) must be, statistically speaking, 'positively skewed'. I don't have the empirical evidence to substantiate this, i.e. it's speculative, but it's suggested by the data that female emancipation (and especially 'education, education, education' for 50% of the population) may not just be counter-(re)productive but serve as a dysgenic accelerator.

Whether this makes New Labour an entyist cabal of Jacobin Trotskyites or not, others will have to decide for themselves ;-)

Personally, I have most of the Austrian School down as a bunch of Chicago Boy Trots too.

#144 - "The way is forward into as yet uncharted liberal ground - to find the right population-economy balance without sacrificing gender equality."

It looks very much like denial to me.

Surely, unless you can articulate an explicit, practical, policy which reverses this demographic slow extinction whilst preserving 'gender equality', your vista of 'uncharted liberal ground' bearing fruit at some later date is just promissory, amounts to just saying that you have no idea, and that you ARE indeed in romantic denial?

Or have I missed something? ;-)

Look at the demographic facts. Do you deny those too? Unless these change, the current trends will continue, and immigration from outside the EU must too.

The only way that dreamers like Cat Stevens figures in this is that he was one of generation seduced. It wasn't this way earlier in the C20th. Women used to give up work when they got married for a good reason.

What we see today is a relatively recent, circa 1960s, Trotskyite aberration on the part of generations born of women technically emancipated in the early decades of the C20th and their daughters especially. The surge in higher education was after the 60s, and largely down to women. That's when TFRs began falling, around the time 'The Pill' was marketed. One of the biggest drops was in Spain & Portugal as they gave up on 'Fascism' ;-)

PISA 2006

The UK *did* in fact participate in 2003 (which focused on maths). Controversially, it was EXCLUDED from the detailed comparative analyses by the PISA governing body, because of its concerns about dodgy sampling of UK pupils.

Interested readers should look up DfES commissioned independent reports which were explicit about the lack of full cooperation that they received. Whilst the government was singing the praises of onward and upwards in key Stage 3 & 4 attainment, the PISA comparisons risk revealing the facts of the matter, i.e. the consequence of dysgenesis brought about through a) immigration and b) differential fertility.