Home > The Magazine > Features

Sunday 5 July 2009

Subscribe now

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Liz Anderson

Liz Suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Some truths about immigration

Anthony Browne

Saturday, 2nd August 2003

Anthony Browne says Britain is already overcrowded, and that pro-immigration arguments are almost all flawed

2. Britain is already overcrowded: it is one of the most densely populated islands in the world; twice as densely populated as France and eight times as densely populated as America – and increasing population density damages quality of life. Already, we can't find space for new airports, roads, prisons and asylum centres. It is not just millions of new houses, but the new infrastructure of roads, hospitals, schools, water supplies and other utilities. Our public transport system is ridiculously overstretched and roads are excessively congested. The government has embarked on a programme of population growth through immigration that will push the population up from 60 million to 66 million by 2031 but it refuses even to talk about the consequences of this.

3. Mass immigration – as opposed to limited immigration of skilled workers to meet shortages – damages the employment prospects of those already here, particularly the unskilled. The Home Office commissioned an economic study on the impact of immigration, which found that 'an increase in immigration amounting to 1 per cent of the non-immigrant population would lead to an increase of 0.18 percentage points in the non-immigrant unemployment rate'. However, in an extraordinary act of politically correct immigration denial, the immigration minister Beverley Hughes issued a press release saying, 'The research shows that it is simply not true that migrants "take the jobs" of the existing work force.' However, London, where most immigrants come, has become the unemployment black spot of Britain, with 7 per cent joblessness, higher than any region of the UK. There is such a large pool of cheap labour that, for the first time ever, national chains such as McDonald's and Burger King are no longer paying their highest rates in central London. Shop shelf-fillers now earn 10 per cent less in London than the average for the rest of the country. The world's leading expert on the economics of migration, Professor George Borjas of Harvard University, complains that everyone is happy to accept that increasing labour supply reduces wages in all circumstances except when it comes to immigration, when they enter denial.

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Next page

More articles from: Anthony Browne | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comment

Subscribe Now 12 issues for £12 in the UK : Gift subscriptions : Overseas subscriptions

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP

To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with

Cass Sunstein

Cass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme

A splendid lunch with Jimmy McNulty

Deborah Ross

In the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop

What Jacko needed was someone to say ‘No’

Uri Geller

My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.

Michael Jackson Notebook

Emily Maitlis

The news cycle of a dead celebrity is a curious thing.

Moscow Notebook

Pablo Ganguli

Before boarding the flight to Moscow, it dawned on me that I might have somehow contracted swine flu from Michael Nyman.

If you want to see corruption, look at the party leaders’ response to the scandal

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle says that, for all the claims made by Brown and Cameron to be taking deeply moral action, the pattern of retribution shows that they are saving their mates and throwing their enemies to the wolves

There is something comforting about North Korea’s nuclear weapons

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle takes issue with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and otherdoom-mongers: Kim Jong-il’s nukes are quaintly amateurish

Labour has left Britain on the fringes of Europe

William Hague

William Hague responds to David Miliband’s claim in The Spectator that the Tory EU policy is suicidal and says the government’s own strategy has been an abject failure

This is a constitutional crisis. Dave dare not blow it

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson says that the scale of public disgust at the MPs’ expenses scandal presents the next Prime Minister with a huge challenge — and a huge opportunity. If Cameron devolves power to voters, he will be rewarded. But if he fails, the punishment will be swift