Society

The immigration lobby are getting desperately short of arguments to set against the huge costs of mass immigration. The first body blow was a House of Lords report which ‘found no evidence…… that net migration generates significant economic benefits for the existing UK population’ (see abstract here). This was followed by a report from the government’s own Migration Advisory Committee which pointed out that much of any benefit goes to the immigrants themselves. (see Paragraphs 3.6-3.13 here). Then a study by the NIESR found that the contribution of the much vaunted East European migrants to GDP per head was expected to be ‘negligible’ (see Exec Summary here), indeed negative in

Have elected police commissioners become the new political piñata? This week, the upcoming elections have taken a battering most notably from former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. In an interview with Sky News, Blair irresponsibly encouraged the public to boycott the elections, citing his concerns over centralising police power in a single individual — much like his old role. But as we stated in this week’s leader, Blair’s denial may not be a bad thing for those who want to see radical change in the policing: ‘Ian Blair perfectly embodies what has gone wrong with policing in England. He is marinated in political correctness…now retired and ennobled, he sees

EDF’s announcement that it is raising gas and electricity bills by nearly 11 per cent will increase pressure on the government in two ways. The first is that these sorts of hikes in the cost of living mean that while ministers have been cheered by recent pleasing statistics on growth, jobs and inflation, voters might not feel as though things are going so well for them. If their own experience of the economy is one where their rent, shopping bills and energy bills are soaring while their wages are frozen, then they may not feel quite as sympathetic to the government as official statistics suggest they should. The second is