•    Statisticians are the new Crazies
  

So the estimable London School of Economics  calculates that  EU immigrants are contributing more in taxes to the UK  treasury than they cost in benefits claimed or public services used. This is the same LSE which bestowed  academic letters upon the (diligently studious?) Saif, son of Gadaffi .  Any analysis which only attends to a distinctly select part of the bigger picture must be a lie. The elephant in the room which is obstinately ignored is the actual physical space into which extra numbers must be squeezed. Houses, schools, surgeries and hospitals, and even the already congested roads and public transport.

Migration Watch addresses the wider context of infrastructure, environment , and the very nature of the society with which Britain attracts so many immigrants. Economists dishonour their discipline when they utter brazenly distorted diktats.

The pity of this quandary is that British people are being forced to become people they don’t want to be: complainers. They are being trapped in a spiritual torture chamber of impossible choices. The British character has a settled fairness at its core which is where citizens feel most at ease. They have actually enjoyed their own capacity for assimilating people from many cultures, and have it in their imaginations to appreciate incomers as valued members of a very large family, including The Commonwealth. No nation of comparable demography has done this better.

Economists who lie to us are fuelling the new angst of Britons who for the first time are forced to see themselves as alien to their own gentleness. They are having to draw fierce lines around their living spaces which  governments should have done for them. All they want are carefully managed numbers to join them so that all Britons can continue to offer others what they love : a viable and a chivalrous land.