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Firstly, from the Mail:

Benefit claims by Eastern Europeans have almost trebled in the past year, official figures show.

The cost of the payouts - to almost 112,000 migrants - is put at £125million a year.

The Home Office figures mean that one in six of an estimated 683,000 Eastern European incomers is living off the state to some extent.

A year ago, only 42,620 were claiming benefits.

Critics say that the welfare bill will rise further because 700 more migrants arrive every day from former Soviet Bloc states.

So, one sixth of East Europeans are on benefits. And it means that another central tenet in the 'economic-benefit' argument for mass immigration from Eastern Europe, falls apart.

Secondly, from the Telegraph:

New Labour has presided over the creation of a quango superstate that spends nearly £170 billion a year - more than five times the budget of the Ministry of Defence.

The figure has been revealed by an investigation into the accounts of nearly 900 agencies, advisory bodies, monitoring boards and other public bodies that are all termed "quangos".

The study also shows massive pay rises over the past decade for those running a slew of agencies, including the Coal Authority, the British Waterways Board and British Nuclear Fuels.

Last year, Ken Boston, the head of the Qualification and Curriculum Authority, received £273,000 in annual pay and benefits in kind.

In 1998, his predecessor received £43,563. Trevor Beaumont, head of The Tote, was paid £369,000 last year. In 1998, an official received £115,000 to do the same job.

Two years before Labour came to power, Gordon Brown spoke publicly of the need for a "bonfire of the quangos". His party's 1997 General Election manifesto sharply criticised the Tories for allowing their number and cost to soar.

A suggestion, then, for Dave: follow through Gordon's excellent idea for a bonfire of quangos, and you could go into the next election promising to balance the books, increase spending on the health service and cut taxes.

The Tribes of Britain

I have just finished reading David Miles' book on the Tribes of Britain. Whilst the first part of the book ticks all the boxes that I was expecting from Miles, a former Chief Archaeologist with English Heritage, in that it contained a mix of demographics, archaeological anecdotes and genetics, the second part certainly does not. In fact, the best description of the latter chapters is as a love letter to mass immigration.

Now the first question that springs to my mind is why on earth would Miles write a book on the British people when they seem to constantly be presented as nasty racists? And if you are going to talk about events you may as well get your facts right. For instance, Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993 not 1988 as Miles states.

Also, Miles correctly states that 'in 2003 new British citizens from Africa far outnumbered the combined total from the West Indies, Canada, Australia and America', with most of these coming from Somalia. He then says that this has gone unnoticed because 'they do not present too much of a problem' as they are 'mostly young, healthy, Anglophone and well educated'. Now I know that he wrote the book before two 'young, healthy' Somalians tried to blow-up Central London, but even so it proves his enthusiasm for immigration seriously clouds his judgement. And it is seems even more so when you consider that on the previous page he had exalted the 'Britishness' of a Caribbean island he had recently visited. Now although this is a little trite, it does at least have some truth to it: immigrants from places with similar cultures are obviously more likely to be able to integrate. Yet despite trying, I think, to make that point, a page later he seems to think it is wonderful that we now have mass immigration from Somalia!

All in all, it's a bit of a shame really, because if this book had ended at the chapter covering the 18th century I would have been enthusiastically endorsing it. Now, however, I must say that I won't be reading anything by Miles in the future. And as for English Heritage, an organisation of which I am a member, you do wonder about the sort of political bias that exists within it.

Family Values

When social conservatives attack immigration, they are regularly told that they are actually engaging in a collective nose cutting. Immigrants, we are told, actually bring 'family values' to this country, and are, therefore, of great benefit to our society and social cohesion.

Let's leave aside the question of what sort of 'family values' these immigrants bring for now. Instead, what does the statistical evidence say? Does it really back up these claims? Firstly America:

President Bush and others argue that one of the benefits of immigration is that immigrants have a stronger commitment to traditional family values than native-born Americans.

However, a new analysis of birth records by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that out of wedlock births have grown dramatically for both groups, and rates are now about the same for immigrant and native mothers. Children born to unmarried parents are at higher risk for a host of social problems. This may be especially true for the children of immigrants, because they need strong families to adjust to life in America.

Then there was this report from Britain:

The number of marriages in England and Wales has slumped to the lowest level on record, it was announced today.

The 10% cent fall reversed three years in which an increased number of people had tied the knot. Provisional figures from the Office for National Statistics showed there just were just 244,710 weddings in 2005.

In London the decrease was even more marked, with marriages falling by 35%

London, of course, has received masses of immigration over the last decade. There does not seem, in conclusion, to be much evidence for the claims of immigrant 'family values' on either side of the Atlantic. So whilst I do want to re-establish family values and laud any attempts to further that goal, I think we can safely say that importing millions of immigrants isn't the answer.

The Nation of Immigrants?

Laban pointed out this article from the Telegraph, which talks about a new publication from CIVITAS, demolishing the 'nation of immigrants' argument:

Between 1066 and 1945 Britain actually had very few waves of immigration. By far the largest was the Irish during the 19th century and, technically, they were not immigrants, since Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, Irish "immigrants" never amounted to more than 3 per cent of the British population.

Numerically, the next largest group is the Jews. Official statistics record that 155,811 Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe arrived over 25 years from 1880. Their contribution to the intellectual, political and economic life of Britain has of course been enormous. But even adding the 70,000 who fled to Britain from Nazi Germany, the number of Jewish arrivals was, compared to the 50 million Britons already resident here, minute. They are certainly not enough to make Britain "a nation of immigrants".

Almost all immigrant groups never managed to reach 1 per cent of the population. The Normans, though they seized land and power, were a tiny elite. The Dutch who arrived in the 16th century were, in proportion to the whole population, a much smaller group. Even the 50,000 Huguenots from France only ever amounted to a hundredth of Britain's total population. And they arrived over a period of 50 years.

It's obvious that this myth has been propagated for one reason alone: to assuage fears about the comparatively massive scale of modern immigration. After all, what better way to answer people like myself who claim that assimilation takes considerable time and will always involve pain on both sides, than to point out the past successes. The truth, laid bare here by Conway, is that there is no numerical precedent for the modern waves of immigration.

I cannot help thinking that those who are implementing such a policy concurrent with the weakening of the sovereign nation state, are the authors of an experiment that is likely to lead us into a fragmented abyss. One day, they'll be seen as the traitors they truly are.

Gloomy thoughts aside - I'd like to wish a Happy St George's day to all.

Mass Migration Accelerating

The Sunday Telegraph reported some breathaking figures on immigration:

More than a million foreigners have been allowed to come to work in Britain in just three years - and given the right to remain indefinitely.

The numbers of migrants, who are also entitled to bring their families and settle, have been revealed in new figures released to MPs by the Home Office. They reveal for the first time the full impact that officially sanctioned immigration is having on the UK work force.

They show that the issuing of work permits to people from non-European Union countries continued to accelerate even after the expansion of the EU in 2004, which has already brought an unprecedented number of eastern European workers to Britain.

Between 2004 and last year, a record 309,000 non-EU citizens were granted long-term work permits carrying potential entitlement to settle.

So, at a time when we have had a deluge of immigrants from newly accessioned EU countries, we have had a similar number from non-EU countries, via the back door. To think that the Prime Minister had the temerity to write to me last month, exclamining:

This petition was posted shortly before we published the Eddington Study, an independent review of Britain's transport network. This study set out long-term challenges and options for our transport network. It made clear that congestion is a major problem to which there is no easy answer.

One answer, Tony, is not to add millions of people to the population in the space of a few years. Oh, and your government's claim that the reduction in asylum applications is a 'great achievement', rings particulary hollow when we can see how the numbers have been juggled around.

Our Future Elite - Be Very, Very Afraid

Leading academics yesterday defended an eminent Oxford professor against a students' call for him to be sacked for his links to an immigration think-tank.

Oxford Student Action for Refugees has circulated a petition seeking the removal of Professor David Coleman, a leading expert in demographics, because of his connections with MigrationWatch.

The students believe that because MigrationWatch warns about the negative effects of present and future immigration, it is inherently racist.

But Professor Coleman condemned what he called a "shameful attack on academic independence and freedom of speech".

He questioned whether the students involved should be allowed to stay at the university themselves.

Among his defenders was Professor John Salt, director of the Migration Research Unit at University College London.

So, even talking about migration in a negative way, is racist now!

One of the students behind the petition, Kieran Hutchinson Dean, 19, said the aim was to invite debate.

He said: "We are not expecting the professor to be sacked straight away. But we ask that he refrains from using his academic status when promoting his own views.

"If he does not refrain he is representing the university as a whole and many of us do not agree with his views.

"Professor Coleman cofounded MigrationWatch which continues to spew out anti-immigration tirades that fuel the far-Right BNP.

"He gives MigrationWatch a credibility and credence it does not deserve."

Why does Migration Watch not deserve credence and credibility? Is it simply because they express opinions to the contrary of your own? Oh, and what are these tirades you are referring to? All I can see on Migration Watch's website is well presented arguments about the costs, both social and financial, of migration. The fact that the BNP, a legal political-party, may cite the arguments on their literature and websites, does not detract from the validity of the evidence presented.

What's most worrying is the sort of people involved in this disgraceful hounding. These are supposed to be the cream of the crop, the students who will go on to inhabit the upper-echelons of the legal, political and civil service worlds. And from what we can see here, they are, in fact, totalitarian scum, who wish for the public to be kept from data deemed 'too sensitive' for their consumption.

If you think that New Labour are bad, wait until the class of '07 come into fruition. Free speech and academic freedom will not just be on life support as they are now, but ashes scattered over this once great Island.

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