Do We Really Spend £1 Billion a Week on Benefits for Foreigners? No. Last weekend, The Telegraph ran an eye-catching headline: Cue a flurry of shares from Reform UK supporters and the usual angry right-wingers on social media. Unsurprisingly, most hadn’t read the article—just the headline. The piece itself was behind a paywall, which didn’t … Read more
Is UK immigration out of control? No it’s not out of control, nor is it increasing. There’s been a lot of noise lately about immigration being “out of control.” Social media is full of it. So are the usual suspects—the Mail, Telegraph, and certain politicians who never miss a chance to shout fire in a … Read more
Nations depend on rules – fair rules.Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not, but either way, they give shape to our values.They guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to one another.Now, in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more … Read more
VE Day at 80: Bombs, Black Cats and the Fog of War My Grandpa was too old to fight in World War Two. He was a schoolteacher, and served as an Air Raid Warden during the war. The Air Raid Warden Service was set up in 1937. Wardens were responsible for reporting bomb incidents, reassuring … Read more
Back when the Conservatives were in power, they launched a high-profile public inquiry into child abuse and grooming gangs in Rotherham—a Labour-controlled local authority. They didn’t do the same for Bradford (then Conservative-run), Blackpool (variously governed by Labour and Tories), or Doncaster (at the time, run by the English Democrats—now part of Reform UK). This … Read more
Viva España: Labour’s Economic Plan, Productivity and Immigration “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it is almost everything.”Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in Economics We’ve now had enough time to assess Labour’s economic strategy. Labour argues that Britain’s economic struggles stem from low growth, driven by low investment, weak productivity, and stagnant wages. Businesses, … Read more
The first person to be sentenced for rioting was sent down this week. All previous convictions were for lesser offences. The recent anti-imigrant riots were born out of frustration, blended with on-line disinformation, inflammatory rhetoric, Islmaphobia, far right activism. One of the most incendiary, yet widespread, claims was that immigrants, particularly asylum seekers, pose a … Read more
Last weekend rioters tried to burn down a hotel housing asylum seekers in Wath upon Dearne, near Rotherham. One of the first blogs I ever wrote was about Wath upon Dearne, over 7 years ago: sadly I was too optimistic about it’s future. 40 years ago the biggest employer in Wath was Cortonwood colliery. It … Read more
Are ordinary Brits disadvantaged in the labour market because of immigration? I realise that most of my liberal graduate friends will automatically reject such an idea, in particular because there is an unstated assumption in the question that the ordinary Brits being hard done by are white, and the immigrants being given preferential treatment aren’t. … Read more
If you live in the UK you must have noticed a massive increase in homelessness, in particular homeless people with drink and drug problems. Durham has a hardcore of about 20, sometimes the police and the council get them off the streets, but a few weeks later they are back again. Some are vulnerable and … Read more