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
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
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
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
Britain never really loved the EU. We didn’t join the Common Market because we loved Europe or bought into a pan European vision, We signed up because we were in the doledrums as a nation. We had lost an Empire, and not really worked out a role in the world. The excitement of the 60s … Read more
The tragic death of a boat full of desperate people trying to reach the UK has focused attention on the growing numbers of people crossing the channel in small boats. This has been a problem for months now, and the Governments response has centred on implausible get tough schemes that grab the headlines but which … Read more
Parliament has debated the new immigration bill this week. Government announcements are heavy on Brexity slogans about taking back control and “Global Britain”, but the reality is that the Bill gives Ministers the power to exclude people from the UK labour market who don’t hold a high level qualification and aren’t a higher earner. Decisions … Read more
The old myth that foreigners are coming to take your jobs has a new rival – Americans are coming to steal the NHS. Both are equally silly. Why the immigration myth is nonsense One of the great myths spread by right wing politicians is that somewhere in the world there is a hoard of foreigners … Read more