"There is not a single serious economic study that suggests immigration has had any significant impact on the employment of British workers. Immigration may have had some effect on wages, but not very much. A report last year from MigrationWatch found that unemployment is higher in those areas of England that have experienced the highest levels of immigration. True. But those areas had higher levels of unemployment to start with - so it wasn't the immigrants who caused it. Even more to the point, during the period MigrationWatch looked at, the areas with more immigration actually did better in terms of unemployment.
Nor are immigrants a drain on the state. Some immigrants claim benefits, use the Health Service, have children at school, commit crimes and so on. But they pay taxes too. And on average, they pay more in tax and use less in services than natives. This is hardly surprising since many, if not most, immigrants come here to work or study. So overall they reduce the tax burden on the rest of us. Fewer migrants will mean higher taxes or cuts in services."
Alas he gives no references for these remarkable claims. I point readers towards the ONS figures for unemployment by ethnicity.
Given that "Mr Portes remains an enthusiastic advocate of the benefits of immigration. He wrote a report for the Department of Work and Pensions last year rejecting claims that Eastern European workers had stolen the jobs of British counterparts, arguing Britons lacked the skills and motivation", I think we can probably take the attitude to his writings that Mary McCarthy took to Lillian Hellman's ("every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'").
I digress. In that same edition of the Mail, news section :
"Migrant crime wave revealed: Foreign arrests have almost doubled in just THREE years"
"The number of foreigners arrested for committing crimes in Britain has almost doubled in the past three years, police revealed today. Figures show that in 2010 more than 91,234 non-British nationals were held for crimes including murder, burglary and sexual offences. By contrast, only 51,899 foreigners were arrested in 2008 - meaning there has been a worrying increase of 76 per cent over the past three years."
28 comments:
What makes it worse is that its in the finanicial section.
He doesn't give reason or logic for anything its just his own opinion written as if fact.
He pulls the usual pro-immigration trick of lumping all immigrants together as if they are all equally good or bad.
How is this country going to recover with people like that at the top of the civil service.
The other odd thing about those peoples views is if they really believe immigration is so good because it adds extra people to the population and work force and helps us 'grow', howcome we don't hear them calling for rising birth-rates in this country for the same effect?
We've been getting the opposite message for years.
I'm surprised by that graph which appears to show that nearly 10% of Chinese men are unemployed while there are no unemployed Bangladeshi women.
Another odd thing about it is that the aggregeted column ("All ethnic groups") is substantially lower than its constituent parts.
Mr Portes remains an enthusiastic advocate of the benefits of immigration.
I remain an enthusiastic advocate of the benefits of my size 11 steel toe cap Doc Marten boot up Mr Portes arse.
Of course the fact that Portes belongs to a certain ethnic/religious minority is quite, quite irrelevant to the matter in hand.
"I'm surprised by that graph which appears to show that nearly 10% of Chinese men are unemployed while there are no unemployed Bangladeshi women."
Something very, very odd about those stats!
"while there are no unemployed Bangladeshi women."
If you aren't allowed to look for work then you don't count as unemployed.
I agree with Banned and Julie. That graph makes no sense at all.
Of course the fact that Portes belongs to a certain ethnic/religious minority is quite, quite irrelevant to the matter in hand.
Just had to be. A series of anti-British canards like that can't help but get the Chosenite sensors flashing
Banned & Julie
'All Ethnic Groups' includes native Brits.
The tendency of Bangladeshi women to stay cooped/locked-up in the home and their total inability to speak English means that it is impossible to get any verifiable figures for them, but a figure close to 70% would not be far off.
"Nor are immigrants a drain on the state. Some immigrants claim benefits, use the Health Service, have children at school, commit crimes and so on. But they pay taxes too. And on average, they pay more in tax and use less in services than natives. "
This is not true. The report that claimed this said that if an immigrant has a child with a native. Then only the native benefits from the child's education. A complex lie - so easier for those who want to be decieved to be decieved.
If you go to the ONS site there is a second graph showing economic inactivity. The first graph is , I think, unemployed and looking for work.
The second graph shows that a lot of people in some groups are unemployed and not looking for work.
Portes is sneaky. His starting point has considerable merit: that limitations on highly skilled immigrants are counterproductive. We surely benefit from a plentiful supply of Gurajati and Parsi entrepreneurs, Russian materials scientists or Chinese brain surgeons. We also benefit from selling the services of our still rather good universities to foreign students, and even from capitalizing on our position of being custodians of the de facto world language by teaching it to foreigners on residential courses.
To that extent his criticism of Cameron's sham clampdown on immigration is valid.
But Portes goes on to generalize the beneficial effect to all immigrants; to the ones that Cameron & Co strangely choose to ignore.
The unskilled and semi-skilled, whether legal or illegal. Even when legit, these people contribute no net tax benefit, but are subsidized by the likes of me whose taxes support the natives they displace into unemployment.
And of course the demographically non-beneficial, the hordes of, dare I use the term, breeders, brought in through the family reunion channel.
Mr Portes is a smooth-talking liar.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.
Joseph Goebbels.
"...unemployment is higher in those areas of England that have experienced the highest levels of immigration. ...the areas with more immigration actually did better in terms of unemployment."
Am I reading that right? Sounds like the two sentences can't both be true.
Dom, he is claiming the high unemployment areas were high unemployment before the immigrants arrived, and that after mass immigration that has improved the employment situation of the locals relatively speaking.
But again he offers no proof or references to his claims.
There is nothing wrong with the graph.
Obviously they couldn't get enough data for Bangladeshi women so the stat is missing.
And the reason the overall average is a lot lower is because there are vastly more 'white' British than other groups. So the average will be weighed more by that stat, than the others.
"Jonathan Portes is Chief Economist at the Cabinet Office. He advises the Cabinet
Secretary, Gus O’Donnell, and Number 10 Downing Street on economic and financial
issues. Previously, Jonathan was Chief Economist (Work) and Director, Children,
Poverty, and Analysis at the Department for Work and Pensions. As the UK
Government’s leading expert on labour markets and migration, he published a number
of academic and policy papers on these topics, and testified on numerous occasions
before Parliamentary select committees."
fkin, brilliant!
So much for Democracy.
New Labour and mass immigration
Edwin, that's spot-on.
He also fails (deliberately?) to notice another effect of mass immigration - that intelligent, educated young people (especially those with young children) look at the way the country is going and get out. I'm never sure about the economic utility of swapping British graduates for the average Mirpuri or Somali, but I tend to think there isn't any.
Laban,
Feel free to delete my comment if you wish, but I am increasingly coming round to Sgt Troy's way of thinking.
Our political class, for an absolute minimum of forty years, have shown themselves to be the outright enemies of the people of this country and their interests.
They have seen our industries smashed, flooded our country with frankly undesirable newcomers, debased our culture and our whole sense of ourselves, and just generally wrecked an admirable, functioning country.
I honestly, truly feel that a very significant number of them should be executed for treason.
Looks like Chris Packham is on board..
"Packham, 49, who has no children of his own, told Radio Times: ‘By 2020, there are going to be 70million people in Britain. Let’s face it, that’s too many.'"
No wait!
"Packham suggested offering couples a financial incentive as ‘a carrot’ to persuade them to have fewer – or no – children."
WTF.
Its amazing how stupid these supposedly clever people can be.
The only growth in Britains population comes from immigration, he didn't mention it in the article, and therefore it makes no sense.
Chris Packham was more worried about the survival of his favourite colour squirrel: "I know that we couldn't kill all the Grey Squirrels in the UK, we missed that chance long ago, and because where I live that Grey offers no threat to any native Reds I'll let him nibble my nuts. It's not that I'm against controlling Greys, far from it. In certain places more resources should be available to assist with this as they present a very real threat to our fluffty tufty Great British Red boys. And such measures can still work so they are currently still worth pursuing. But if they couldn't or wouldn't work then my attitude changes, I'm for a more laid back approach, ‘let it happen, let it go, wave goodbye with a tearful eye if you like, bid farewell to the old Reds and get used to the Greys'."
Portes is able to perform his act of deception by tagging as 'immigrants' foreign workers employed by multinationals, foreign workers on secondment with their employers, and working holidaymakers from the 'new commonwealth'.All of these groups contribute towards the tax take whilst making nil or minimal demands on the country's health services & welfare system.To conflate these groups with immigrants who settle here, transform the character of the areas they colonise, whilst simultaneously making heavy demands on the welfare state,is pure sophistry on his part.
British workers and gap year students spending periods abroad whilst employed, and who may have no desire to settle abroad permanently, are usually called 'expats'. Strip out those foreigners properly termed 'expats' from the UK picture, and the illusory 'benefits of immigration' to the UK trumpeted by the likes of Portes largely evaporate into thin air.
Foxy - Joseph Goebbels wasnt, as I understand it, recommending the oft repeated lie as a propaganda. He was complaining about it being used against germany.
staybryte said...
Laban,
"Feel free to delete my comment if you wish, but I am increasingly coming round to Sgt Troy's way of thinking."
Carlyle meet a labouring man, who told him "we need another Oliver Sir, for times is terrible bad"
Too bloody right we do
Mark - "foreign workers employed by multinationals, foreign workers on secondment with their employers, and working holidaymakers from the 'new commonwealth'.All of these groups contribute towards the tax take"
Not so for foreign workers employed in 'intra-company transfers'. They don't pay NI, the cost of their board and lodging is considered part of their pay (but not taxed) and the tax they pay is minimal. See this link.
"Not so for foreign workers employed in 'intra-company transfers'. They don't pay NI, the cost of their board and lodging is considered part of their pay (but not taxed) and the tax they pay is minimal."
The two Indian lads I trained up to do my job (and the job of an already departed English colleague) were paid £300/month salary in Bangalore (not taxable in the UK) plus £1200/month subsistence allowance in the UK (not taxable anywhere).
Thanks for the correction Laban.The economic 'benefits' of such immigration are thus even more illusory than I first thought.
I think that it is seriously because the economy around the world is a complicated and difficult , these ideas are so important but we have to analyze !
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