Thursday, January 18, 2007

Mr Blunkett - What Was That Figure Again ?

Way back in 2004, we were being told that "the government's original "open-door" estimate of 5,000 to 13,000 a year coming to the UK (from Poland and the 2004 EU accession countries) is realistic and does not require limits on benefits, quotas or other restrictive measures".

Strange. On Radio Four tonight (RealAudio, for a week) there was a fascinating edition of the political role-play game 'Decision Time', where Frank Field (pbuh) was a Home Secretary who wanted to stop all immigration, and was taking advice from a number of luminaries including David Blunkett.

Half way through the 45-minute programme Blunkett revealed that while we were being comforted with 13,000 max, the Home Secretary had estimates on his desk of 100,000. Still out by a factor of 5 but a lot more than 13,000.

Strange. I don't remember him saying anything about 100,000 at the time. Anybody got time to check on what he said then ?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are none so blind as those that will not see

Anonymous said...

The public figure was 13,000, but I'm sure Blunket had much more realistic estimates on his desk.
Perhaps these other estimates were released but if so it would have been on one of those good days to bury bad news.