Immigration benefits the country, or does it? (Update)

I see that Gordon Brown has reacted to the House of Lords Committee report by trotting out the same old lies. "He said migration had added £6bn to the economy and was a "substantial income"." The Committee covered this and said quite clearly, so that even a monocular moron could read it, that that figure was an "irrelevant and misleading" measure and the only one that counted was the impact of immigration on everybody's personal income.


Gordon Brown also said that gross domestic product per head had risen since 1997 from £13,900 to £22,840 in the last year. Yes it probably has increased by that much - just over 5% per annum, how much of that is Gordon Brown laying at the door of immigration?


The deliberate misdirection that Gordon Brown and other Labour Ministers make that annoys me most is that the key workers argument. Here's his attempt today "Most people in the City of London know they have benefited very substantially...Not just from the inward investment that's coming from international companies, but the number of key workers who are coming to join them and are making a huge contribution to the British economy."

I doubt that many people have an issue with skilled American quants, Malaysian computer programmers or South African dentists coming to work in the UK and pay tax here. These people may be earning £60,000 or more a year and so paying over £30,000 in Income Tax and National Insurance a year. What people do have problems with are people coming here and not working but claiming all the benefits they can and/or using the NHS to treat the illnesses they have brought with them into the Country. Why can Gordon Brown and his Cabinet not distinguish between the two types of immigrant, the rest of the Country can?