Liddle on migration

Rachel Johnson wonders why journalists still get paid when bloggers write for free. This stinking turd from her limp-dicked arsewipe of a colleague deepens the puzzle. "Rod" Liddle excretes this:

Quite soon – within 50 years or so – the only people left in Britain will be cut-price Polish plumbers, angry suicide bombers from the dusty Maghreb and obese, flatulent, drunken, educationally subnormal indigenous chavs who haven’t yet worked out the quickest route to the ferry terminal.

Let's pass over the racism and class hatred - and the pot-kettle talk of obesity and drunkenness - and  note merely the innumeracy. If we assume migration numbers continue at 2006 levels, 20 million will leave in the next 50 years (50 x 400,000). That means 40 million of us - two-thirds - will stay. Are two-thirds of us really educationally subnormal?
Liddle continues to vent his bowels:

High-earning, productive Brits continue to leave in ever increasing numbers for Spain, Australia, the United States and so on.

If the leavers are high-earning and productive, you'd expect them to be leaving to get work overseas. But table 2 of this pdf shows that only a quarter of emigrants are going to a definite job overseas, a smaller number than did so in 2000. The figures - which Liddle seems not to have read - are unclear, but it's likely that far more retire overseas. And these people aren't productive.

The pattern of immigration into Britain over the years mirrors almost exactly the pattern of migration out. So much so that you might suppose there is a causal link between the two; we’re getting out because of all those people coming in.

But it's not just "we" who are getting out. Of the 400,000 emigrants in 2006, almost half - 194,000 - were non-British, although the non-British account for only around one-in-ten of the population.
Conversely, only around 4 in 1000 of the indigenous population left last year, a fact which disposes of this:

Everybody tells us that immigration is good for the country. The only people, it would seem, who are not quite sure about this are the general public.

But this raises a question. If "Rod"'s not happy, why doesn't he leave? Not that I'd want to inflict him upon foreigners.

Comments

[mark Brinkley]

Chris, I think you need to lighten up.

Liddle only writes stuff like this to get noticed. It's cool to out Clarkson Jeremy Clarkson and get the chattering classes tut=tutting. In your case, he's just scored a bulls-eye.

[jameshigham]

And these people aren't productive.

Oh, I don't know, Chris - I'm pretty productive.

[Laban Tall]

On the other hand, Fraser Nelson in the Business points out that according to OECD figures

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/5/33868740.pdf

1.3m UK graduates have left the country - the highest number in the developed world. And of those categorised as "skilled workers", 15% live abroad. These are 2001 figures and I imagine they won't have got any lower in the last 6 years.

Admittedly, for every 100 skilled workers who leave, 105 arrive - but that's more like a program of replacement than augmentation.

"the non-British account for only around one-in-ten of the population"

Hang on a minute - those who've been granted citizenship ARE British. Or are you talking about the 'ethnic minority' count, around 9% at the last census - until the 22% of ethnic minority schoolkids grow up and the elderly natives die off.

http://http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6597273.stm

[Matt Munro]

A lot of people don't emigrate to retire or work though. They sell their grossly overpriced house in the UK and buy a gite/beach bar/olive press and just chill out, in other words they become someone elses idle rich.

[cityunslicker]

I would add to the above too the issue of capital loss.

The people who leave and retire take a large chunk of cash with them; out of the economy.

Those who come generally (arabs and russian oligarchs apart) bring very little except the ability to work. Yes in the long-term, IF they stay, they will contribute to the capital stock.

In the short-term though the economy is a loser, as is our government's tax revenues...

[Matt Munro]

I blame that bloody book my ex wife used to like, "A year in Provence".

[Edwin Greenwood]

"Those who come generally (arabs and russian oligarchs apart) bring very little except the ability to work. Yes in the long-term, IF they stay, they will contribute to the capital stock."

And they frequently send a significant portion of what they earn back to their homelands in the form of remittances.

[Edwin Greenwood]

And yes, do lighten up, Chris. Liddle is merely indulging in heavy-handed hyperbole. It's his style. His point, though, is fundamentally sound. We are undergoing population replacement at an alarming rate, with the quality, however defined, of those arriving generally significantly lower than of those leaving. If you live in South East London, like I do, the future is blatantly obvious on the streets.