The Government announced this morning that the figure of immigrants since 1997, which they peddled for a while, was out by 300,000. The "true" number was 1.1 million, rather than 800,000. Presumably the "true" figure is the number of immigrants who have arrived and are still here? Some may have gone elsewhere.
But by some strange alchemy these 1.1 million contribute 8% of the work force of 29.1 million. Simple mental arithmetic suggests the figure should be about 3.8%.
Are they implying that and event bigger figure than 1.1 million were in place before 1997, in order to make up the 8%, i.e. had arrived during the Thatcher/Major years? Or are they from the E.U., who have freedom to travel to work anywhere in the Union?
Or are there further immigrants to be found?
We may learn the answer eventually, or it may be a misunderstanding by me. In either case we must be slightly worried. Either the Statistical estimate is still not accurate, and the numbers are admittedly difficult to produce, that is out by a factor of 50%, or the presentation is such as to confuse most people - does the word "spin" come to mind?
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4 comments:
How do we know the 1.1 million is the true figure. We've been sold pups before by this lot. They wouldn't know the truth if it sat up and bit them.
Government statisticians must feel like other professions - estate agents, dustbin collectors, prostitutes, not being very keen to admit to their occupation.
There's talk of the number being increased eventually by a similar amount (300K) - they didn't dare to release it all in one go - they'll wait for a good day to bury it, or some other excuse is dreamt of.
it's about time we kicked all the time wasting foreigners out of this country, close our borders and take stock of who is in our country!!
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