Going back to the '98% of all jobs created under Nu Labour went to bloody foreigners' non-story, we have tried rehashing the statistics and have come up with a different story:
'More than half of all new jobs go to indigenous population'* In a shock turn of events, it has been discovered that around 1.38 million or 50.3 percent of the new jobs created since 1997 have been taken by British nationals. During the same period the number of UK born nationals employed in the country has risen by 791,000 to 25.26 million. This has meant that the employment rate for British nationals has remained steady through out that period, at 73.5 percent. So, despite the fluctuation in the number of jobs available due to massive de-industrialisation, firms closing or moving their businesses abroad and job losses due to the global downturn. Or the changes in the population due to births and deaths, and to people entering and leaving the country, nothing much has really changed.
Some of you may have noticed another fabricated non-story in the yellow press, this one retreading the myth of non-English speakers outnumbering children with English as their first language in schools across the country. We have dealt with this before but just in case you haven't come across the arguments, check out Five Chinese Crackers for a dissection of the Mail, Express and Telegraph's racist delusions.
* We apologise profusely for the use of that vomit-inducing term and for the use of terms containing the word 'nation'.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Nauseating In The Extreme
No doubt Frank Field was nodding his head in agreement as he read the coverage of the letter to Brown, Cameron and Clegg from the Peterborough councillors bemoaning the fact that 'Migration is ruining our peaceful city'. The yellow press certainly salivated over the story, and none more so than the Daily Mail. But if one actually looks at what the two councillors are really communicating is nostalgia for a lost halcyon age:
Bobbies on bicycles; a community which "lived in peace and harmony", where "there was parental choice in education with school places. There was no homelessness. There were no problems with registering at the local doctors for health services."
"We had four police houses in the ward years ago. Everyone knew and respected the local constable. Now we have muggings, robberies, burglaries and neighbour disputes. We have prostitutes, drug dealers and an ever-increasing number of people who drive without road tax or insurance." There are towns and villages up and down the country where there is not a 'black' face to be seen or where the only Pole is the one danced around in May, yet their police houses closed down decades ago.
These problems have absolutely nothing to do with immigration and for the councillors to try and link all these problems to the people lured to their area as cheap farm labour is totally disingenuous to put it mildly. To blame the fact that local "housing waiting lists have rocketed and our homeless hostels are full" on migrants rather than the Tory and Labour schemes to sell off almost all council housing is delusional. But hey, it's not a vote winner to do otherwise.
The letter of course gave the Mail and the rest of the yellow press the (unneeded) opportunity to run all the usual vile racist myths and caricatures:
Czech mothers "who arrived in Peterborough two weeks ago" with her seven children and who speaks "in broken English" jumping the housing queue. "Outside the kitchen door there are grubby children's clothes and some beer cans." A husband who "is claiming the Jobseekers' allowance. Back in our country he was a school cleaner, but in Peterborough they say there are no vacancies."
"14, 15 and 16-year-old girls who have arrived from Slovakia and Lithuania to come in pregnant or wanting fertility advice." The staff at a local doctors surgery "suspect they want babies because they know it will lead to a house and child benefits."
The myth of immigrants "killing swans to eat and are also preying illegally on fish" - "Local anglers claimed ' legally-protected swans' were being 'butchered' by immigrants who are 'raping' the city's waterways by snaring the birds, battering them to death with iron bars and roasting them on open fires on the bank of the River Nene."*
"People sleep rough in derelict houses, alleyways, garden sheds or under crude shelters made of wood and plastic sheeting in the parks - anywhere they can find a place to rest their weary heads at night."
Really, the hypocrisy just gets worse and worse: "While it should be stressed that many of the new arrivals work very hard for low wages - doing jobs local people are not prepared to do - there are many who have quickly learned how to work the benefits system. Each day at 1pm, when the Inland Revenue Office at Hereward House opens, a queue of girls speaking foreign tongues snakes down the road. Their buggies and prams crowd the pavement as they wait to sign on for tax credits and child benefits - as they are entitled to under EU law."
The Mail reporter (Sue Reid) on the trail of all these dirty foreigners (over here stealing our houses, jobs and women) even had the audacity to try and intervene with her own form of citizen's arrest (to no avail):
"This week, I saw two uniformed UK Border Agency officers (plus a policeman and two Peterborough Council staff) search three empty properties in Thistlemoor Road. They found no one. Yet the stench of urine inside, the abandoned bed clothes on the floor and a pile of unwashed cups in the kitchen sinks was proof someone had been staying there until very recently. When I pointed out that three penniless and jobless Slovakians were living in a property just along the street, the officers got in their cars and drove away. As a result, Ivan, 37, Monica, 30, and Vadim, 42, managed to escape detection. Inside a shabby, boarded up house, they have made a home. There are two single beds and a couple of dirty rugs on the concrete floor downstairs. Through the rotting roof you can see the sky. "We came here 20 days ago," says Monica, with tears in her eyes. "I worked yesterday for the first time - getting £10 for doing cleaning at a house." "We have nothing apart from what we have found on rubbish tips. We try to keep clean and have bought a few bars of soap. The only thing I have eaten today is a bag of grapes.""
So the three people she tried to grass up she had already interviewed and knew how badly off they were but you can bet your bottom dollar that she wasn't turning them in so as to make sure they got a proper roof over their heads and a decent meal inside them.
Her next comment aptly shows up her complete lack of understanding and human solidarity: "Why Ivan, Monica and Vadim have left home and journeyed across Europe to live such a squalid existence is hard to understand." Exactly.
The Mail has really surpassed even their greatest excesses in xenophobic barrel-scraping reportage with this piece of thinly disguised racist vitriol, packing so many ignorant right-wing cliches into one article that it probably manages to even trump the whole of the Express' election campaign anti-immigration carpet-bombing offensive.
* This one even gets the the pro-blood sports Mail hypocritically playing the animal welfare card: "Witnesses say migrants camping in woods are using inhumane methods to kill fish, such as long lines with multiple hooks, which are left in the water overnight and cause a slow and painful death."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That even the Times can come out with the stupidest of this election's clichés 'Immigration: the 'silent' election issue' beggars belief. What planet are these journalists on? Few actual politicians may be spending more than a few passing seconds on the subject of immigration (i.e. as few as they can get away with), the yellow press have been talking about little else.*
The big problem is that when the main parties do talk about immigration they inevitably play into the hands of the overtly-racist right, and especially the BNP, and a number of voices are being raised questioning this policy.
* Frank Field article was even titled 'Why is there no talk about immigration?' What he really meant is 'Why is nobody agreeing with my views on immigration?'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interestingly, the Times printed the day before what has probably been the most useful piece of coverage of immigration in the whole of the election campaign. It was entitled: 'Q&A: the facts about immigration.' Check it out.
Bobbies on bicycles; a community which "lived in peace and harmony", where "there was parental choice in education with school places. There was no homelessness. There were no problems with registering at the local doctors for health services."
"We had four police houses in the ward years ago. Everyone knew and respected the local constable. Now we have muggings, robberies, burglaries and neighbour disputes. We have prostitutes, drug dealers and an ever-increasing number of people who drive without road tax or insurance." There are towns and villages up and down the country where there is not a 'black' face to be seen or where the only Pole is the one danced around in May, yet their police houses closed down decades ago.
These problems have absolutely nothing to do with immigration and for the councillors to try and link all these problems to the people lured to their area as cheap farm labour is totally disingenuous to put it mildly. To blame the fact that local "housing waiting lists have rocketed and our homeless hostels are full" on migrants rather than the Tory and Labour schemes to sell off almost all council housing is delusional. But hey, it's not a vote winner to do otherwise.
The letter of course gave the Mail and the rest of the yellow press the (unneeded) opportunity to run all the usual vile racist myths and caricatures:
Czech mothers "who arrived in Peterborough two weeks ago" with her seven children and who speaks "in broken English" jumping the housing queue. "Outside the kitchen door there are grubby children's clothes and some beer cans." A husband who "is claiming the Jobseekers' allowance. Back in our country he was a school cleaner, but in Peterborough they say there are no vacancies."
"14, 15 and 16-year-old girls who have arrived from Slovakia and Lithuania to come in pregnant or wanting fertility advice." The staff at a local doctors surgery "suspect they want babies because they know it will lead to a house and child benefits."
The myth of immigrants "killing swans to eat and are also preying illegally on fish" - "Local anglers claimed ' legally-protected swans' were being 'butchered' by immigrants who are 'raping' the city's waterways by snaring the birds, battering them to death with iron bars and roasting them on open fires on the bank of the River Nene."*
"People sleep rough in derelict houses, alleyways, garden sheds or under crude shelters made of wood and plastic sheeting in the parks - anywhere they can find a place to rest their weary heads at night."
Really, the hypocrisy just gets worse and worse: "While it should be stressed that many of the new arrivals work very hard for low wages - doing jobs local people are not prepared to do - there are many who have quickly learned how to work the benefits system. Each day at 1pm, when the Inland Revenue Office at Hereward House opens, a queue of girls speaking foreign tongues snakes down the road. Their buggies and prams crowd the pavement as they wait to sign on for tax credits and child benefits - as they are entitled to under EU law."
The Mail reporter (Sue Reid) on the trail of all these dirty foreigners (over here stealing our houses, jobs and women) even had the audacity to try and intervene with her own form of citizen's arrest (to no avail):
"This week, I saw two uniformed UK Border Agency officers (plus a policeman and two Peterborough Council staff) search three empty properties in Thistlemoor Road. They found no one. Yet the stench of urine inside, the abandoned bed clothes on the floor and a pile of unwashed cups in the kitchen sinks was proof someone had been staying there until very recently. When I pointed out that three penniless and jobless Slovakians were living in a property just along the street, the officers got in their cars and drove away. As a result, Ivan, 37, Monica, 30, and Vadim, 42, managed to escape detection. Inside a shabby, boarded up house, they have made a home. There are two single beds and a couple of dirty rugs on the concrete floor downstairs. Through the rotting roof you can see the sky. "We came here 20 days ago," says Monica, with tears in her eyes. "I worked yesterday for the first time - getting £10 for doing cleaning at a house." "We have nothing apart from what we have found on rubbish tips. We try to keep clean and have bought a few bars of soap. The only thing I have eaten today is a bag of grapes.""
So the three people she tried to grass up she had already interviewed and knew how badly off they were but you can bet your bottom dollar that she wasn't turning them in so as to make sure they got a proper roof over their heads and a decent meal inside them.
Her next comment aptly shows up her complete lack of understanding and human solidarity: "Why Ivan, Monica and Vadim have left home and journeyed across Europe to live such a squalid existence is hard to understand." Exactly.
The Mail has really surpassed even their greatest excesses in xenophobic barrel-scraping reportage with this piece of thinly disguised racist vitriol, packing so many ignorant right-wing cliches into one article that it probably manages to even trump the whole of the Express' election campaign anti-immigration carpet-bombing offensive.
* This one even gets the the pro-blood sports Mail hypocritically playing the animal welfare card: "Witnesses say migrants camping in woods are using inhumane methods to kill fish, such as long lines with multiple hooks, which are left in the water overnight and cause a slow and painful death."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That even the Times can come out with the stupidest of this election's clichés 'Immigration: the 'silent' election issue' beggars belief. What planet are these journalists on? Few actual politicians may be spending more than a few passing seconds on the subject of immigration (i.e. as few as they can get away with), the yellow press have been talking about little else.*
The big problem is that when the main parties do talk about immigration they inevitably play into the hands of the overtly-racist right, and especially the BNP, and a number of voices are being raised questioning this policy.
* Frank Field article was even titled 'Why is there no talk about immigration?' What he really meant is 'Why is nobody agreeing with my views on immigration?'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interestingly, the Times printed the day before what has probably been the most useful piece of coverage of immigration in the whole of the election campaign. It was entitled: 'Q&A: the facts about immigration.' Check it out.
Yes We Know We Said We Wouldn't Comment On The Election Again...
...But...
Frank Field has been doing his 'Enoch Powell lite' act again, claiming that there will be 'rivers of blood' in the street unless immigration becomes a central issue in the election campaign.
He claims that: "The economy and immigration are the two big issues that voters wish to see debated at this election. The economy has already featured in the clashes between the main parties. But, despite brief mentions in the manifestos, immigration is the issue that dare not speak its name." Well we all know why that is. As Michael Ashcroft and his document 'Smell the Coffee' have ably pointed out, bringing up immigration as a 'national' issue is a vote looser but is a sure-fire tub-thumper at the local. Just look at any Conservative constituency leaflet, not just Andrew Rosindell's (though the Romford MP and ex-Monday Clubber is a serial offender, having asked more than a hundred questions on immigration and asylum since his election in 2001).
In fact all the parties are pursuing their own local anti-immigration strategies, especially where their potential share of the vote may be eaten into by avowedly racist parties such as the BNP and UKIP. Even MPs who are jumping the sinking Labour ship at this election are doing their bit to stir the already murky waters. On Monday James Purnell, who has fallen on his sword following last summer's failed palace coup and decided that a job in community politics with London Citizens offers him a better place to build a power base, made the outrageous statement that "the welfare state is a birthright and politics needs to reflect that." Thus immigrants will need to 'earn the right' to welfare benefits by paying in a certain amount to state coffers.
Beveridge envisaged a system of 'from cradle to grave' protection paid for by a system of compulsory insurance but access to those universal benefits have never been solely dependent on how much one has already paid in. If it were the case, children would have been denied access to the NHS and those that have never been able to work, and therefore pay sufficient tax to 'earn their right', through no fault of their own would have been denied that 'from cradle to grave' protection. An outrageous suggestion hardly worthy of a Labour politician. But then again Frank Field is one of those too and he has come up with some particularly bizarre proposals to reform the welfare state that would have had Beveridge doing somersaults in his grave.
Back to Field's Telegraph piece, in which he bangs all the right anti-immigration drums:
a UK population of 70 million in 20 years time; "maternity units are struggling as 25 per cent of all births in England and Wales are to foreign-born mothers– in London that proportion is 50 per cent. Primary schools in some areas have to resort to portable classrooms to cope with new arrivals";
"nearly 40 per cent of all new households over the next 25 years will form due to immigration – an average of nearly 100,000 extra households every year";
etc.
All the usual myths and distortions. Plus a new one: the only effective way to cure the stresses that the coming "decade of financial reckoning" will entail as UK Plc seeks to tame the budget deficit is "effective action to tackle immigration". But of course "the political classes are deaf to [the public's] demands." Thus, "our political leaders must allow the ballot box to decide this issue before anger over the scale of immigration spreads to our streets."
And what is his solution to his perceived 'problem'? Certainly not one that any of these same 'political leaders' are advocating, as he helpfully points out. It is a "dual lock": breaking "the link between coming here to work and becoming a citizen" together with a cap on "the total number who arrive minus those who leave each year: a net immigration* (sic) limit." Plus that and the old chestnut of ore immigrants already here not 'properly integrated' into 'British society' i.e. they have not been assimilated and become more like the mythic 'us'.
* Why is it that these idiots cannot even get the terminology right? OK, we'll answer that question ourselves, it is because their fixation on immigration is so strong that it swamps all consideration of the various forms of population change (i.e. migration, natality and mortality).
Frank Field has been doing his 'Enoch Powell lite' act again, claiming that there will be 'rivers of blood' in the street unless immigration becomes a central issue in the election campaign.
He claims that: "The economy and immigration are the two big issues that voters wish to see debated at this election. The economy has already featured in the clashes between the main parties. But, despite brief mentions in the manifestos, immigration is the issue that dare not speak its name." Well we all know why that is. As Michael Ashcroft and his document 'Smell the Coffee' have ably pointed out, bringing up immigration as a 'national' issue is a vote looser but is a sure-fire tub-thumper at the local. Just look at any Conservative constituency leaflet, not just Andrew Rosindell's (though the Romford MP and ex-Monday Clubber is a serial offender, having asked more than a hundred questions on immigration and asylum since his election in 2001).
In fact all the parties are pursuing their own local anti-immigration strategies, especially where their potential share of the vote may be eaten into by avowedly racist parties such as the BNP and UKIP. Even MPs who are jumping the sinking Labour ship at this election are doing their bit to stir the already murky waters. On Monday James Purnell, who has fallen on his sword following last summer's failed palace coup and decided that a job in community politics with London Citizens offers him a better place to build a power base, made the outrageous statement that "the welfare state is a birthright and politics needs to reflect that." Thus immigrants will need to 'earn the right' to welfare benefits by paying in a certain amount to state coffers.
Beveridge envisaged a system of 'from cradle to grave' protection paid for by a system of compulsory insurance but access to those universal benefits have never been solely dependent on how much one has already paid in. If it were the case, children would have been denied access to the NHS and those that have never been able to work, and therefore pay sufficient tax to 'earn their right', through no fault of their own would have been denied that 'from cradle to grave' protection. An outrageous suggestion hardly worthy of a Labour politician. But then again Frank Field is one of those too and he has come up with some particularly bizarre proposals to reform the welfare state that would have had Beveridge doing somersaults in his grave.
Back to Field's Telegraph piece, in which he bangs all the right anti-immigration drums:
a UK population of 70 million in 20 years time; "maternity units are struggling as 25 per cent of all births in England and Wales are to foreign-born mothers– in London that proportion is 50 per cent. Primary schools in some areas have to resort to portable classrooms to cope with new arrivals";
"nearly 40 per cent of all new households over the next 25 years will form due to immigration – an average of nearly 100,000 extra households every year";
etc.
All the usual myths and distortions. Plus a new one: the only effective way to cure the stresses that the coming "decade of financial reckoning" will entail as UK Plc seeks to tame the budget deficit is "effective action to tackle immigration". But of course "the political classes are deaf to [the public's] demands." Thus, "our political leaders must allow the ballot box to decide this issue before anger over the scale of immigration spreads to our streets."
And what is his solution to his perceived 'problem'? Certainly not one that any of these same 'political leaders' are advocating, as he helpfully points out. It is a "dual lock": breaking "the link between coming here to work and becoming a citizen" together with a cap on "the total number who arrive minus those who leave each year: a net immigration* (sic) limit." Plus that and the old chestnut of ore immigrants already here not 'properly integrated' into 'British society' i.e. they have not been assimilated and become more like the mythic 'us'.
* Why is it that these idiots cannot even get the terminology right? OK, we'll answer that question ourselves, it is because their fixation on immigration is so strong that it swamps all consideration of the various forms of population change (i.e. migration, natality and mortality).
Saturday, 10 April 2010
More On Jobs & Statistical Abuse
A few more articles, this time from the Guardian [1, 2], that you can examine to get a different slant on the rabid Tory press' junk statistics. Plus, Andrew Neil's own less than literate use of the statistics which he used in his handbagging of Woolas on Thursday has been shown up by quiet a few of the commentators on his BBC blog.
Coach Parties & Deportation: An Open Letter To WH Tours
Dear WH Tours,
We understand that WH Tours is subcontracted by G4S to provide coaches for transporting detained migrants from immigration detention centres to airports for deportation on commercial or specially charted flights.
As you must be aware, the vast majority of deportations have been to countries devastated by wars and armed conflicts such as Afghanistan, Iraq, DR Congo, Nigeria, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and so on. After being forcibly deported, many have been kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured and killed. Others have had to change their identities or move again to avoid persecution. Forcible deportations also tear apart people's lives as they are split from their families and communities and their right to freedom of movement is denied.
By providing coaches to transport deportees to the airport, WH Tours is complicit in the human tragedies that forcible deportations cause.
Furthermore, there is mounting evidence that deportees, including families and children, have been repeatedly subjected to racial and violent abuse at the hands of G4S security (see, for example, this report). By providing coaches where some of this abuse takes place, WH Tours is complicit in these unlawful acts, too.
Please confirm, in the light of this information, whether you will cease providing coaches for G4S and the UKBA for the purpose of forcible deportations. We would also be interested to hear WH Tours' position on forcible deportation as your other customers have the right to know how ethical your business is.
Your sincerely,
Corporate Watch
We understand that WH Tours is subcontracted by G4S to provide coaches for transporting detained migrants from immigration detention centres to airports for deportation on commercial or specially charted flights.
As you must be aware, the vast majority of deportations have been to countries devastated by wars and armed conflicts such as Afghanistan, Iraq, DR Congo, Nigeria, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and so on. After being forcibly deported, many have been kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured and killed. Others have had to change their identities or move again to avoid persecution. Forcible deportations also tear apart people's lives as they are split from their families and communities and their right to freedom of movement is denied.
By providing coaches to transport deportees to the airport, WH Tours is complicit in the human tragedies that forcible deportations cause.
Furthermore, there is mounting evidence that deportees, including families and children, have been repeatedly subjected to racial and violent abuse at the hands of G4S security (see, for example, this report). By providing coaches where some of this abuse takes place, WH Tours is complicit in these unlawful acts, too.
Please confirm, in the light of this information, whether you will cease providing coaches for G4S and the UKBA for the purpose of forcible deportations. We would also be interested to hear WH Tours' position on forcible deportation as your other customers have the right to know how ethical your business is.
Your sincerely,
Corporate Watch
Friday, 9 April 2010
Bile
Only another 28 days to go before we can have a bit of a respite from the tidal wave of reactionary anti-immigration bile flowing forth from the Tory press? Unless of course the Tories get in. And then we can expect that the Mail, Express and their ilk will seek to hold Cameron to his promise to bring immigration (and no doubt a whole host of other 'liberties') down to the levels seen during the 'golden era' of Thatcher in the early '90s by maintaining that tidal wave of reactionary anti-immigration bile. Not that four more years of Nu Labour would be much better, but at least the incentive for some many non-story-immigration-stories would be lower. Unless of course they are all in fact secretly trying to incite a BNP-led coup as some of their coverage would lead one to conclude, despite the half-hearted denunciations of Griffin that they occasionally bury at the bottom of the odd xenophobically charged story.
Ennui & Election Time Immigration Statistics
It was with a terrible debilitating sense of ennui that we saw the front pages of the Express and Mail yesterday parroting an uncredited story from that bastion of reaction the Spectator's Coffee House blog, inflating it out of all significance and fuelling the two paper's respective ludicrously high non-story-immigration-stories counts of recent months, ludicrously high even if one takes in the fact that that a pseudo-election campaign has been up and running since the turn of the year.
This debilitating sense of ennui was further 'enhanced' by coming across the claim in the Mail article "Here JAMES SLACK explains what is really happening..." This kiss of death, James Slack 'by name, slack by nature' having another go at trying to juggle a bunch of statistics and dropping the whole lot in an unedifying pile on the floor. Having spent hours trying to decipher some of his previous attempts at simple maths, counting apples and oranges and getting bananas, we quiet frankly couldn't be bothered to waste our valuable time and energy.
Fortunately those nice people over at Five Chinese Crackers were crackers enough to try, so you can all have a look at their attempts to unravel the far from blue ribbon statistical analysis of the Mail and Express, and by inference the Spectator. And if you are feeling particularly masochistic, you too can read the Spectator's original post, its moan about the Mail stealing its story and its smug attempt to hatchet Woolas on his muddled response to their analysis. Additionally, Left Foot Forward have an alternative analysis of the figures, but quiet frankly the argument over 'British jobs for British workers' was nationalist posturing when Brown came out with it in the first place and it remains nationalist posturing, whatever the actual statistics.
As a footnote, it is very interesting that the Spectator, Mail and Express all seem to manage to find diffenent headline numbers for the percentage of jobs that they seem to think have gone to these 'damned foreigners' anyway. Who says statistics can't lie?
This debilitating sense of ennui was further 'enhanced' by coming across the claim in the Mail article "Here JAMES SLACK explains what is really happening..." This kiss of death, James Slack 'by name, slack by nature' having another go at trying to juggle a bunch of statistics and dropping the whole lot in an unedifying pile on the floor. Having spent hours trying to decipher some of his previous attempts at simple maths, counting apples and oranges and getting bananas, we quiet frankly couldn't be bothered to waste our valuable time and energy.
Fortunately those nice people over at Five Chinese Crackers were crackers enough to try, so you can all have a look at their attempts to unravel the far from blue ribbon statistical analysis of the Mail and Express, and by inference the Spectator. And if you are feeling particularly masochistic, you too can read the Spectator's original post, its moan about the Mail stealing its story and its smug attempt to hatchet Woolas on his muddled response to their analysis. Additionally, Left Foot Forward have an alternative analysis of the figures, but quiet frankly the argument over 'British jobs for British workers' was nationalist posturing when Brown came out with it in the first place and it remains nationalist posturing, whatever the actual statistics.
As a footnote, it is very interesting that the Spectator, Mail and Express all seem to manage to find diffenent headline numbers for the percentage of jobs that they seem to think have gone to these 'damned foreigners' anyway. Who says statistics can't lie?
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