Immigration

Business leaders and MPs have been claiming for a while now that immigration has affected the UK job market by driving down the wages of the lowest-paid elements of our society by adding an influx of people willing to work for less pay. While the Government has always dismissed these claims, Lord Turner (one of Blair's personal advisors) recently told Tony exactly the same thing during a private seminar.

Lord Turner's assertions are more difficult for the government to brush aside as he was previously the head of the Low Pay Commission.

Just as worrying is the added pressure that migrants are placing on schools, housing and the NHS -- the country is ill-equiped to cope with our own, natural poulation growth, let alone the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants (both leal and illegal) every year.

And Blair's response?

"To counter the growing concerns, Mr Blair is planning a PR offensive on behalf of migrants" (Daily Mail, 31st March 2007: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445778&in_page_id=1770

I fail to see how a PR offensive is going to make people happier about having to accept lower wages, the inability to get on the housing ladder, the over crowding of schools or the growing lack of resources available from the NHS.