COSTS AND BENEFITS OF MIGRATION TO THE UK

UK Prime Minister and Home Secretary on raid of suspected illegal migrants - Picture Slough Express

David Cameron and Teresa May joined a police raid of suspected illegal migrants in Slough yesterday as the government announced a crackdown on migrants' access to unemployment benefit - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10996721/David-Cameron-announces-immigration-benefits-crackdown.html

It is very difficult to have an objective, robust, but nuanced, debate about the costs and benefits of migration to the UK, although a good starting point for such a discourse is Oxford University's Migration Observatory - http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/ My position, incidentally, is similar to that taken in this BBC article - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25880373 - entitled "More or Less: Calculating how much migrants cost or benefit a nation". The article considers the costs and benefits of migration in the UK and wider global context. With regard to the UK, migrants from the European Economic Area (EEA) are identified as net contributors to the national economy in the decade to 2011, but if total migration (ie from within and outside the EEA) to the UK over the period 1995-2011 is considered then "...immigration has been a drain on the public purse". Moreover, the benefits of mass migration, of the kind the UK has seen from some European Union countries, is likely to be short-term because "a good proportion of those people who have been in the UK for some time are likely to be older than the most recent immigrants, and so are more likely to be on benefits and using health services....".

Yesterday's announcements focused on illegal or "undocumented" migrants (whose numbers "oscillate between 417,000 and 863,000, including a population of UK-born children ranging between 44,000 and 144,000" according to work by the London School of Economics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_in_the_United_Kingdom) and EU migrants claiming unemployment benefit. A Home Office campaign to crackdown on illegal migration last year drew criticism from within and outside the government -  http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/28/vince-cable-attacks-crackdown-on-illegal-immigrants-as-stupid-and-offensive-3901527/ It followed an earlier report by the House of Commons Public Administration Committee - http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/28/uk-immigration-figures-little-better-than-a-guess-3901272/ - that immigration figures are "little better than a guess". Lack of robust information about undocumented and legal migration is certainly a problem, as is the conflation of issues around EU migrants claiming state benefits. The real issue is not the number of people claiming unemployment benefit (which is relatively small) but the growing number of migrant families eligible for the full range of other UK state benefits.

The structure of the UK economy means that many jobs are effectively subsidised by the state through in work and family benefits paid to employees. Indeed this situation might well be described as Britain's new "social contract" - the old one is described here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Contract_%28Britain%29 - in which migration is a key and increasingly contested part.

UK GREEN POLITICS AMOUNTS TO LOTS OF HOT AIR

Outgoing and incoming Environment Secretary: Owen Paterson and Liz Truss (Telegraph)

George Monbiot on Twitter - "Oh bliss it is to wake this morn And hear that Paterson has gorn".

A war of words has broken out between the former UK Environment Secretary and various green Non-Governmental Organisations following an article by Owen Paterson in The Sunday Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10978678/Owen-Paterson-Im-proud-of-standing-up-to-the-green-lobby.html

In his article Paterson refers to " The Green Blob...the mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape...". He goes on to say: "Local conservationists on the ground do wonderful work to protect and improve wild landscapes, as do farmers, rural businesses and ordinary people. They are a world away from the highly paid globe-trotters of the Green Blob who besieged me with their self-serving demands, many of which would have harmed the natural environment...".

However, anyone who hopes that a more nuanced and robust debate on the environment and green politics - including how we respond to climate change - may emerge from this outburst and counterblasts from the so-called "Green Blob", is very likely to be disappointed. Yet, although I've never warmed to Owen Paterson, there is a modicum of truth is what he has to say.

As someone who has been an environmentalist since the 1970s, I do find much of the contemporary UK green movement, including those worthy "conservationists" as well as the "environmental pressure groups", more akin to campaigning brand managers than organisations primarily concerned either with the natural environment or our built heritage, but then brand management is really what modern politics is all about.

Postscript : Monbiot's riposte to Paterson's "Green Blob" article -  http://www.monbiot.com/2014/07/22/bone-china-tea-party/

COALITION: DEFICIT OF POLITICAL SATIRE MATERIAL?

Political Satirist Rory Bremner and former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown

"The Westminster establishment can breathe easy. Armando Iannucci, creator of The Thick of It, has said that he can no longer skewer a British political scene which is now too bland to inspire great satire..." said an Independent newspaper article this weekend - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/british-politics-are-now-too-bland-for-good-comedy-says-armando-iannucci-9601104.html. Meanwhile, north of the border, political satirist Rory Bremner has just teamed up with former prime minister Gordon Brown "to spice up Independence debate with one-off show discussing Scotland's future" according to the Scottish Daily Record - http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/comic-rory-bremner-gordon-brown-3831056

My own take on this important subject is that the age of British political satire is not dead, but perhaps still in recession across much of England, yet apparently revived by the Scottish question where old foes have joined forces but perhaps not for long (note body language of Messers Bremner and Brown in the above picture, which looks as if it could have been taken just outside the host establishment's convenience).

Returning to the Coalition - admittedly a lacklustre affair filled with bland politicians - it is certainly true that much of the satirical entertainment potential has been off centre stage (some of it now residing at Her Majesty's Pleasure in South East London's Belmarsh Prison). In fact, given the fate of Prime Minister David Cameron's former spin doctor Andy Coulson, and the reliance of recent political satire on the politics of spin, it is perhaps hardly surprising that Southern Britain should now be lingering in a period of satirical austerity, occasionally punctuated by the jolly antics of the Mayor of London. Yet Britons south of the border have surely not lost their appetite for political satire: one good reason why the Lib-Con Government is likely to be removed from office next year.

THE SOCIAL OCCULTATION OF NEO-MATHUSIANISM

I recently came across the expression "social occultation" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_occultation - and suggest this applies to the subject of Neo-malthusianism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism - in contemporary UK public policy making (and probably elsewhere). However, difficult issues which are suppressed tend not to go away and David Cameron and colleagues should consider this recent publication on "Malthus: The Life and Legacies of an Untimely Prophet" for their summer holiday reading. A review of this book can be found at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/malthus-the-life-and-legacies-of-an-untimely-prophet-by-robert-j-mayhew/2013388.article