Rick Reuben wrote:Cranius wrote:That's because it's the same franchised press story, masquerading as news, you keep linking to.
Are you saying that there is no ONS report, or are you saying that if there is an ONS report, the Mail has printed statistics that do not come from it?
I think that the point generally is that The Daily Mail article is bullshit.
The ONS data (the actual data – the stuff that there is links to but you haven’t bothered to read) doesn’t draw any conclusions about immigration. What the data says simply is that the population density of the UK is increasing.
The Daily Mail (or who-ever sent them the press release) has worded this to imply that the UK population density is a) due to immigration and b) increasing at a rate that out paces other EU countries. However the ONS does not say this – although the Daily Mail and others have worded it to imply that it does. It is actually not true.
The population density of the UK is roughly increasing at the same pace as other Western European countries. And the UK is not alone in accepting immigrants from new member states – in fact all Western European countries have the same issues. They tend to generally accept this as a trade off for the benefits of being part of a wider European union. It is however a topic that is debated, which is a good thing (we like informed debate here), however it has also become a flash point for right wing and Nationalist political groups, which is a bit disappointing for most people.
The rest of the article, as has already been pointed out is just a press release from a conservative party think tank (see above sentence about Nationalist political groups) – it contains only speculation or ‘research’ as the Daily Mail would like you to believe.
Most if the people posting here seem to have grasped these points.
The article is at best misleading or poor journalism. It couples facts from noted sources with conjecture and then represents them both as the same thing. However it is just the same crap that gets printed in the right wing press each day in the UK. At worst the article will be read by uncritical minds and then be accepted as “the truth” though. It seems to have sucked you in already.
Dunno what it has to do with Scotland though.
