Immigration

Smith 'sorry' for migrants error

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has apologised after it emerged that government figures on foreign workers were underestimated by 300,000.

She admitted it was "bad" that the wrong figures were given out on foreign nationals since 1997, but said 2.7m new jobs had been created under Labour.

The number of foreign workers in the UK since 1997 is now thought to be 1.1m, not the 800,000 officially recorded.

For the Tories, Chris Grayling said it was an "extraordinary development".

These numbers are meaningless, you can never get a secure number on how many are coming to the UK, because people come and go all the time. Whats even more annoying to your average little Englander or racist is that many of these Poles are Catholic, well educated and most shockingly they are white! As a group these new eastern European immigrants are very hard to be scapegoated, its far easier to attack immigrants who have brown skin (because they look different and may follow a different religion and creates this fear of the 'Other'). Just goes to show how frankly colour based much of our immigration policies are and the issue being held hostage by rags like the Daily (S)Express, the Daily Mail or any number of right wing newspapers, blogs and websites).

I for one am quite grateful we aren't counting people, because its quite creepy.

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