01/02/2008

Ten million, or is it nine? Five million, or is it under four?

Another screaming anti-immigration headline in today's Express. I'd never have thought I'd be missing the Maddieballs of last year, but I am.


Translated into real figures: NINE MILLION MIGRANTS - the WILL be swamped is made up, I'm afraid

'TEN MILLION IMMIGRANTS' yells today's headline in the papers latest attempt to make its readers shit themselves.

This article is supposed to be based on an unpublished report by the IPPR. Just before Christmas there was a minor uproar created by the tabloids distorting another unpublished IPPR report to make it look as though it had called for Christmas to be scrapped - or at the very least downgraded. It hadn't really, and it had surprisingly little to do with Christmas.

So, this article started alarm bells ringing. I looked through for quotes to see how they might have been jumbled about. The bells started to clang when I noticed that there aren't any direct quotes from the document. Not a one. There are a couple of quotes from an IPPR researcher, but all we get from the actual report is a paraphrase that reveals that the headline has added almost a million to the total. The Express makes this claim about the IPPR report:
They estimated that the number of immigrants will rise to 9.1million during that time, up from the 5.4million at present.
Which makes a mockery not only of the headline, which should more accurately be 'NINE MILLION IMMIGRANTS' (ah, what's a million people between friends) but of the opening paragraph, that says:
Britain's soaring immigrant population will double in the next two decades[...]
No it won't. It'll add 3.7 to 5.4. 3.7 isn't even three quarters of 5.4. I have a sneaking suspicion that the actual numbers included aren't directly quoted because the total is even less than 9.1 million - I think they'll be 9.0 something and already rounded up. If I'm wrong when I see the report, I'll say so.

What we've got here is another example of the paper taking a report and farting around with the figures to make them more scary, while adding lots of outraged quotes from the usual suspects. The curious thing is the complete lack of any direct quote of any sort from the IPPR study. I've emailed the IPPR asking them for a copy of the study the paper's on about, but it's odds on that the mention of the number of immigrants in the UK by 2030 is not the document's main focus. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual study is about how much these immigrants will contribute to the economy or job market, and the paper has ignored the entire thrust of the study for its own ends.

It could even be possible that the paper argues that this UN forecast is unrealistic and talks about the cyclical nature of a lot of migration.

We'll find out when I either get a copy of it, or it gets published - but how do the right wing scream sheets get hold of IPPR publications before they're published?

3 comments:

septicisle said...

I'm reading between the lines here, but I assume this is counting all the current immigrants since time immemorial as well as the supposed rise that the next god knows how many years are going to bring?

This is what really fucking makes me angry with these despicable stories on immigration. I've spent part of today first in a doctor's surgery and then visiting my grandmother in hospital. In the doctor's, all of the doctors are Asian. In the hospital ward, all the consultants are Asian. No doubt the same people who buy this crap buy it from the local corner shop, typically ran by... Asians. Mine is. I wonder how these self same people, who have built themselves up in this country, have given their all to serving the public in their various ways feel when disgusting shit like this stares out at them from the newsagent selves. The lack of respect and gratitude truly is shocking.

Five Chinese Crackers said...

I know how you feel.

Here's a true story. I used to work in a paper shop and my boss, who was Asian, lived above the shop.

One afternoon, his wife, a cancer nurse, came home from work. We exchanged hellos and a bit of a laugh, and she went upstairs.

At the time, I was serving a customer - a very posh, quite young, blonde lady. 'Is your boss Indian?' she asked me.
'That's not my boss, she's his wife,' I said, because I hadn't quite heard what she said.
'Yes, but is your boss Indian?'
'Er...yeah.'
'Well, you shouldn't be working for him. He should be working for you.'

It was such a bizarre thing to say that I could only stand there with my mouth open, thinking 'shit, I wish I hadn't taken her money so I could throw her out.' I was so gobsmacked, I didn't even think of sliding her money across the counter and telling her to fuck off.

She had no idea of who the guy was, how well he ran his shop, how well liked and well known he was in the area, how old he was compared to me (she clearly had never seen him, or she wouldn't have asked), how many other shops he ran or how long he had been running paper shops (he took over the one on the end of my street wen I was about seven or eight and had known me for fifteen-odd years).

She had no idea that I had dropped out of higher education and was in the middle of a massive slacker phase, that I was completely incapable of organising anything, that is was lucky I had a job where I didn't start until 2.30 because I couldn't be bothered to drag my arse out of bed before midday most days or how often I phoned in on Saturdays when I was supposed to start at 10.30 because I had a hangover and needed a sick day.

For her none of that was important. He should be working for me because he was brown.

It's that samevattitude that drives these articles. So fucking what if there are 10 million immigrants in Britain in 2030? If they contribute half as much as my old boss and his wife then we're onto a winner.

That's why these articles go hand in hand with the other shite abouthow much gets sent to Poland, how there's a Mulsim plot to behead a Briton that buries the fact that the Briton would also have ben a Muslim, or how migrant crime has sent our crime rates soaring when they've actually fallen.

That way, readers are less likely to think of people thay actually know or experiences they've actually had in favour of thinking about crazed lunatic criminal dole scroungers.

septicisle said...

Exactly. You really could not have said it better.