Well I don't like arguing with fellow Palace fans (it doesn't feel right) The fact is we all want the same thing the best possible place to live.

You asked me who 'Think' is. That makes me think you are bothered.

Why else would you ask this question unless you were bothered?

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

'Think' and 'Iambored' are the same person.

He/she has admitted this.

Keep up, Gusset.

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

Apologies: a rant, fuelled entirely by the utter fallacy of your argument.

Yes, no-one cared about the woman making sandwiches in the canteen, because she was just one of (on average) 30,000 extra people joining the UK workforce each year. Today that figure is 10 times higher

"Oh, but we need all 300,000* of those workers, to keep the economy growing". Go take a look at the history economic growth figures of the UK economy:

[Link]

Pay particular attention to pre-1995. Averages out at about +3% change in GDP. Now. What were the net migration figures for that time?

[Link]

Never more than 50,000 per year.

So why do we need 300,000 net migration annually? And why, if it is so bloody amazing, is growth only 0.4% (average) of GDP now?

[Link]

Ah, you say... "the crash". Right. Why then was it no better than a declining 4.0% (1997) to 2.0% (2007) despite the floodgates being open?

We are living in a huge cheap-labour bubble facilitated by the Tories and Labour, it's compressing wages, ghettoising regions of the UK, and causing serious strains on services like the NHS. Let's see what happens when that bubble pops, or fundamental infrastructure collapses. Whichever first.

If you are going to frame the immigration debate in terms of economics, please actually demonstrate where the UK has benefited from migration of this scale. Claiming that migrants "provide a net economic benefit" (tax credits not included in this statement...) should be supported by clear evidence that the economy is much stronger despite having to scale infrastructure fast enough to cope with the influx. From a sociological perspective, do we place our quality of life (population density, access to services) above this very borderline benefit, and at what cost to the harmony and cohesion of culture and community?

So, racist, bigoted, xenophobic, homophobic, swivel-eyed fruitcake little me will be voting for the one party that commits to doing anything about it: UKIP. Not to stop A getting in, or to let B get in, but because I am voting based on how their policies match my views.

*NB - this is net number of National Insurance registrations annually. This does not therefore include children, non-working spouses, grandparents coming to live alongside. All of these contribute to the pressure of public services, yet are completely unaccounted for. 300,000 net + dependents + illegal immigrants. How many are really flowing in? We have absolutely no idea. Shocking.

Grauniad and EU-funded UCL research groups (regurgitated by C4) matter not one iota when you cannot confront the fundamental metric of economic strength: the fractional change in GDP.

The figures are there plain as day:

pre 1995 : 3% growth, 50,000 net immigration max
97-2007 : 4%-2% growth, 200-300,000+ net immigration
2007-- : 0.4% growth, ~300,000+ net immigration

As immigration is an unmitigated benefit that is actually the cause of everything positive happening in the country, presumably we should encourage ever more immigration, no controls whatsoever, actively campaign and encourage the entire population of the EU to come here?