The other day I saw one of those Tweet-battles that erupt on the social media network. On reflection, it may have been a skirmish rather than fully fledged war, but so it goes. Teeth were bared, feelings hurt and fingers danced on keyboards. The subject of this latest exchange of fire was immigration and population numbers, the argument being the obvious one that immigration is okay because Britain has plenty of room.
Nine square miles to each person, trumpeted a leftie who objected (as the caring, sharing left must) to any statement that uncontrolled immigration is bad for the UK. 'Go up in a plane and see for yourself,' he finished up his 140 character rejection of what many may see as common sense. Lots of room so let everyone in, no questions asked!
This is the sort of thinking that gets left-leaners into so much hot water so quickly. It's playing with numbers that are neither accurate or even sensible.
It may seem obvious to you that a statement like 'one person for every nine square miles' suggests that going up in a plane would show vast tracts of land with just one person in it. You would overfly a piece of land measuring three miles by three miles and spot a solitary waving figure. Possibly waving to say "Have you seen anyone else? I can't find anyone and I'm lonely." I suggest the reality is that at this time of year shopping malls and streets and pubs are jam-packed full there are millions who have deserted their nine-square miles and headed into places where you can't even see a cat let alone swing one. You'd fly for hours and not see anyone because they are all queueing for Santa's grotto.
To the left however, once a ridiculous figure is stated there is rarely an attempt to look at the facts and come up with the real number. The argument made and the point won, in their view, however ridiculous it seems. Anyway, to put this into the realm of some sort of accuracy, the total official population of the UK according to the 2011 census is 63,182,000 in an area of 94,525 square miles, which gives around 668 people per square mile.
I presume that some of those square miles are water, bog or even steep-sided mountains, which would concentrate those numbers more.
I should say here in defence of our light-thinking leftoid that the concentration of people is far greater in London and much less in the Outer Hebrides, where I expect there are indeed nine square miles where you'd be hard pressed to find even a sheep waving. I'm not sure though that all the immigrants so beloved by our socialist friends will want to go and live off the coast of Lewis.
Here's a second problem. Note the words "official population of the UK according to the 2011 census" because there is anecdotal evidence that the figure is far different. I know, this is in the same territory as 'one person for every nine square miles' but the truth is what is official from two years ago has long been overtaken by more people arriving and apparently, not all being recorded.
(This reminds me of a story I was once told by a former army officer about a squaddie stationed in Germany who wanted to change his name. The CO of the unit asked the man to bring in his passport and advised he ought to bring in his wife's passport too. "She hasn't got one," the soldier said. "She's never had one." Of course, the army had flown the soldier and his missus to Germany without going through passport control, but it emerged that the man's wife couldn't have a passport as she had no country of birth. She had been born on a freighter at sea and smuggled into the UK, where she grew up without ever being on any official books. This was the first time the issue of nationality had come up for her. Okay, that's one person, but add her to the half-dozen of illegal entry cousins about which an Asian man told a BBC news programme and we begin to see that the official figures are at least seven out.)
If as some say Britain has far more people here than officially recorded then letting more in seems a bit dangerous. I don't mean dangerous as in the weight of bodies on the surface but dangerous in the way that overcrowding raises tensions, stretches resources (we don't for example leave injured or ill illegal immigrants on the streets; we put them in the same queue for hospital places you face) and makes those anti-fraud gestures over benefits look pathetic.
"We can afford it," say people who, with their casual disregard for numbers, have no idea where money comes from and how much things cost. But then, if you support a political ideal that prints money and throws it at everything then perhaps it doesn't matter.
I mean, you can always spend another billion to solve the problem. Actually, it never 'solves' the problem but merely re-orders it into different package, but that's whole other story. Let's go back to the spend, spend, spendathon of finding another billion to make everything perfect, or at the very least perfectly acceptable.
A billion is a fabulous number because it my be beyond your scope of understanding. It's just, well, a lot. But let me explain how much 'a lot' actually is.
A day is 86,400 seconds, so a million seconds is just under twelve days from now. Therefore, if you are spending a pound a second (and government departments can outdo that, easily) it takes you nearly two weeks to clock up a spend of a million quid.
But governments don't deal in millions. They do billions as a matter of routine. Now a billion is, in the UK, a million times one million. So that's a million lots of 12 days at our spending rate of a pound a second. Twelve million days equates to almost 32 years.
Think of it: thirty-one-and-a-bit years of spending a pound a second. Morning, noon and night, every day. Every single day, whether you want to or not. You spend because every second of that time -- half of some people's lives -- demands such consistency to hit the desired 'target.'
But people glibly talk about big numbers as if they are 'achievable,' or they talk about big numbers as if they are vast open areas that easily accommodate humans. Either way, they are vague ideas but fine for winning political arguments. We print money, we spend, we are happy. Therefore we print a real lot and spend wildly and we are even happier.
In fact, if you overfly the UK you will see, every nine square miles, little piles of banknotes fluttering in the breeze. Go on, get in a plane and look for yourself.
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