Ray Thomas writes:
".. . let me bring the subject matter back to migration.. Those who
produce
inflated estimates of immigration are labelled as right wing. So what is
the
reasonable, left-wing, politically correct position?
What kind of methods are advocated for the production of better estimates of
immigration statistics? Or is the case for immigration so strong that we
should not have statistics - because they will just be misused by the right
wing press?"
There are two points to make here. The first is that "better estimates"
of immigration are not necessarily much higher estimates. We have
usable statistics for in-migration at least. We know that in-migration
figures include lots of non-immigrants, such as EU nationals with rights of
residence, students,
temporary workers, and returning expatriates. We know, therefore, that
immigration is only a limited part of the overall figure. But immigration
is enormously difficult to measure in the short term, because it rests on
future intentions as well as current presence. One of the core problems in
this discussion is that people have been trying
to use a short-term measure (in-migration) to indicate trends in a distinct,
long-term phenomenon (immigration). I've argued that it's appropriate for
administrative reasons to discount long-term trends rather than to project
them, which may lead to some underestimation, but this needs to be offset
against some other factors which might lead to reduced estimates - confusion
of temporary in-migrants with immigrants, and re-emigration. There are
some arguments for higher estimates - particularly the discrepancy between
returns from the British Passenger Survey and the census - but they are far
from
conclusive.
Second, we need to be aware that the exaggeration of estimates of social
problems
is a common, recurrent aspect of moral panics. There has been
irresponsible inflation of figures on issues like teenage pregnancy, social
security
fraud, environmental damage, and immigration. Part of the purpose of
Radical
Statistics is to cool the issues, to generate light instead of heat, and
answer unreason with reason.
Paul Spicker
Director, Centre for Public Policy and Management
Robert Gordon University
Viewfield Road
Aberdeen AB15 7AW
Tel: +44 1224 263120
Fax: +44 1224 263112
website: http://www.rgu.ac.uk/publicpolicy/
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