Over the course of the previous ten years, whenever I’ve gone on national television or radio to discuss immigration figures I’ve always felt that I’ve been met with, at politest, a sneer. At times this has even degenerated into demonisation, like when Evan Davis interviewed me for Newsnight in the run up to the General Election, I wondered whether this was the modern day equivalent of the Salem Witch Trials.
The liberal elite view has always been that if you even dare to discuss immigration, it was a cover for racism. Yet the attitude I received yesterday after the worst ever official immigration statistics – which I suspect are grossly underestimating the real numbers – was quite different.
Interviewers were asking genuine questions about the sustainability of our public services in the face of such rapidly rising numbers. Some were even prepared to have an intelligent debate on the fact that over eight million foreign-born people now live in the United Kingdom.
I left each interview almost feeling accepted, which for me is a very odd place to be. But perhaps this is no surprise as last month’s Ipsos-MORI leading issues poll showed a staggering eight per cent rise in respondents naming immigration as the number one issue during the month of July alone.
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