More than 500,000 Polish people now live in the UK (2011 census).
In the period of the last Labour government more than 50% of new jobs created went to people born overseas (HMG figures).
Fewer than 2 million new homes have been built in last ten years (my rough calculation from NHBC figures).
RIBA calls for an extra 300,000 homes to be built every year (Independent, 26 Oct 2012) to deal with the housing crisis.
Nick Boles, housing minister, calls for 1,500 square miles of greenfield sites to be built on (Telegraph, 27 November).
"The main threat to biodiversity, the variety of species alive on earth, is human activity . . . One of the biggest problems that human activity causes is habitat loss, the physical environment that provides a homes to populations of different species" (Merci, Environmental pressure group).
The UK population is now over 57 million. The population density of the South East is about 450 residents per square km (ONS report), third amongst major countries behind only Bangladesh (1,045 per sq km) and South Korea (498 per sq km).
Most of Britain's population growth in the last ten years has come from immigration (2011 census).
Frank Field, the former Labour minister, said (Telegraph, today 13th December) the population increase should now be treated as a "state of emergency . . . This is not so much a wake up call, it is almost time for the firing squad for politicians who have allowed this to happen". He accused his own party of lacking "humility" over its role in allowing immigration to go unchecked.
That's Frank. Fearless. Even handed. And better still, usually right.
PS A day or so after I posted this, Ed Miliband gave a speech acknowledging some of Labour's mistakes in office. "The capacity of our economy to absorb new migrants was greater than the capacity of some of our communities to adapt", he said. I suppose I should be relieved to find that I am no longer confined to the lunatic fringe. I'm going to post more fully on this in a minute.
