In what could be construed as a thinly-shrouded way of building up content on my site whilst avoiding having to write something myself, I’m dedicating a regular slot to a cack-handed analysis, or at least a snapshot, of reactions to a current news item.

This week, you may have read official figures were released that indicate that one in ten of current residents of the UK were born abroad (read ‘not born in the UK’). My initial idea was to compare two newspapers from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but all the left-leaning newspapers actually passed up on the story altogether. The Daily Mail on the other hand, ran the story with the headline:  “Migrant numbers double in 30 years: One in ten living in the UK is now foreign-born”. And, as it happens, the comments section beneath the article proved more interesting than the story itself.

So – one in ten. Those figures may or may not anger you; I don’t know. It stirs up strong feelings of a UB40 song in me. It does however, anger Daily Mail reader Dennis Jones from Newbridge:

“Are the members of this government deaf or are they all mentally challenged? Why do they not understand that they destroying our great country?!!” –Dennis Jones, Newbridge

Presumably Dennis thinks that deaf people are ill-equipped to govern on account of being unable to distinguish accents, something that the tellingly-named ‘OAP’ from Durham believes is important:

“In my estimation, after a visit to London recently, I would calculate 3 out of 5 was a foreigner …not once did I hear a London or Cockney accent. We are being over run by foreigners in this country.” –OAP, Durham

Fellow Daily Mail readers liked OAP’s comment, and gave him 33 ‘recommends’ – something that will no doubt sweeten his bitter, impending­ demise. Interestingly, OAP is not the only one to refute the official reports findings with some hard statistics of their own:

“Only one in ten? You only have to go into the city/town centres and count the various races to work out it is probably closer to 7 in 10.” – Steve N

“Only one in ten? That figure does not reflect the situation in many areas around London where it is closer to one in five or six!” – Peter North, Sutton, Surrey

Have the reporting body missed something here? Jaz from Chelmsford doesn’t think so:

“What I love is how those who are anti-immigration simply refute the statistics and then pull numbers out of the air and claim they are correct.” – Jaz, Chelmsford

Jaz got ‘marked down’ -21 points for that comment; there’s a fair chance one of those came from this chap:

“Appalling! Simply appalling and a dilution of the British character. Despicable and MUST be ‘corrected’!” – WeAreAngry, co.uk

Quite how ‘WeAreAngry’ intends to ‘correct’ the British character is unclear (his ominous inverted commas, not mine). For those confused as to what exactly is a ‘British Character’, you could do a lot worse better than to read Paul’s comment:

“Madness inflcted on us by marxist troskyites churned out by the universities, in the name of new enlightment why they destroy our inherited indigenous culture, and they have got everywhere, education, police, civil service, councils, heath service, the churches ect, ect, and its all to create a global viilage on this overpopulated island and then they bang on about global warming which they have brought about by large scale immigration to and from countries like this one , you see its all about control and their demented egos, but i feel it will it will all end in tears, i feel sorry for the the future generations the future looks bleak.” – Paul, Anywheretown

A long comment, clearly intended to sound intelligent, let down by its basic spelling and grammatical errors (‘ect’?). A more alarming statistic here is that Pauls comment goes beyond 100 words before hitting a full stop.

“Bloody commas, eh? Coming over here, stealing all our jobs ect, ect…”

On the subject of jobs, Dave from Chorleywood touches upon a few generalizations to offer this point:

“…it would be even harder to get good gardeners, domestic staff, builders etc if it were not for this much needed injection of hardworking foreigners. It has revitalised the country. In my experience our local gentry are amongst the most idle and useless in the world … would you really employ a lazy, poorly educated Brit over a hard working skilled foreigner. Of course not.” –Dave, Chorleywood

Meanwhile, Ahab from the fictional town of Whale Isle Bay has an answer to environmental concerns:

“­There may be a way to reduce our “carbon footprint” by at least 10%. Anyone? Anyone? Yes. That`s right.” –Dave, Whale Isle Bay

Thinking outside of the box there. But Dave from Plymouth’s concern is slightly more dramatic:

“This tiny little island will sink under the weight, perhaps then this country will wake up to the fact” – Dave, Plymouth

Maybe Dave would let them stay if a large, UK-sized life ring were proposed. But keeping-the-UK-afloat-via-swimming-aids aside, Hannah from Birmingham has this heartfelt comment to make:

“I, like thousands of other British people, come from immigrant stock and am very proud of this fact. Nowhere does it state that you have to be a native of a country to reside there, people who hold this view are just racists.” – Hannah, Birmingham

Speaking of racists… (drum roll please)

“Nick Griffin is better educated on this subject than anyone. Let him give a fair and damning report on this subject and renew this story from his perspective.”
– Keith Brown

Ooh er… Well I’ll leave you now, but before I go, spare a thought for Jane who seems to have been left out the loop:

“This is just so unfair. We were never asked about immigration.” – Jane, Gloucester

Maybe next time Jane.

Full story here and sources here.