The English edition of Spanish newspaper El País has published an interview of me by Simon Hunter to coincide with the launch of Immigrants in Spanish. Read it here

A special edition of Ethos journal published for the World Cities Summit in Singapore features an article by me on the importance of migration and diversity to cities' future.

One of the privileges of speaking about global migration issues is that I have come into contact with exceptional people who devote their lives to helping the less fortunate.

Sue and Peter Hallam set up the Sanctuary Refugee Foundation in 1988 after what they describe as 'a life-changing experience' in Mexico, where they spent time with a priest who was sheltering destitute Salvadoran refugees. After returning from Mexico, and working with refugees in Canada, the Hallams and their three sons migrated to Australia in November 1987, settling in Coffs Harbour on the north coast of New South Wales.

The Sanctuary Refugee Foundation sponsors and assists refugees who are in desperate situations overseas. Over the last 20 years they have helped thousands of refugees from many war-torn countries, including Chile, El Salvador, Vietnam, Iraq, Burma, Bosnia and Southern Sudan. On arrival, refugees are assisted with accommodation, furniture, food, clothing and are generally welcomed into the community.

If you want to make a donation, click here.

To mark Refugee Week, openDemocracy are publishing a special series on immigration. Read my article on why, since governments conspire to deny people the right to cross borders freely, pretending to be a refugee - or trying to enter Britain through other irregular means - is hardly terrible.

Toumaï, la revista para los inmigrantes, reports on the Spanish launch of Inmigrantes

Also, Público, a Spanish daily, has published my article on why the EU directive that would allow irregular migrants to be locked up for 18 months, is unfair and misconceived. 

Pablo Ximénez de Sandoval writes in El País quoting my report for Sweden's Globalisation Council on why immigration can help pay for Europe's welfare states.

I'm delighted that Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them is being published in Spanish by Intermón Oxfam. The official launch is on 11 June at the Madrid Book Fair, where I'll be speaking (in Spanish).

The Spanish-speaking world is at the heart of the global debate about migration. Mexico is the biggest source of emigrants in the world, and the money they send home exceeds what the economy receives in foreign direct investment.

Spain was until recently a country of emigration too, but its economic success has transformed it into one of immigration. In fact, it has received more migrants in recent years than anywhere else in Europe - and far more, as a share of its population, than the United States has.

Migrants, in turn, have helped drive the economy's dynamism. Living standards in Spain last year overtook Italy's: as Italians are loath to admit, Spaniards now do it better.

Far from costing Spaniards their jobs, all these newcomers have contributed to a huge rise in the employment rate. And while the economy has recently taken a turn for worse, immigrants are not to blame: other factors, notably the bursting of a property bubble, are responsible.

In future, Spain will need more migrants, not less, not least because its society is ageing and its economy requires people with different perspectives to help drive innovation and growth.   

Spain is also, in a sense, the gateway to Europe: a stone's throw - or a boat ride - away from Africa. So its immigration policy matters to the rest of Europe, and its experience to another country with poor neighbours to its south: the United States.

Spain's experience in Ceuta and Melilla shows that high-tech border walls don't keep out migrants. Meanwhile, its mass regularisation of illegal migrants in 2005 - call it an amnesty if you prefer - was a huge success, not only for the migrants themselves, but for society as a whole.

All the more reason why one must hope that Spain's prime minister, José Luis Zapatero, will block Nicolas Sarkozy's proposals for an EU immigration pact that would commit European governments not to resort to mass regularisation in future.

I'm particularly delighted that Inmigrantes is being published by the development NGO Intermón Oxfam. As they bravely and rightly recognise, migration is at the heart of development.

EU immigration rules that try to prevent Africans from working in Europe are just as unfair as EU trade rules that keep out their farm produce.

Opening up our borders to people from poorer countries would not only do more to help the poor than any other public policy measure; it is a moral imperative.

It is time for other development NGOs, progressive politicians, and all those who believe in human rights, global justice and international solidarity to place freedom of movement for all at the heart of their campaigns.

If you believe the world is unfair and we should do more to help the poor, you should be campaigning to let them work here freely.

Andrew Rawnsley on Britain's embattled prime minister:

More and more critics contend that Gordon Brown's fundamental weakness is not knowing what he wants to do with power. I disagree. His core purpose is easily stated and could provide a solid theme for his premiership. He believes that it is morally right and economically imperative to help everyone to maximise their opportunities and make the fullest use of their talents. What he's struggled to do is articulate that theme in a way which resonates with the country or even makes sense to his troops.

Struggled to articulate? You can say that again.

If Brown's core purpose really is what Rawnsley claims it is, then I share it wholeheartedly. But I'm not sure Rawnsley is right.

I think Brown's problem goes beyond a palpable inability to communicate. It is that he has been so obsessed for so long with wresting the crown from Tony Blair that he has lost sight of the bigger picture - and even if he did suddenly find, or rediscover, a purpose beyond narrow ambition (and now survival), he does not have the leadership qualities needed to deliver it.

Will Wilkinson on why libertarians feel an increasing affinity for the liberal left rather than the socially conservative right:

with the obsolescence of the anti-communist alliance with conservatives, many libertarians have sloughed off much of their previously tactically useful sympathy for socially conservative initiatives. Freed to be full-on social liberals, many libertarians are left sensing a much deeper cultural affinity for the left than the right. And this leads naturally toRead seeing more clearly their ideological affinities with welfare liberals. And then you read thinkers like Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan, and you think: Oh, yes. This is extremely sensible. And now that the welfare-liberal elite has become rather more economically literate and is no longer sighing over five year plans, there is no reason to think they cannot find this sensible, too.

So that’s where I’m at. An old-fashioned market liberal who thinks Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan get it right, and who thinks Rawlsian welfare liberals should be able to recognize themselves in these thinkers.

Read the full post here. His blog, the Fly Bottle, is stimulating and challenging.

From the Commission on Growth and Development's recent report, courtesy of Martin Wolf's column in the FT:

1) The global economy is growing fast, and with it average living standards.

2) East Asia's performance has been spectacular - living standards rose 10-fold between 1960 and 2004 - and even in Africa living standards doubled.

3) The poverty rate has plummetted in East Asia. Despite India's recent success, its poverty rate is higher than in Sub-Saharan Africa.

4) Nearly all of the extra 2 billion people who are expected to add to the world's population over the next 30 years will be in urban areas in poorer countries.

One can draw all sorts of interesting conclusions from this. From a migration perspective, it seems clear that people are inexorably moving from the countryside to the cities - and that this is an essential part of development.

Great article on the benefits of the new mobility within Europe by Roland Rudd of Business for New Europe Danny Sriskandarajah of IPPR in the WSJ Europe.

Link might be subscriber-only; available subscription-free here.

France is home to 5 million Muslims, but not a single Muslim member of parliament. So much for the success of France's supposedly religion- and colour-blind republic.

Sarkozy's controversial justice minister, Rachida Dati, is the first figure of Muslim origin to hold senior ministerial office in that country. She is young, female, of North African origin, and grew up in a poor housing estate in Burgundy, the second of 12 children of a Moroccan bricklayer and an illiterate Algerian mother. Educated at a Catholic school and a state lycée, she used a series of part-time jobs – selling cosmetics door-to-door, working in a supermarket and as a hospital nurse – to fund her way through school and university, culminating in the prestigious HEC business school.

Dati's political views are often objectionable, but you have to admire her personal achievements.

Ben Hall has written an interesting profile of her in the FT. It concludes:

Azouz Begag, a former junior minister for equalities in the centre-right government and son of Algerian immigrants, paid tribute to her success: “She is what a lot of the kids on the estates want. The boys want to be Zinédine Zidane and all the girls want to be Rachida Dati." But it is totally misleading.”

However, he argues, she has left her Muslim origins too far behind. “Her message is: I’m like you. I am one of you. I like power. I like luxury. It works because the majority of French people simply want to be wealthy and she embodies that aspiration. As long as the political classes use tokens, who are appointed rather than elected, who are conformist rather than independent-minded personalities, there will not be elected politicians from ethnic minorities.”

Ms Dati will have to prove she is more than a symbol if she is really to represent a new France.

Willem Buiter's blog, Maverecon, hosted by the FT is wide-ranging, always profoundly stimulating and humanistic, and generally on the mark. Though primarily about economics, and sometimes a bit technical for non-economists, it is highly recommended for everyone.

Recently, he has, for instance, argued that Britain is a giant hedge fund that is more like Iceland than the US in its ability to cope with the financial crisis; made the case for why nation states should be open clubs; and written a post on Obama and racial identity that, to my mind, is spot on.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy is planning a Europe-wide crackdown on immigration when France takes over the reins of the EU in the second half of this year, according to documents seen by the FT.

Not content with mismanaging France, it seems, Sarko is now determined to sow discord throughout Europe.

Coming from the son of a Hungarian immigrant, such claptrap is particularly disappointing and hypocritical. Young Sarkozy may always have thought that he was destined for greatness, but the French authorities who admitted his parents could not have known. Had Sarkozy's parents been turned away, President Bling Bling would not be in office and, dare I say it, Carla would not be the jewel in his crown.

The cruel irony of Sarko's proposals is that far from protecting Europe from the perceived threat of immigration, they would do further damage to Europe's stuttering economies and ageing societies.

Does Sarko honestly think that his anti-immigrant rhetoric is conducive to attracting the high-skilled migrants that the EU is wooing with its new "blue card" proposal?

Is it really in Europe's interests to try to round up illegal workers, at a time when a greying continent is struggling to find people to look after the growing number of elderly Europeans who need care?

Does anyone think that such a crackdown will succeed?

Is it not a recipe for fracturing society rather than protecting it?

Federal immigration officials raided an Iowa meatpacking plant this month in what is being called the largest operation of its kind in U.S. history. Nearly 400 of the plant's 900 employees were arrested on immigration charges. Do you feel safer?

Thus begins a generally excellent editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, pointing out the absurdities of the current crackdown on immigration. Check it out!

Also interesting in the WSJ: how US visa curbs are hitting businesses that rely on seasonal workers.

Last Friday, 16 May, I was a keynote speaker at the 1st European Hospitality Tribunal in Stavanger, organised by the International Cities of Refuge Network, ICORN, an association of cities and regions around the world dedicated to the value of freedom of expression. My speech about freedom of movement and how to build a coalition for change was reported in the Stavanger Aftenbladet.

It was a really stimulating event, with Canadian writer John Raulston Saul making the opening address and performances from Actors for Human Rights. Their new play, Asylum Dialogues, will be launched in Britain during Refugee Week, June 16-22. Click for details here.

Sweden's Globalisation Council have just published a report I have written entitled "Is Free Migration Compatible with a European-Style Welfare State?" Milton Friedman thought that it wasn't. Conventional wisdom on both left and right concurs. I disagree.

The abstract is as follows:

This report examines the interaction between free migration and a European-style welfare state, with particular reference to Sweden. It considers whether rich-country welfare states act as a magnet for migrants from poorer countries, examines immigrants’ net impact on public finances, and suggests ways of reconciling free migration with a generous welfare state. It looks at how the broader economic impact of free migration would affect the affordability of the welfare state and examines the claim that greater diversity reduces political support for the welfare state. It concludes that while free migration may pose challenges to a European-style welfare state, the two are not incompatible. On the contrary: by boosting economic growth, free migration could actually make the welfare state more affordable.

To mark the report's publication, Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's most prestigious newspaper, has just published an article that outlines some of my reasoning and conclusions. Swedish speakers may be interested in reading it here

bringing back skills and money.

Interesting article in the special report on Vietnam by Peter Collins in The Economist

There is no evidence that new migrants to Britain are jumping the queue for council and housing association homes to the detriment of any other group, including white families, according to new research  published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Local Government Association.

The Guardian reports that:

out of the 10.1 million council and housing association tenants in Britain, 9 million are UK-born and just over 1 million were born outside the country. It adds that only 183,300 - less than 2% - of tenants arrived in Britain in the last five years and most of the 1 million are long-settled migrants who have been here for years and may have become British citizens.

The study, conducted by the excellent team at IPPR, found that more than 60% of new migrants to Britain in the last five years are living in private rented accommodation, with most newly arrived migrants banned from access to social housing.

In any case, as Chris Ames rightly points out on the Guardian's Comment is Free, government minister Margaret Hodge's argument that "We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants" is spurious. 

As usual, this type of proposal was dressed up in arguments about "promoting tolerance" rather than "inviting division". It amounts to saying that immigrants should be discriminated against for their own good and the goal of social cohesion.

The party politics of the proposal run along similar lines. In order to counter the British National party, some argue that mainstream parties should take also take a "rights for whites" line. But many, including Hodge's next-door neighbour Jon Cruddas, have argued that feeding such prejudices just plays into the hands of racists.

Quite.

Surprise, surprise. All the tabloid scare stories and wider fears about a migrant crime wave are unfounded, a police report says:

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) canvassed the views of detectives and community officers across the UK. It found no evidence that crime is more prevalent among East Europeans than other groups. It said the sheer number of migrants in some areas has caused tensions and policing pressures - but the problems are few and far between.

Of course, that won't stop the xenophobes making hay about the issue. The few crimes committed by migrants - who are, after all, human and so, regrettably, sometimes commit crimes, just as some British people do - will still be hyped by the press. Yet tarring a huge and varied group of people for the actions of a few is utterly despicable.

The horrific death by suffocation of 54 Burmese migrants when the ventilation failed in an airtight containter taking them to the tourist resort of Phuket is briefly in the headlines.

As a tourist, you have doubtless seen others like them against the backdrop of your fairy-tale holiday. It is a sharp reminder of the grim reality that lies behind seemingly normal and desirable "border controls".

Lest we forget, a similar tragedy killed 58 Chinese people in a container lorry in Dover a few years back. And Mexicans often suffer the same fate trying to reach their US destination.

We should not forget. Nor can we wash our hands of these deaths. They are caused by our callous but ineffective border controls.

Isn't it time we thought again?

An excellent article by Tim Leunig of the London School of Economics in today's FT points out that the fall in UK house prices due to the credit crunch is not making housing more affordable for the less well-off.

On the contrary: while banks are still ready to lend on good terms to wealthier borrowers with a good credit history and plenty of capital, they are restricting their loans to first-time buyers with small deposits and charging more for them. So lower house prices will not benefit most first-buyers.

His conclusion:

If we want to make housing more affordable for all, there is only one thing that will work: building more houses.

America's annual dash to hire skilled foreign professionals is already over. It began, perhaps appropriately, on April Fool's Day and within a week the 65,000 quota was filled.

High-tech employers said their inability to get visas to import workers would force them to expand their operation overseas. Robert Hoffman, vice president of Oracle Corp., said the company last year sent jobs to Ireland and India when it couldn't get enough H1B visas and that the company has 1,000 openings for skilled jobs it can't fill locally.

Supporters of an immigration cap in Britain - the Conservatives, UKIP, MigrationWatch, and now the House of Lords economic select committee - try to bolster their position by referring to the fact that other advanced economies, notably the US, impose one.

Indeed, many do. And look at the consequences.

Slough is often cited as an example of a town struggling to cope with the strain of increased migration, notably on public services. Yet an excellent article by David Rose in the Observer paints a very different picture.

The town is booming, and while public services have encountered some difficulties, migrants are not - as opponents of immigration claim - dragging down standards. On the contrary:

At GCSE last year, Slough pupils achieved 56.5 per cent grades A* to C, the 10th highest score of any education authority nationally and more than 10 percentage points higher than the English average. The town also has one of the lowest rates of student exclusion. The underlying lesson, Pyper said, is that, with careful planning and targeted provision for migrants' special needs, children who arrive not speaking English can end up as positive assets.

The headmaster of a local secondary school remarks that while foreign students start at a disadvantage,

once they learn English, they fly. You get into a virtuous circle, because teachers get much quicker feedback from the work they put in, the warm feeling that comes with sense of having made a difference. Foreign children have improved our results, and one consequence is that their numbers have now slightly dropped - because the white British parents who live close to the school want their children to come here again.

Professionals from developing countries

are less inclined to make America – or, for that matter, any country besides their own – their permanent home. Like Western professionals, they increasingly regard stints abroad as personal growth opportunities, not permanent moves – a change in attitude with profound implications.

says an interesting article by Shikha Dalmia in the Wall Street Journal.

The same is increasingly true for Polish plumbers too.

Willem Buiter has written an excellent post on why he disagrees with Martin Wolf's recent column on immigration, and why he agrees with me that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right.

More interestingly, he develops at length how he believes countries should function as "open clubs". While I have quibbles with some of the details of his argument, I think the broad thrust is right. Anyone should be free to move to Britain, but all - those born in this country and those born elsewhere - must abide by the fundamental principles of liberal democracy, such as equality before the law and tolerance of differences.

He concludes with the crucial point about the benefits of a dynamic, open society:

Today the UK, especially in its creative urban centres, is one of the most ethnically, racially, culturally and religiously diverse countries in the world. While this creates huge tensions, it also makes it the most exciting, creative and innovative place on earth. It is immigration that revived the UK and immigration that will keep it alive, if the country is confident enough to let it happen. Those who don’t like what the country has become are, of course, free to leave and go elsewhere - to join a club more to their liking.

The small-minded and short-sighted House of Lords select committee report gave no weight to this whatsoever in reaching its misguided conclusion that immigration has little or no economic benefit to Britain. 

WorldWrite, an educational charity that promotes global equality, is launching The More The Merrier, its new documentary on the case for the free movement of people worldwide on Sunday 20 April at 6pm at the New Vibe Lounge in Brick Lane, London E1.

I'll be speaking at the launch, as will Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas. If you want to see a trailer of the film, or book tickets, see here.

Read my article in the Washington Post here.

1. We don't have enough evidence on the economic impact of immigration on the UK.

2. We didn't commission any new data or research.

3. We didn't put our hands up and admit: "Sorry guv, we don't know". We are Lords: we know.

4. We ignored the main arguments for why immigration may be beneficial.

5. We focused on the arguments for why immigration may have little or no impact, or be harmful.

6. We declared, with all the certainty of our ignorance, that our prior belief - sorry, our careful research - conclusively demonstrates that we don't need or want more immigrants in Britain.

7. Case closed.

One of immigration critics' favourite arguments is that Britain is full up. Even if immigrants might have something to contribute to this country, they argue, we simply can't house a larger population.

The argument is superficially attractive to anyone who is often stuck in traffic or on a crowded train. Yet it is flawed in all sorts of ways.

For a start, there are more Britons living abroad than foreigners living in Britain, so the UK population is now lower, not higher, because of net migration.

The strains on public infrastructure have more to do with decades of underinvestment than excess population. The Netherlands is more densely populated than the UK yet its trains are not over-crowded; Paris is more densely populated than London yet its Metro is less cramped than our Tube.

While the Office of National Statistics recently projected, by extrapolating recent trends decades forward, a 10 million increase in the UK population by 2031, there is no reason why this should turn out to be true. The ONS projection is simply a possible scenario, not a forecast, let alone a certainty.

There is good reason to think that the recent rate of population growth will not be sustained. The increase in the population in recent years is largely due to the one-off opening of our borders to Poland and the other new EU member states - and it appears to be mostly temporary. Many Poles are, in effect, international commuters who split their lives between Britain and Poland - and with the Polish economy looking perkier while Britain’s slows and the falling pound devalues wages here, many Poles are returning home.

Seemingly inexorable trends often reverse unpredictably. Lest we forget, as recently as the 1990s, many were worried about the prospect of a falling population. In 2001, as the oil price plunged below $10 a barrel, analysts did not envisage that it would soon soar to over $100 a barrel. So yes, the UK population may rise a lot over the next 25 years. Or it may rise a little. Or it may not rise at all.

Even if the population does rise, since when are other people such a bad thing? While population growth can cause strains on infrastructure and public services unless it is matched by correspondingly increased investment, it is not inherently undesirable. Many British people do not appear to think that living at close quarters is terrible: they opt to live in Glasgow rather than the Grampians, and flock from Lincolnshire to London.

Far from being a problem, more people can be a boon. Other people are what make our lives special; and the more people there are, the greater the chances of coming up with the new ideas that transform our lives for the better. Nobel laureate Douglass North, for instance, argues that the reason why innovation (and thus living standards) have soared over the past few hundred years is because there are more people able to contribute valuable new ideas.

If you are worried about the environmental impact of population growth, migration is not necessarily a problem. From a global perspective, migratory flows merely alter where people are located, not the total number. And it is difficult to argue, if you care about the planet, that Britain is less able to cope with extra people than, say, Bangladesh. Moreover, there is no reason why a rising population cannot go hand-in-hand with more eco-friendly living. For instance, while London’s population has risen considerably in recent years, traffic congestion has fallen thanks to the congestion charge.

It is a myth that Britain is full up. The Daily Mail used to argue likewise in the 1930s as a pretext for keeping out German Jews, yet somehow Britain has accommodated over 10 million extra people since. While parts of the country are more densely populated than others, there is still plenty of space: nearly three-quarters of Britain is agricultural land.

At the government’s target density, the 3 million new homes that it is planning to build - mostly to accommodate pent-up demand due to more people living apart rather than recent immigration - would take up a measly 0.31% of Britain’s total surface area – and even less if they are built on brownfield sites.

While some people are no doubt genuinely worried about the prospect of a rising population – and I am not imputing their motives for being so – others are using it as a convenient cover for their dislike of allowing in foreigners. After all, we don't hear the Conservatives proposing a one-child policy to keep the population down, do we?

FT commentator Martin Wolf, a man I respect immensely, has written another column questioning the benefits of immigration. I respectfully disagree. You can read his article here.

I have written this letter to the FT in reply:

I have immense respect for Martin Wolf, but his analysis of the economics of immigration leaves a lot to be desired. The case for freer international labour mobility is analogous to that for freer trade, which Mr Wolf strongly supports. When Britons go abroad for surgery, it is considered trade; when foreign surgeons come here, we call it migration - yet the economic impact of the operations on the existing UK population is identical.

Moreover, since it is economically desirable for people to move from Liverpool to London if their labour is in demand, the same surely applies to those moving from Warsaw or Manila. Mr Wolf - and the Lords report - also neglect the potentially huge dynamic gains from an open society. Immigrants' diverse perspectives and experiences help stimulate the new ideas and businesses on which our future prosperity depends. The Lords made no attempt to quantify these (and other) benefits; Britain still needs a rigorous Stern-style report to do so.

Mr Wolf has previously admitted that his fear that illiberal immigrants pose a threat to liberal values caused him to change his mind about the desirability of immigration. He is entitled to that cultural opinion, but he should not allow it to cloud his normally impeccable economic judgment.

Danny Finkelstein of the Times, who incidentally favours immigration controls for other reasons, points out that the House of Lords report is not definitive in any way.

The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs has examined the available evidence on the economic impact of immigration. The media coverage suggests that the report has shredded the argument of those who believe imigration boosts prosperity. It's a big event this. But read the report and it is clear it hasn't come close to shredding anything.

The... impression you may have gained is that immigration has failed to increase the income per head of the existing resident population. But the report does not reach that conclusion...  It does not have the data to do so.

He adds:

I would expect the arrival of new immigrants has helped Britain to become a more vibrant, competitive economy... But doesn't the report firmly stamp on the idea that there are any such dynamic effects from immigration? No. That's another of the things it doesn't say.

What the authors have to say about such effects is this: “We found no systematic empirical evidence to suggest that net immigration creates significant dynamic benefits for the resident population in the UK.” And they add: “This does not necessarily mean that such effects do not exist.”

Quite.

I debated this with Andrew Green of MigrationWatch on Radio 4's World at One programme on Thursday 27 March. Unfortunately, my contribution to the pre-recorded discussion was severely cut, so that many of the important points I made went unsaid, while Green was allowed to speak at length.

UPDATE: The BBC have very kindly published an extended version of the interview. Listen here

The House of Lords' report on the economic impact of immigration to the UK concludes that it has "little or no impact" on the economic wellbeing of Britons, and backs the Conservatives' demand for a cap on immigration. But their findings and recommendations are deeply flawed - which is perhaps not surprising considering the committee is chaired by Tory has-been John Wakeham and also includes two Conservative ex-Chancellors, Black Wednesday Lamont and boom-and-bust Lawson.

Since the old duffers can't work it out, here is a quick and easy guide to the economic benefits to Britain of allowing in foreign workers.

First, it makes the economy more flexible and adaptable. Job shortages can quickly be met by foreign workers, who tend to be more willing, once arrived, to more to where the jobs are, and to change jobs as conditions change. How else would the massive increase in doctors and nurses over the past decade have been achieved? How else will preparations for the 2012 Olympics be finished on time?

I'm sure the Lords would agree that it is a good thing for people to move from Liverpool to London if there are jobs that need filling there. The same applies to people moving from Warsaw or Manila.

Second, because migration makes the economy more flexible, it can grow faster for longer without running in to inflationary bottlenecks. That means higher living standards for British people and lower mortgage rates. The opening of borders to Poland and the other new EU member states is a big reason why the economy is enjoying its longest-ever period of growth. Over the past five years, GDP per person - a good measure of average living standards - has risen by 2.2% a year, faster than in any of the other G7 rich countries.

Third, immigration makes the economy more dynamic and competitive. Hard-working foreigners stimulate greater productivity gains by native workers: British builders and plumbers have to up their game because there are now Polish alternatives.

Fourth, like international trade, international migration permits greater specialisation and a finer division of labour. All the high-skilled professionals whom the government - and the Tories - are so keen on depend on a whole host of other less-skilled workers: office cleaners, minicab drivers, au pairs, waiters, and so on. Without them, the professionals wouldn't be able to work (as much). So, contrary to the conventional wisdom that skilled migrants are a boon but that poor low-skilled ones are a drain on society, Polish labourers and Chinese cleaners actually make a huge contribution to the British economy.

What's more, as the population ages - the UN forecasts that the share of over-80s in the population is set to double to 8.7% by 2050 - the need for care-workers will soar. Care for the elderly is already among the fastest-growing areas of employment. Yet retirement homes cannot find suitable British staff - even Brits with few qualification would prefer to work in a shop - so without migration, your granny will have to make do with less care.

Fifth, migration creates economies of scale and scope from a larger population and clusters of certain types of worker and industry. London would be a local financial centre, not a global one, if it wasn't open to bankers from around the world; Silicon Fen around Cambridge, the closest Britain has to Silicon Valley, would be much less successful without foreign talent.

Sixth, migrant workers' efforts are often complementary to those of British ones: a foreign childminder can enable a British nurse to go back to work where her productivity is enhanced by hard-working foreign doctors and cleaners;

Seventh, migration creates gains to owners of capital - which includes every Briton who contributes to a pension fund - from complementarities with migrant labour.

Eighth, migration makes consumers better off through lower prices and greater choice. Polish builders have allowed many less well-off people to afford home improvements they would otherwise have had to do without; British fruit would go unpicked, or would be prohibitively expensive, without immigration; ethnic restaurants - from curry houses to sushi bars - are already suffering from shortages of chefs because of the government's efforts to curb immigration from outside the EU.

Ninth, and most important in the long term, migration stimulates innovation and enterprise, and thus faster long-term productivity growth. Without new ideas, new technologies and new businesses, our living standards would stagnate. But where do these new ideas come from? The exceptional individuals who come up with brilliant new ideas often happen to be immigrants. Instead of following the conventional wisdom, they tend to see things differently, and as outsiders they are more determined to succeed. Twenty-one of Britain's Nobel-prize winners arrived in the country as refugees.

Migrants' contribution is vast - but inherently unpredictable. Nobody could have guessed, when he arrived as a refugee from the Soviet Union aged six, that Sergey Brin would go on to co-found Google. Had he been denied entry, and Google not been founded, America and the world would never have realised the opportunity that had been missed. The British government will doubtless turn away many potential Brins with its misconceived new points system for vetting migrants - not to mention deterring ambitious types from trying to come in the first place.

Immigrants' collective diversity is also vital. Most innovation comes from groups of talented people sparking off each other - and foreigners with different ideas, perspectives and experiences add something extra to the mix. If there are ten people trying to come up with a solution to a problem and they all think alike, those ten heads are no better than one. But if they all think differently, then by bouncing ideas off each other they can solve problems better and faster, as a growing volume of research shows. 

Just look at Silicon Valley: Google, Yahoo! and eBay were all co-founded by immigrants who arrived not as graduates, but as children. Nearly half of America's venture-capital-funded start-ups have immigrant co-founders.  The value of diversity does not apply only in high-tech: an ever-increasing share of our prosperity comes from solving problems - such as developing new medicines, computer games and environmentally friendly technologies, designing innovative products and policies, providing original management advice.

The economic benefits of opening our borders are vast. Just look at cosmopolitan London, the richest place not just in the UK, but in Europe, The social and cultural benefits are huge too, as anyone with a foreign-born parent, partner or friend can testify. Ultimately, migration is about creating an open, dynamic and progressive society, rather than a closed, stagnant and reactionary one.

Britain urgently needs a heavyweight, economically rigorous report into the economics of migration, along the lines of the Stern report on the economics of climate change. The House of Lords report is certainly not it.

My old friend Edward Lucas has written an excellent call to arms, The New Cold War, about the dangers to the West and Russia itself of the country's fascist turn under Putin.

For Europe, in particular, the risks of becoming dependent on a hostile Kremlin through its growing dominance of gas supplies to the continent are huge. Yet the Russian industrial-military complex is successfully proceeding to divide and rule Europe: witness Gazprom's hugely expensive plans for a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, bypassing the Baltics and Poland, which the former German chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, is ignominiously chairing. Since a pipeline on land would cost a fraction as much, the Nordstream pipeline makes no commercial sense. It's true purpose is surely to give Russia greater power to blackmail its former vassals.

In today's news, consider the divisions over whether NATO should grant Ukraine and Georgia "membership action plans" that would open the door to their eventual membership. Russia aggressively objects. While there is a reasonable debate to be had about whether Ukraine and Georgia should be admitted to NATO - personally, I think they should - Russia should not be given a veto over what its neighbours and NATO do. Appeasing Russia for the sake of NATO "unity" would be shameful and unwise.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, check out Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution blog. Combining incisive thoughts about economics, philosophy and everyday life with an incredibly broad cultural canvas, this is my favourite blog by a mile. Hope you enjoy it too.

at a conference by CEPOS, the Danish Centre for Political Studies, along with George Borjas, an immigration critic at Harvard University. Fingers crossed my flight from Heathrow's new Terminal 5 is not cancelled..

Indians account for 38% of doctors in the US, 36% of scientists at Nasa, and 34% of employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM and 17% at Intel, Prospect reports, quoting The Times of India, 11/3/8.

in Svenska Dagbladet, here

What proportion of women with children (of school age) in Britain are in paid work? Is it: a) half; b) one quarter; c) three quarters; or d) two thirds?

Stumped? Try this one. How many children are estimated to be working in the United Kingdom? Is it: a) 8 million; b) 5 million; c) 1 million; or d) 2 million?

I challenge Gordon Brown, Jacqui Smith or Liam Byrne to answer correctly (without prior briefing) either question - or the many others on which prospective British citizens are tested. Journalists who attend the prime minister's televised monthly press conference should spring questions from the "Life in the UK test" on him. No doubt, the self-styled definer of all things British could not pass his own Britishness test. I'd be astonished if many people whose ancestry here stretches back to 1066 - or even to Cheddar Man - could answer such questions correctly. And why on earth should a British citizen be required to know?

The Britishness test is part of a much broader package that the government, in its mad rush to appease the moral panic about immigration stirred up by the likes of the Daily Mail, is implementing to define and defend Britishness from the onslaught of dastardly foreigners who actually want - how dare they! - to contribute to this country and feel that they belong.

While the government's decision to allow the Poles and other new EU citizens to come work here freely was brave and right - and is an important reason why Gordon Brown can boast to have overseen Britain's longest-ever economic boom - it has since produced one idiotic, knee-jerk, xenophobic immigration-policy initiative after another. Take the proposed ID cards for foreigners. They are not just discriminatory, but absurd: if someone claims to be British, and therefore does not (yet) require ID, how on earth is a relevant official meant to determine whether they need to show some?

Then, there is the government's pride and joy: the new skills-based points system, which is being phased in from the end of this month. This involves officials from the department deemed "not fit for purpose" by Jacqui Smith's predecessor trying to divine how foreigners will contribute to Britain in future and slams the door on low-skilled migrants from developing countries: the equivalent of a new 11-plus exam for vetting immigrants. There goes Britain's chance of admitting the father of a future Barack Obama. Surely a Labour government that purports to believe in opportunity for all should realise that you can't - and shouldn't - determine people's life chances based on their background.

And now we have "earned citizenship" - another misguided aptitude test. That the proposals were leaked to the Neanderthal Daily Telegraph tells you everything you need to know about the government's intentions. Since only a green paper has been published, the details of the proposals will doubtless change considerably. But the government's thinking is clear.

"Citizenship is not an abstract concept, or just access to a passport. I believe it is - and must be seen as - founded on shared values that define the character of our country," Gordon Brown said today. "I stand for a British way of life where we, the people, are protected from crime, but in return we obey the law, and where we, the people, expect and receive services, but in return pay our fair share in taxes and have the obligation and gain the skills for work where we can."

Now that may superficially seem fine - even banal; after all, who favours a way of life where people are not protected from crime, don't obey the law, don't work, don't pay their fair share of taxes and don't receive public services in return? But think again: what exactly are the "shared values" that, Brown claims, distinguish British people from others? This is not an abstract debate: the government seeks to prescribe these values. "In the future, the aspiring citizen should know and subscribe to a clear statement of British values," Brown said.

But if immigrants are to conform to British values, should they model themselves on Jade Goody or Trevor MacDonald, Melanie Phillips or Boy George, Margaret Thatcher or George Monbiot? Britain is inescapably - and wonderfully - diverse, not just thanks to recent immigration, but because human beings are all different, and because people are freer to express their differences since the liberating 1960s. This is something to celebrate, not stifle. Moreover, irrespective of immigration, in our globalising world of foreign holidays, Facebook and fusion food, the bonds of nationality are inexorably loosening. Is that so terrible?

Increasingly, we all have multiple, overlapping and increasing self-defined identities: a British citizen may also identify as a European, a Christian, of Irish origin, a Londoner, a student, a trainee doctor, a woman, a mother, a wife, a supporter of gay rights, an environmentalist and, above all, an individual. And if society is broad enough to include nuns and transsexuals, Marxists and libertarians, radical environmentalists and oil executives, surely it can embrace immigrants, too? After all, we don't all need to be alike in order to live together. We just need to respect the basic principles on which our societies are based, such as freedom within the law, equality before the law and tolerance of differences.

Contrary to what Brown might think, these are not "British values": they are liberal ones. They are shared by many non-Britons, and rejected by some Britons, Islamist bigots, for instance, as well as the BNP. And while people cannot be forced to believe in them, they can be required to respect the law: even those who believe that women are not equal to men must treat them as such.

Now, if integration means anything - and often, when ministers use the word, they appear to have no clear idea what they mean by it - it is a two-way street. If people are expected to fit in, they have to be treated equally and made to feel welcome. Liam Byrne's stated mantra is: "Treat everyone the same: just make sure no one's dodging their dues." But treat migrants the same is precisely what the new earned-citizenship proposals do not do.

Byrne recently said that newcomers should "speak the language, obey the law and pay their taxes like the rest of us". Certainly, it makes sense for immigrants to learn English, but why the need to require it? It is astonishing that the birthplace of the world's language of choice should display such linguistic insecurity. And the implication that migrants - whatever their citizenship status - don't tend to obey the law or pay their taxes is pure malice.

Ministers speak as if aspiring British citizens are potential benefit-cheats and criminals, rather then overwhelmingly decent, hard-working and law-abiding people who already make - and want to continue to make - a big contribution to British society. That is xenophobic prejudice - and hardly conducive to fostering the sense of Britishness that the government claims to aspire to.

This article also appears on the Guardian's Comment is Free site here.

I was in Stockholm earlier this week speaking at a conference organised by Sweden's Globalisation Council, making the case for open borders in front of an audience including the country's immigration minister, the head of its trade-union federation and the deputy head of its employers federation.

I have also written a paper for the Council on how free migration is compatible with a European-style welfare state. A brilliant young journalist (he's 29, I'm 34, so he makes me feel old) called Peter Wolodarski wrote a leader for Dagens Nyheter about it. Read it here.

Gina Miller reviews Immigrants:

Legrain holds the moral upper hand, while his economic arguments are sound. This is not new territory, but it is eloquently argued and, one hopes, will one day be a majority opinion.

Thank you.

The government famously forecast a trickle, opponents (less memorably) a flood, yet recent years have instead seen a steady stream of Polish plumbers, builders and other handy migrants. They have helped fuel Britain’s recent boom, providing the manpower to build new housing and do up old, making home improvements affordable for the less well-off, and keeping many a shopkeeper in clover.

Thank goodness the government got its figures wrong back in 2004: where would Britain be without its reliable, hard-working Poles?

We may soon find out. As The Times reveals today, the tide is turning: the Poles are increasingly going home. This leaves officials with egg on their face – again.

So much for the ONS projection, extrapolating decades ahead from a few untypical years of high migration, that Britain’s population would rise inexorably to 100 million and beyond: the equivalent, after Chelsea won the Premiership twice in a row, of assuming that they would do so indefinitely, until Manchester United stole their crown. So much for the swivel-eyed men at MigrationWatch who warn darkly that Britain is being overrun.

So much for the geniuses at the Home Office whose whizzy new skills-based points system for vetting migrants’ entry into Britain – being phased in from March – assumes that Poles will continue to do the dirty jobs and slams the door on non-EU migrants. Their half-baked system – which involves a committee of wise men trying to second-guess where future job shortages might occur – was meant to restore confidence in the government’s handling of the immigration system; instead, it is likely to exacerbate shortages, cause gluts and turn away potential Barack Obamas.

So much too for the fear, as the credit crunch bites, the housing bubble deflates and the economy loses its fizz, that the Poles would end up swelling the dole queues. With the Polish economy looking perkier while Britain’s droops and the flaccid pound devalues wages here, Poles want to go home – which sought not to astonish critics of immigration who place such importance on roots and nation.

This about-turn highlights how migration in the age of Ryanair and open borders has changed since the days when migrants arrived on steamships from the dying Empire. Most Poles are like the British brickies in Auf, Wiedersehen Pet who went to work in Germany in the 1980s: they came for better-paid jobs, not to settle. Some, like the Polish doctor featured on Newsnight who spends alternate weekends in Scotland providing the out-of-hours care that British GPs neglect, are international commuters – just like the bankers who jet between London and New York, or the Brits who commute from France. Many are young people wanting to learn English and experience life abroad, like the British working holidaymakers who flock to Australia for a year or two. Because the churn of migrants is so high, and the government counts the cumulative total of job applicants rather than those coming and going, Polish migration seemed like a deluge, when it is actually an ebb and flow.

This more fluid labour market greases the wheels of the economy, helping it speed ahead without sparking inflation and keeping mortgage rates down. And now the economy is heading south, the Poles’ departure will cushion the blow: unemployment will rise less than in previous downturns, making the recession shorter and shallower than otherwise.

In our globalising world where opportunities no longer stop at national borders and the economy is in perpetual flux, the need for a flexible, flying workforce has never been greater. If Britain had to rely solely on London builders, the 2012 Olympics would never be finished on time. So instead of urging people to get on their bike to look for a job, ministers should be encouraging them to hop on a plane.

Yet this new mobility is unsettling for politicians and many voters. Their mindsets are stuck in a bygone era where people generally stayed put, those who moved did so for good, and ossified state bureaucracies relied on the world standing still.

Our attitudes and institutions need to adapt. The government needs to learn to cope with a large, transitory foreign population on British soil – a task the private sector, which accommodates 30 million foreign visitors a year, manages fine. While better planning based on more accurate statistics would certainly help the NHS, above all it needs to become more responsive to local people’s changing needs: whether it is for Polish interpreters or patients’ desire to choose who treats them when and where.

Unlike the Poles, this newly mobile world is here to stay. 

As a politics junkie, I find the US presidential race exciting - certainly better than Gordon Brown's ignominious coronation - but not particularly inspiring. I'm not wild about any of the candidates.

I find Hillary Clinton uninspiring: a robotic, machine candidate, with a nasty streak and an offputting sense of entitlement. That's a pity. Her policies are a mixed bag; I preferred Bill's.

I think Obama is a great speaker, but I'm not hugely enthusiastic about him either.

Being for "the future" "change" and "hope" is all very well, but tell me which candidate is in favour of "the past" "more of the same" and "despair".

There is something worryingly content-free about his message. Apart from his symbolic opposition to the Iraq war (which is more a consistency issue than a policy difference, since Clinton's current position on the war is not very different to his), there is not much to separate him from Hillary on policy. Instead, he is basically selling himself as him: "Vote for me because I represent change, I represent unity", rather than "Vote for me because this is how I want America to change, this is how I will somehow unite a deeply polarised country."

"Yes, we can" is a great slogan, but how exactly does Obama plan to heal the deep divide over immigration, for instance?

Of course, having a non-white president whose father was a Kenyan immigrant would be hugely symbolic, a credit to American society, and a powerful example of the benefits of immigration. But the most powerful person on earth is more than a symbol - and I would like to have a better idea of Obama's world view before he is granted such power. Symbolic figures are not necessarily good decision-makers.

I also find Obamamania disconcerting precisely because it is a mania: half-way between a Britney Spears concert and the Nuremberg rally. (In case anyone tries to draw silly conclusions, of course I am not comparing Obama to Hitler.)

On a separate point, the media cycle is becoming somewhat predictable: first Hillary is miles ahead, then Obama is catching up quickly, then Obama is going to beat Clinton convincingly. When the results come in, the reality that Obama's score-draw is a huge achievement given Clinton's entrenched advantages is reinterpreted as disappointment compared to the hype immediately before Super Tuesday itself.

If you discount the fact that expectations overshoot because of herd behaviour, Obama did remarkably well in neutralising what was designed to be Clinton's sweeping victory.

I was a guest on Little Atoms on Friday 18 January. It is a show about ideas on London's Resonance 104.4 FM.

This great radio show's motto is George Orwell's remark that "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear".

You can listen to my interview here.