Dr Spin

Mustard Seed Shavings welcomes Dr Spin, a new member of the team who will help us through the tricky business of the day's immigration debate. Welcome doc:

Dr Spin

Thank you. How can I help? 

MSS

Well it seems immigration is up. 

Dr Spin

Who told you that? 

MSS

The BBC 

Dr Spin

Ah, no they didn't. 

MSS

But I heard them say net migration is up 20%.

Dr Spin

See? 

MSS

See what? 

Dr Spin

Net migration is what you get by subtracting the number who go out (emigration) from the number who come in, immigration. What we have here is a steady rate of immigration and a lowering of the number who left the country. Immigration is actually down. 

MSS

Why are fewer people leaving the country? 

Dr Spin

Well if I was spinning this answer I'd say it's clear Britain isn't quite as broken as some people say it is, but the truth is a bit more complex. 

MSS

And that is? 

Dr Spin

The number of non-British citizens leaving the country stayed about the same - it dropped a bit - but there was significant drop in the number of Brits leaving. By the way some of the immigrants were returning Brits. 

MSS

So immigration is down and the number of people who previously immigrated now emigrating is roughly the same. 

Dr Spin

Yup. 

MSS

There was a lot of fuss over the last few years about seasonal and migrant workers coming here to gut fish and pick fruit. 

Dr Spin

Yeah, apparently back in the day you could get paid more for gutting fish in Scotland than being a doctor in Budapest. That's no longer true but it's still hard to persuade people to gut fish for a living. 

MSS

OK, so what about this massive rise in overseas students when our young people can't get to university with 4 A* grades? 

Dr Spin

Our universities are quite good and attract foreign students. These students have to pay and so setting the budget for a university involves taking into account as much foreign money as you can get in. It does actually make life easier for our own students, the places for whom are fixed by the government so no-one has 'taken their places.' 

MSS

So no need to panic? 

Dr Spin

Oh plenty of other reasons not to do with immigration, but no need for headlines such as this on the Sunday Sun web-site. It's scaremongering spin of the worst sort:

'Net immigration rose by 20% in 2009'