There is a compelling story in today’s Daily Mail – the headline is:
Immigrants occupy one in 15 English homes, says official study
The story tells the reader that:
Foreign nationals live in almost 1.5 million homes…
It then goes on to tell us:
… of which 310,000 are council houses.
This has obviously come straight from the ‘No shit Sherlock’ school of journalism.
The article then goes on to give us the full breakdown of the ‘almost 1.5 million’ figure and it is:
570,000 – houses/flats purchased privately by incomers
600,000 – houses/flats rented privately by incomers
310,000 – council house/flat accommodated incomers
We could ignore the fact that these figures are 150,000 short of 1.5 million because the Daily Mail did, after all, use the word ‘almost’.
Now personally I don’t think it’s a bad thing that 1.17 million incoming families are making positive contributions to the economy, but a quick scroll down to the Readers Comments section in the article highlight some interesting conclusions.
Such as:
It’s disgusting it shouldn’t be allowed, not when we have our own people stuck on waiting lists for years on end without so much as an offer of a cardboard box.
– Mj, UK
I could be petty-minded and point out to everyone that MJs method of solving the housing crisis is to offer the homeless a government approved, housing department issued cardboard box – but MJ is being petty-minded enough for both of us.
Only 1 in 15? Where I live, it’s pretty much every single one!
– Helana, London
It’s a national survey Helana. It covers the whole country, not just the sub-microscopic bit that you live in. Do you under… Oh, I give up.
We are the New Native Americans they will destroy our culture and breed us out, it is what the socialist scum want.
– Alan Cornwell, London,UK
Well Alan, I could point out that social housing was destroyed in the 1980s by the very anti-socialist Margaret Thatcher, but I’m not sure you’re capable of mentally digesting this piece of information – let alone the fact that over 90% of the migrants in this country have come from EU countries from which they (as indeed do we) have right of free passage.
I wonder if there is an immigrant living in Gordon Browns house? Somehow I doubt it. Perhaps we should make him share his bed with some so-called asylum seekers. At the moment he doesn’t seem to be losing much sleep over this infestation of refugees.
– Barry Chadwick, Plymouth, UK
Barry, I think you seem to have read a different article to the one you’ve commented on. Sober up and try again.
Unsurprisingly, this article largely ignores the main finding of the study, that contrary to certain alarmist myths, only 1% of council housing goes to foreigners. As they instead rent, this actually has the effect of being beneficial to the economy. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider some of the misconceptions regarding migrants.
– Alex, Durham, UK
Ah, a voice of sanity in the wilderness of Daily Mailism. Welcome to the world Alex.
So there we are folks.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the Daily Mail. I love it. I read it every day. I love the way it chooses its stories, I love the way it runs its stories and I love the reactions those stories get.
I’m just not very sure I love the Daily Mail readership.
Excluding me, of course.
B.