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The role of journalists like our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry is to see through contradictions and report truths, and here he looks at the latest opinion polls which show people oppose immigration, yet also support the benefits it brings…
Previously Phil has described how he was helped to break into the South Wales Echo office car when he was a cub reporter, recalled his early career as a journalist, the importance of experience in the job, and made clear that the ‘calls’ to emergency services as well as court cases are central to any media operation.
He has also explored how poorly paid most journalism is when trainee reporters had to live in squalid flats, the vital role of expenses, and about one of his most important stories on the now-scrapped 53 year-old BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW) TV Current Affairs series, Week In Week Out (WIWO), which won an award even after it was axed, long after his career really took off.
Phil has explained too how crucial it is actually to speak to people, the virtue of speed as well as accuracy, why knowledge of ‘history’ is vital, how certain material was removed from TV Current Affairs programmes when secret cameras had to be used, and some of those he has interviewed.
Earlier he disclosed why investigative journalism is needed now more than ever although others have different opinions, and how information from trusted sources is crucial.
Opposites attract, but they also sow the seeds of confusion, and it is the job of journalists like me to chart a course of clarity.
Nowhere is this more true than in attitudes towards immigration. A majority of voters think migration is too high, according to most polls.
Almost nine out of ten Conservative voters think this, and a plurality of Labour voters agree with them.
At the same time, voters say, too, that they want more nurses, doctors, fruit-pickers, carers, academics, computer whizzes and students.
Net migration hit 606,000 in the UK last year, according to figures published on May 25, as people took advantage of a more liberal post-Brexit immigration regime.
The UK Government has thrown open the doors while complaining about the people who walk through them!
It is an utterly incoherent policy, but when it comes to immigration, so are voting patterns.
According to the polls, the electorate is deeply opposed to letting people into the UK, but most also thought it was completely right to let in swathes of refugees from Ukraine and Hong Kong.
There is also the ancient rivalry with France.
A majority like to put one over on ‘the ol’ enemy’, and recent news that the UK population is about to overtake that of France exactly falls into this category, yet the reason is largely because of IMMIGRATION, which people oppose!
The last comparable figures, from mid 2021, showed the UK had a total population of 67,026,292, and France 67,710,000.
The UK’s population was already larger than that of ‘metropolitan France‘ (the part of the country within continental Europe), however France had more people when counting its overseas regions, such as Guadeloupe and French Guiana, which have the same legal status as the rest of the country.
Both the UK and France have similar levels of ‘natural change’ (the number of births minus the number of deaths), so it is IMMIGRATION that the figures suggest will make within two years, the UK’s population larger than France’s as a whole!
There are other benefits, as well, which are not reflected in the polls.
The UK’s world-class higher education institutions depend on fees from overseas students, but this reliance is under threat.
For example recent rule changes by Home Secretary Suella Braverman (who has herself an immigrant background!), forbid them bringing in family dependents. This might affect future funding for universities.
Then there is the issue of demography generally.
The population of most other developed countries is growing at a slower pace than in the UK (or DECLINING in real terms), and opposing more relaxed rules on immigration is a major factor.
This matters, because younger people are more productive, and pay the pensions of older people who mostly do not work.
There are further benefits, too, to having a youthful population.
Patents filed by the youngest inventors are much more likely to cover breakthrough innovations. Older countries have people who are less enterprising and less comfortable taking risks.
Because the old benefit less than the young when economies grow, they have proved less keen on pro-growth policies, especially housebuilding.
Creative destruction is likely to be rarer in ageing societies, suppressing productivity growth in ways that compound into an enormous missed opportunity.
Younger people also have more of what psychologists call “fluid intelligence”, the ability to think creatively with the intention of solving problems in entirely new ways.
So the problem of a falling (in relative terms) population is a massive one for some countries.
The number of births in Italy, for example, peaked at 1,000,000 in 1964, but by 2050 (the UN projects) that rate will have shrunk by almost two-thirds, to 346,000.
Italy and Japan, in particular, are the poster pensioners for demographic decline and its economic consequences.
Neither country likes immigration.
In both countries the fertility rate (the number of children a typical woman will have over her lifetime) fell below 2.1 in the 1970s.
That level is known as the ‘replacement rate’, since it keeps a population stable over time, and anything lower will eventually lead to a declining population, something both Italy and Japan have suffered for about a decade.
The median age for an Italian is now 47; the median age for a Japanese person is 49, and earlier this year, Kishida Fumio, Japan’s Prime Minister, warned that the country is “on the brink of being unable to maintain social functions”.
In fact, like Japan, the WHOLE of the EU has a problem
Between January 1 2020 and January 1 2022, its population decreased by 585,000 people.
The highest decreases in absolute terms were in Italy (−611,000, corresponding to −1.0 per cent) and Poland (−304,000, −0.8 per cent), while in relative terms it was in Croatia (−196,000, −4.8 per cent) as well as Greece (−259,000, −2.4 per cent ).
Overall, 10 countries showed decreases in their population during 2020-2021.
However it is not always popular highlighting these kind of issues, and my journalism is often attacked on social media.
My Wikipedia entry has been vandalised to include the words ‘tool’ and ‘knob head’, and I have been compared on Twitter to the comedy broadcaster Alan Partridge. The Wikepedia entry was quickly restored to its original form, after officials removed the abusive word.
The Alan Partridge comment was by a Sion Tomos Owen whose blog describes him as: “…a bilingual TV and Radio presenter, illustrator, writer and creative workshop tutor…”. Mr Owen said in Welsh: “There’s no way that this (my) website (The Eye) is for real?! It’s as if a Take a Break (light magazine) story has been edited by Alan Partridge” (laughing emoji).
Another remark I received (which concerned a television ‘reporter’ who had posted pictures of herself on Facebook (FB) or Twitter in skimpy clothes), is typical of the insults I constantly receive: “Your article on Ellie Pitt was bordering on mysogynistic bullying, a really pathetic article written by a bitter individual who was a complete failiure as a BBC correspondent and also loved bashing the Catholic Church with your disgraceful Panorama programme”.
Indeed accusations of being ‘misogynistic’ (which is the CORRECT spelling) or ‘misogynist’ are a constant refrain among those who hurl offensive comments, if factual stories are published with the targets happening to be women, yet these are potentially libellous words, and the description is provably wrong.
In the past I have also been accused online (incorrectly) of being a “bastard” (many times), an “anti-devolutionist wanker”, “pure scum”, a “liar” (also many times) a “little git”, and (correctly) a “nosey git”, “irritating”, or a “nuisance”.
A conman I exposed called Howard Williams/James Daniels (who is now in jail for serious drug offences), launched a furious diatribe against me – contacting as well my friends and family on social media. In one rant he wrote on FB: “You write total lies about people (only facts are reported), bully to the point of harassment and suicide, and will not answer a direct email? This is not journalism this is a mixture of Phil Parry (The ex journalist) and (others) you are pure scum!!!!! Let it be publicly known that The Eye does NOT care about people it just lies to make fictitious stories up. BULLYING, LIES, MENTAL HEALTH ABUSE TO NAME BUT A FEW!!!!!”.
After it was said that my reporting was “negative journalism”, a Marc Winchester, wrote on Twitter: “I’ll whack him (me)“. It was described as a ‘joke’ by Mr Winchester, who has claimed he was a multi-millionaire but ran a convenience store, yet it was still reported to the police who mounted an investigation.
But these comments come amid many others. Too many, in fact, to mention. I rarely sue (although I do sometimes) unless the online message is particularly outrageous, and contains a libel (which most of them do). Some can be rebutted in court using an “honest comment” defence (formerly known as “fair comment”), however most cannot, which means that any libel case is likely to be successful.
Raising the problems about a lowering of population growth, though, is important and should be done, despite the insults, when a major cause is more stringent rules on IMMIGRATION, while the fact that levels in the UK are so high is a huge boost, but, of course, people don’t like that!
Try and make sense of that if you can, journalists have to…
The memories of Phil’s extraordinary decades long award-winning career in journalism (when he tried to see a clear way through confusing figures) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Another book, though, has not been published, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – how that flagship policy from the UK Government to bring down immigration has been condemned, with critics saying it could hit Wales particularly badly.
