SORRY SENOR, GOT A BETTER OFFER FROM JAPAN :

Backbone of England : without immigration, life in London and in many other places would no longer be possible (Andrew Gimson, 6/01/02, The Spectator)

Large parts of our economy would collapse, and we would be greatly impoverished, were we not managing to recruit huge numbers of workers from abroad. It follows that we should take pride, or at least a modest pleasure, in our ability to attract able and energetic people to our shores, especially since within a generation most of them become British. Yet this amazing success is reported as if it were a crisis, a desperate failure, a breakdown of law and order, a disaster for those of us who already live here.

Here's a thought that should make the anti-immigration types tremble : as Western nations require more and more of these immigrants to do our scut work and to fund our retirements, we're likely to end up competing with each other for their services. You'll have Italy offering immediate citizenship and relocation costs and what not, while France offers early retirement and limited hours, and we offer free college educations for their kids and forty acres and a mule or whatever. Pim Fortuyn may be better off dead. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 4, 2002 7:39 AM