All those claims are false -- and the Prime Minister knows it. The biggest misrepresentation of all is the suggestion that asylum is the main source of immigration into Britain. It isn't. The main source of immigration into Britain is the Government's policy of increasing the numbers of people allowed to settle here from non-EU countries. According to official statistics, asylum applications account for only 14 per cent of the annual total. By far the largest portion - nearly 50 per cent - are people given work permits by the Government, and the dependants they bring with them. Labour has increased the number of work permits it issues by a factor of four since 1997. The Work Permits Agency, a branch of the Home Office, has even written to companies asking them if they have thought of recruiting from non-EU countries: it offers them assistance should they wish to do so.

There was no mention of this remarkable policy in the Prime Minister's speech. Instead, he promised that the Government would "introduce the type of points system used in Australia" to "ensure our economy gets the skills we need". But the truth is that the Government already has a points system -- and has used it not to decrease but to increase the number of migrants allowed into Britain. Labour introduced the system in 2002 under the title of the "Highly Skilled Migrants Programme". From the Government's point of view, its one drawback was that it turned out to let too few people in: the standards required were too high. So what did the Government do? It reduced the number of points needed. The result was a deluge of applications. The Government was able to let in even more people than it hoped.

There can be no doubt that the Government's policy is to maximise the flow of migrants to Britain. In a statement last November - attached to a suitably anonymous document on the impact of identity cards - the Government admitted that it "wants to encourage lawful migration to this country, sustaining and perhaps increasing the present levels". Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, has said: "We want more immigration, more people coming to study, to work." That policy is reflected in the numbers of people Labour has let into Britain since it came to power. In the last 10 years of Conservative government, the average annual figure for net migration into Britain (the number who arrive to stay minus the number who leave) was 59,300. In the seven years since Labour has been in power, the annual average has been 157,000.

No one, however, would realise that fact from listening to Mr Blair's speech. Indeed, the odd thing about Labour's policy on immigration is that it has never been fully spelt out. It was not part of Labour's election manifesto of 1997, or 2001, just as it is not mentioned in its current manifesto. Labour has never given an explanation of why encouraging immigration is a good policy, probably because the Government has never admitted that it is already implementing precisely that policy. The most we get from ministers, the Prime Minister included, are general assertions that "migration is good for the economy", that we need to import workers because of our ageing population, or that "the NHS depends on it".

Those claims are transparently fallacious, and have been comprehensively debunked by academic economists. Immigration does not solve the pensions crisis because it cannot sufficiently improve the ratio of workers to the retired: it can at most delay the moment of reckoning, for the simple reason that immigrants get old themselves. The scholarly consensus on the beneficial effects of immigration on the economy is that it is either very small or slightly negative. There is no "bonzana" from an injection of largely unskilled labour into the economy.

It is certainly true that immigration is good for employers. Competition from immigrant workers drives down wages, particularly at the unskilled end of the market, which is where most immigrants end up -- a fact that Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, has emphasised, and which richer people, those who employ nannies and cleaners, will have noticed. Immigration creates what Marx called "a reserve army of labour". It enables employers to avoid paying the level of wages native workers demand. That may be why the Government insists that "the NHS depends" on immigrant workers. Keeping NHS costs down certainly does depend on being able to pay NHS workers less than a market rate for their services -- but it is not something one would expect a Labour Government to boast about.

Why is Labour, which is supposed to be the party of Britain's least privileged workers, following a policy that disadvantages them further? Has it really mutated into the party protecting the interests of the nanny-employing classes? Possibly: most Labour ministers certainly fit that description. There may, however, be another explanation. Surveys demonstrate that most immigrants from non EU countries vote Labour -- a fact that we can be sure is not lost on the Prime Minister.

Immigration at Labour's present rate of more than 150,000 people a year will inevitably bring about dramatic transformations in many areas. The immediate issue is really not whether such changes are a good or a bad thing, or whether it is racist to oppose them. The issue is that the transformation is taking place as the result of a Government policy about which the electorate has not been consulted, or indeed informed. Labour's immigration policy involves a giant social experiment - and it is the people of this country who are the lab rats. The Government has deliberately deceived the public about that policy, as Tony Blair's speech on Friday shows. It is a cynical and shocking subversion of our democracy.
 

So no councils being paid too little for the volume dumped on them and the services they demand, it is all imagined or is Blair insinuating that they (including Labour-controlled councils) all lied?

Mr Blair must avoid being drawn into a bidding war over who can use the toughest rhetoric. To his credit, he has avoided the "thinly disguised xenophobia and political opportunism" that the Tory party has indulged in to the distress of the UN high commissioner for refugees' representative in the UK.

Cynical opportunism yes, since they won't intend to ever deliver -- but hold on, just what "xenophobia and racism"?

He could usefully remind the press of the support that Rupert Murdoch, the Sun's proprietor, has now given to Labour's immigration policies and his criticisms of the Tories' proposed hardline restrictions.

Well, well.... so outwith election-time the differences of alleged editorial opinion between the Guardian and the Sun must be deliberate ploys to, in their eyes, "herd the sheeple"... Thanks for the revelation.....

On an even more optimistic note, he might refer to this week's special report in Newsweek, celebrating the success of London as "a model for making a 21st century metropolis work".

So now according to the Guardian, the imposed and self-serving dictates of Rupert Murdoch, a foreign media oligarch, are cause for optimism? And to declare the violently dangerous, decadent, corrupt, disease-raddled, politically-correct and alienative metropolis of London a "model" which the rest of the country should emulate, is most revealing -- about the mentality of the Newsweek and Guardian editorial staff.

There are two specific reforms that Mr Blair should endorse. He should support an independent expert advisory board to assess the needs of the British labour market and its skills shortages to place migration on a rational basis.

Thereby officially redefining and reducing what once were members of the nation, into being mere units of production; undifferentiated and readily disposable.
Note the absolute scorn for democratic processes, or representation of the people of the country -- so much better to have unaccountable, crony-appointed apparachiks dictate the policy. After all, imposing on the public the opposite of what they want is what Guardianista "democracy" is all about. Big Brother knows best.....

Giving this role to parliament, as the Tories have proposed, would only allow them to dictate the decibel auction based on rumour, hearsay and fiction.

See previous comment.

Second -- and more difficult in an election campaign -- he should promote an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

All half a million or more? Who will then fetch their relatives in as well.

Several benefits would flow: regularising their position, reducing their chances of exploitation by employers, and providing a better guide to the numbers.

In other words, no "benefit" to the indigenous population at all. In fact, if the illegals were not here at all, then they couldn't be "exploited" here, it's as simple as that.

No country knows how many illegal immigrants it has, but those that have extended amnesties -- France, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal -- have a better idea and are more able to refute the wild speculative claims from which -- as the Paxman-Blair exchanges showed this week -- the UK suffers.

Claims that later prove to be un-wild understatements. Interesting, how this issue in particular has NuLab running scared. Their own Home Secretary has recently stated that he wants unlimited immigration, but that's a fact which the Government seem strangely reluctant to advertise.