Victor Spirescu's moment of fame is over, says Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. In Luton airport's arrivals hall on New Year's Day, the Romanian immigrant briefly stood for a "host of issues" that reflect none too well on Britain: "anti-immigration fever, Europhobia, benefit-scrounging hysteria, a living reminder of our high unemployment, low pay, weak labour laws and slum housing epidemic".
The truth is that immigrants are often exploited, paid well below the minimum wage after various deductions such as travel, accommodation and uniforms. Once British people with families could afford to take the jobs, "employers would lose any incentive to recruit cheap workers abroad", Labour says.
But we need immigrants, says Philip Collins in The Times. A fifth of the total tax raised in the UK comes from London and 40% of London's population is foreign-born. Immigrants are younger and more enterprising than Britons, because they are a "self-selecting group of the ambitious".
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The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that a freeze on immigration would seethe economy grow at 1.9% over the next 50 years. With 240,000 new immigrants a year, it would grow at 2.7%.
Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, says that "lower economic growth is a price worth paying to radically cut immigration". He has proposed a five-year moratorium on people settling permanently in Britain.
More than half the electorate want big cuts in immigration too, says Nigel Morris in The Independent. According to the latest British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, 77% of people support a reduction while 56% want it cut by "a lot", up from 49% ten years ago.
It's not surprising that people aren't reassured by the alleged economic benefits, says Sunder Katwala in The Independent. Those matter, but they need to be combined with a "clear plan to ensure resources and services to areas of rapid population change".
For most, the question is "not about whether to open the borders or slam them shut but how to actively manage the pressures to secure the benefits. The BSA research also captures how attitudes are far more pragmatic and nuanced than our polarised media debate would suggest."
