The Real Demographic Time Thing

Well, I couldn't use the word "bomb" in the post title, or I'd have had Jacqui's boys crawling all over my blog. Some complete nonsense about immigration yesterday from former CBI boss and Gordon Brown "big tent" occupant, Lord Turner. He thinks we don't need more immigrants (or babies!) in case the south east gets "over-crowded".

I can assure him from recent trips to Kent that it is in no danger of getting "over-crowded" any time soon - I spotted quite a lot of wide open countryside. In fact, several members of my family own quite a lot of under-used Kent land, including some very nice gardens with ample space for additional developments. Uncle Robert has a nice 10-acre farm with a commercial airstrip that could accommodate many young immigrants from the expanding EU and Asia. In fairness, he already encourages visitors to his caravan park, but as you can see the land is not exactly being fully utilised.

Clipgate Caravan Club - my uncle's site in the beautiful Elham Valley

The real demographic issue that the UK and Europe faces is that we have an aging population and a declining birth rate in most EU countries, and therefore a smaller and smaller number of working age people supporting more and more longer-living pensioners.

The proposed Clipgate Cheap Labour Club

How exactly will the UK and Europe compete economically with China and India's huge and growing and increasingly skilled and educated populations if we don't get an influx of new young workers through immigration? Who will do the cleaning for Linda and I when I'm an MP and we're both getting older? Who will pick our fruit and veg, clean the restaurant floors and collect cockles? And where will we put all these people? Easy. I'll put the family land where my mouth is and invite the first new settlement to Clipgate Farm. The photo left shows my proposal for the redeveloped caravan park.

All this is assuming that Turner does not advocate the horrors of euthanasia, like the Nazis. Just imagine a nightmare scenario where the government put people like me down just because we are no longer useful. The barbarity of living in a Britain where the government controlled the population by deporting teenagers with rare bone marrow disease back to India and manhandling kidney dialysis patients out of hospital and onto airplanes to Ghana. Still, I suppose we've got to be tough on people who can't make a useful contribution. It's only for their own good. There's a word for that... can't for the life of me remember what it is... but I think it begins with "eu".