Britain ahead of 17 other EU countries put together!

[BrilloPad]

Does that include anyone who comes here to retire? What about children or non-working wives?

Of course dependants go with the bread winner.

Who would want to retire here? Even if they did, we have an aging population and can't take any more.

[meridian]

Immigrants tend to be younger, healthy, working age people. Maybe ultimately they cost the overall economy taking into account what DaveB said, but if they're costing the overall economy less than the average Brit, then at least we're getting a bit closer to making the books balance.

Erm, no, costing less is still a cost, and so the books will be further out.

I understand what you're saying, and there are real and understandable concerns over our ageing population and our ability to provide a safety net to pensioners, but more immigration is not a panacea, it's just kicking the can down the road.

Sooner or later our politicians will need to make hard decisions on things like state pensions, NHS, etc, and the public that are used to their handouts are not going to like it. And it'll be my kids and grandkids that end up paying for it.

[VectraMan]

Erm, no, costing less is still a cost, and so the books will be further out.

Maybe in pounds, but not as a proportion. The greater the proportion of the young, healthy, working you have vs the old, sick and useless, the better off you are. The only fly in the ointment is that young, healthy, working people tend to turn into old, sick and useless people, but that's more true of children and grandchildren as it is of immigrants as many immigrants may well work here and then retire back to their home country.

So the answer is clear: increase immigration and ban people from having babies.

[meridian]

Logan's Run.

[VectraMan]

Logan's Run.

Indeed. Though I'm 43 and I haven't got to swim naked with Jenny Agutter yet. I'm not ready for Sanctuary.

[original PM]

Maybe in pounds, but not as a proportion. The greater the proportion of the young, healthy, working you have vs the old, sick and useless, the better off you are. The only fly in the ointment is that young, healthy, working people tend to turn into old, sick and useless people, but that's more true of children and grandchildren as it is of immigrants as many immigrants may well work here and then retire back to their home country.

So the answer is clear: increase immigration and ban people from having babies.

It's quite interesting this - seems 'old people' now almost expect to live to 90-100

where as back in the day they were all popping off at 75

fact is once you get past 80 you are on the way down and never getting back to where you were - do the decent thing n pop eh?!