Immigration up, unemployment up ... do the maths

The Office for National Statistics has published some pretty gloomy unemployment figures today.

Unemployment rose in the UK in the final quarter of last year by 118,000, leaving 2.685m people out of work.  Unemployment rose slightly in Scotland but decreased in Wales and Northern Ireland.  Clearly the devolved governments have a better handle on unemployment than the British government.

The media all have some pretty extensive coverage of the news and the BBC ironically quotes an "expert" from RBS - which has been sacking people in England and moving jobs to Scotland - saying that it's not going to get better any time soon.

Nobody seems to be drawing a correlation between the rise in unemployment and the fact that net immigration last year was 227,000.  Assuming three quarters of those immigrants were, or should, be seeking active employment (given that a large proportion of immigrants don't come with 3 generations of benefit-seeking hangers on as the Daily Mail would like you to believe) that's 170,000 people looking for jobs over and above the two and a half million people that already live here who are also looking for jobs.

It's clearly unsustainable yet only UKIP has a policy that will deal with the problem - ban economic immigration for 5 years and then allow limited immigration with a points-based system to ensure we only get sustainable immigration and the skills we need.