Brexit and logistics

To bracknellboy and pikestaff's comments I'd add that the Tories have been in power for twelve years.  Even allowing for the astronomical incompetence displayed by Boris' crowd that's a lot of time in which to train doctors, nurses, dentists, police etc, and move forwards on many other issues facing the country.

I don't think they've lost the plot.  They never had one, at least not one beyond "power and hurr get Brexit (what?) done".

The last time it (England and Wales) was above the accepted replacement rate of 2.08 was in 1972. It dropped to a nadir of 1.66 in 1977, made a small recovery but plateaued/gentle decline through the 80's and 90's ending up below that mark. It made some recovery during the 2000's but started dropping again from 2012. In 2019 it was at 1.65, so although the 1.58 figure may have been partially affected by Covid (despite all the predictions of a boom due to couples finding 'other forms of entertainment'), barely statistically significant I would doubt sine a straight line from the 2012-2019 numbers would have come out only marginally higher. 

I'm not sure whether the pun was intended or not, but anyway, there is one in there.

I am not advocating in not training doctors and dentists ourselves, and at no point in that post have I suggested such. It would be ludicrous to do so, and equally ludicrous to suggest that is what I've implied. I'm just pointing out the inherent contradictions - or at very best inherent assumptions - in a straight line conclusion that'more immigrants = more strain on services': particularly so when central govt. has in its own words and deeds set itself to be 'at the controls' to ensure that we only have 'good' immigrants i.e. that match the country's needs. 

And on the latter point re. 'no skills': equally daft. We should be aiming to be a high skills country, certainly as far as the indigenous i.e. educated in this country population goes. But the failure to have a high class education system turning out highly skilled individuals suitable to the needs of a modern economy sits at the door of multiple successive govts. 

I would also note that if you are serious about driving your economy to be high skills/high value add [as Boris has frequently declared while not actually making happen] then you still need to resource the low skill jobs that all economies need. That in turn logically leads to a need for low skill immigration (whether on temporary basis or otherwise). 

Still, all that said: How else do those who demand that they 'do something about immigration' intend to square the circle of significant vacancies across the spectrum, low and high skilled; a demographic time bomb in the form of an aging population plus increased life expectancy (=needs which inexorably drive an increased demand for relatively low skilled, labour intensive services); and a long standing sub replacement level indigenous birth rate. I've yet to hear a cohesive argument as to how that is to be done.

With regard to dentists. In my 50+ years I've frequently been treated by dentists and doctors who have "roots abroad". As regards to 'round here', at my surgery not a single one has a name one would associate with WASP roots. Still, just because they have names that 'sound a bit foreign' and not terribly Anglo Saxon, doesn't mean they necessarily have their roots abroad of course. Some of those with 'not terribly English names' have qualified from British dental schools. Some have qualified abroad (India, Italy, Hungary for example). So what ? I would suggest that eclectic mix is a result of many different things. Still, with many patients unable to get a dentist to do NHS work, I'm not sure insisting they wait x years to have their urgent filling done while we wait for new (British) graduates to come through dental school is a great vote winner.

My current regular has a family name which has Punjabi origins (most likely). He graduated from a fairly well known London hospital. None of which I knew or cared about until now. I do know that I trust him more than any other dentist I've had before.

Nope. Net migration is immigration minus emigration. Last year, it was 239k.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/june2021


Yes.
www.gmc-uk.org/registration-and-licensing/join-the-register/registration-applications/application-guides/full-registration-for-international-medical-graduates
www.gdc-uk.org/registration/overseas-registration-exam

Then I'm stumped and can't square up the figures. 

This graph shows emigration from the UK has been pretty stable for the 20 years up to 2020, ranging between ~300k and ~400k every year.  Based on that constancy, I certainly wouldn't expect it to have suddenly shot up to 750k last year.  Yet this is the figure we'd presumably have to use to arrive at a net migration figure of 239k... if the Telegraph article is accurate. 

As I said originally, I'm probably missing something fundamental.  Perhaps not all visas count as immigration, I wouldn't know.  

But be it half a million or quarter million, it's clear we don't have the infrastructure in place to support that number of extra bodies settling here each and every year.  It's no wonder our services are crashing all around us.  

Thank you, adrianc , for your detailed attempt to explain the anomaly in the Telegraph's published figure.  Perhaps they have indeed done as you suggest (and I'm one of the gullible), but one thing I'd point out is the Statistica graph finishes in 2020.  Observing the upward trend in the last four data points, and if that same trend continued to today, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the blue (immigration) curve hits the one million mark in 2022 that the Telegraph suggests has happened.  

Unfortunately we're packing to go on holiday today, so I've run out of time to research further into the latest figures.  Thanks again for your detailed reply - appreciated.