Sometimes I despair

I wasn't going to blog today. But following up some reports at work of the IPPR Report on costs to taxation revenue of keeping irregular migrants out of the properly regulated economy (PS don't call them illegal migrants; no human can be "illegal"), I came across this horrible little report in The Scum.

"Migrants' £1bn tax dodge
ILLEGAL immigrants dodge £1billion in tax a year — enough to clear ALL NHS debts. An army of 500,000 work cash-in-hand in the black economy. But immigration officials don’t have the money or manpower to kick them out."

And so on, and so on. You'll get the drift. Which is that it is irregular migrants themselves who are to blame for the situation. Not the fact that the UK lacks an economic migration policy which is apt to serve its demographic and labour market needs. Not the fact that the interface between the welfare state and much of the service economy is such that with people unwilling to pay the charges for hospitality and many personal care services which would be inevitable if those who in practice provided those services were foresquare within the regulated labour market, the state effectively tolerates a substantial unregulated sector. Oh no, let's blame the migrants themselves. Bastards. Instead, let's remember those who died in Morecambe Bay.