Nothing like a good misleading headline on racism to finish the day off. Courtesy of the Evening Standard. Especially when it has a statistic to throw people:
UK Ethnic Population Rises 40%
Well, in fact, that figure is relative. There has been an increase by forty per cent. Not, as the title implies, that UK population is now comprised of 40% people of an ethnic origin.
The figure is in fact one sixth of the British population.
If people get to para 4 they would realise that a fifth of the increase is comprised of 'other white' including New Zeland, Australia and Ireland; whom by far make up a significant majority of immigrants. But The Evening Standard doesn't tell us that.
Doesn't the Daily Mail pay a pound per word for stories like this? Maybe Martin Bentham is moonlighting.
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"UK Ethnic Population Rises 40%" 'implies' to me that either the proportion of the population from non-white groups has risen by 40% or that the absolute numbers have risen by 40%. I don't see how by any stretch of the imagination it can be taken to imply that 'UK population is now comprised of 40% people of an ethnic origin.' If that is what it was saying or implying it would say 'UK Ethnic Population Rises TO 40%'
ReplyDelete"If people get to para 4 they would realise that a fifth of the increase is comprised of 'other white' including New Zeland, Australia and Ireland; whom by far make up a significant majority of immigrants. But The Evening Standard doesn't tell us that. "
Well presumably they do tell us that in, er, paragraph 4. It would be useful to have had a link to the actual report they were quoting from, but it seems pretty clear that the reference to 'other white groups' is a separate statistic to that relating to non-white groups. It specifies that the non-white population increased from 6.6 million to 9.1 million. Even if it is the case that the 550,000 'other whites' are somehow included in the non-white figure, that still accounts for only a fifth of that total, which you will probably find does not constitute a 'significant majority'. Perhaps you have some other statistics of your own to support your assertion that the white groups you mention make up the majority of immigrants?
There do seem to be some inaccuraices in the report. For example I can't believe that the Bangladeshi population of Tower Hamlets is as low as 21%.