The issue of immigration is fast turning into a sore on the face of British politics. The fault is not that of the immigrants, but of the politicians who are hiding from the challenges posed and opportunities provided by immigration. Neither the government’s decision to extend its somewhat whimsical restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian workers, nor David Cameron’s softly spoken demand for direct controls on immigration, constitutes a constructive policy.

The most recent failure is the discovery that there are 1.1m foreign workers in the country, not 800,000. There are three ways to read that number. As a practical matter, it is not much of a story. Those 300,000 workers represent only 1 per cent of the UK labour force, and the country’s businesses have easily accommodated these workers both as employees and as customers. Nor have 300,000 new immigrants been discovered hiding in the nation’s broom cupboards: instead we have discovered that more foreign-born residents are working. That is not alarming.