The population of London has risen 12% since 2001
It's the banks' fault
16 July, 2012 - 18:21
Now we're all skint we're being forced to stay in with our wives. Similarly to being stuck on a desert island with Bella Emberg, it is only a matter of time before we consider the option. I mean, I've had two kids since the banks went tits up. That's a 100% increase in my household. And my wife's a ginger. Don't talk to me about suffering.
it's 26% in places
16 July, 2012 - 22:58
26% is the population growth figure for Tower Hamlets as an area among the 850K total. Another lovely piece of data to dwell on is the fact that over 50% of UK births now feature at least one parent of, originally, foreign extraction and it most likely wouldn't be difficult to link the upswing in population to areas with significant non-indigenous communities. The truth of these figures, that The Guardian is too afraid to admit to, is that essentially, we have an increasing ethnic minority populous being fuelled by dominant non-indigenous procreational forces (and that's in spite of Dorse's best efforts). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that such a skewed numbers game will eventually result in the extinction of the "British" race in favour of multinational, and possibly even ghetto-ised Britishness. And this isn't a scare story, it's already happening. For the record, I really don't care what colour we all are or choose to be but I do have an issue with the erosion of tradtiional British values that these geo-demographic changes are at least partly responsible for. Wanna live in Britain? fine, no problem but if you want to live in Britain you should live a British life rather than creating closed off, divisive, micro communities that mirror what you've left behind.
__________________
"They mostly come out at night, mostly."
British way of life?
16 July, 2012 - 23:21
What's that then? we already have markedly different values than when I was a lad. Some of them quite progressive, in terms of our attitudes to difference etc and others, our rampant consumerism and reactionary approach to welfare not so great. As a country, we are nothing like we were 30 years ago, nevermind 50 years ago or more.
If you are on about the Muslims, they are the fastest growing religion globally, stemming an already diminishing tide of muslim immigrants is a waste of effort, the effort should be made to educate our people (outside of divisive faith schools) in the benefits and responsibilities of living in a modern democracy.
not just the UK
16 July, 2012 - 23:23
The whole world's population is growing massively, bloody aliens.
17 areas in England and Wales had a fall in population, most of them part of the drift back towards cities. Government plans to deal with the problem seem to be to lower living standards by cutting welfare, health care, education etc and reducing the life-expectancy of the English in line with that in Glasgow. That would reduce the population back to 1998 levels, for a short while anyway.
and Cardiff had almost as big a jump as London. I blame Torchwood and Dr Who. its almost like they were advertising it as tourist spot for aliens.
I'm not sure
17 July, 2012 - 11:00
The British are capable of having this discussion, especially in working out long term solutions, without it being used as yet another excuse to privatise services, raise the retirement age and demonise more sections of society. We are not over-crowded as a nation, we are unbalanced demographically and economically between the North and South, urban and rural. I'm not convinced that the world is overpopulated either, some of us just consume too many resources for our way of life to be sustainable.
I was looking at the open spaces near me, and noticed what appears to be an Anarchist field? (you have to close the panel to the left on googlemaps to see it) http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=google&hl=en&ll=52.955464,-0.724754&spn=...
well said Sonners
17 July, 2012 - 12:23
There are still many areas of Britain that are sparsely populated.
North Herefordshire,large parts of Lincolnshire,Mid and North Wales,the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
The overcrowding we experience in London is an unpleasant inconvenience at times,but most of us CHOOSE to live here,because it's where the work is.That is not about to change anytime soon.
Love the @n@rchist field,by the way..
The Penguin Classic from 1967(?) ...
17 July, 2012 - 14:00
... with an introduction by Michael Foot is the one I go back to.
It's my favourite book. Swift gets so damned angry. Warfare, political faction, science, the law, human fallibility, vanity, etc., all get a good pasting. The final book, in which he almost turns his back on 'flawed' humanity is not the sort of thing they'd put in a major film. I shall probably read it again, just as soon as I've finished Tom Jones and then Sid Waddell's autobiography.
This old chestnut
18 July, 2012 - 18:06
The infuriating myth that the wealthy, or even simply the employed, are paying for everone else. If you want to ask questions of the welfare state, then ask questions of the people who actually benefit from it.
http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/type/text/who-really-benef...
You could scrap the benefits system entirely tomorrow, and after the effects on GDP, extra health, policing, and social care spending, we'd be worse off, and that is without even considering the social implications.
what Swift actually said
18 July, 2012 - 19:53
The meaner families, who have children at these nurseries, are obliged, besides their annual pension, which is as low as possible, to return to the steward of the nursery a small monthly share of their gettings, to be a portion for the child; and, therefore, all parents are limited in their expenses by the law. For the Lilliputians think nothing can be more unjust than for people, in subservience to their own appetites, to bring children into the world and leave the burthen of supporting them on the public. As to persons of quality, they give security to appropriate a certain sum for each child, suitable to their condition; and these funds are always managed with good husbandry and the most exact justice.
This looks more like a reasonable case for some sort of welfare provision, rather than an attack on the supposedly feckless poor.
..this is a massive increase.
"The largest increase in population was in London, which grew by 12%, gaining more than 850,000 inhabitants and taking its total population to more than 8 million."
As a Londoner, I have my own opinion as to what the reasons are behind this, but it would have been good to have seen the reasons documented in the article. As it stands, it is a bland portrayal of statistics. Are the interpretations and reasons behind these statistics too hot for the Guardian to handle, or simply either not known or not investigated?
If the Guardian has access to all the data, it would be relatively simple to draw some more meaningful conclusions than the one piece of data that was analysed, that the people are living longer. This alone cannot in any way be responsible for this increase.
Full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/16/england-wales-population-rises