Peter Rhodes on missing migrants, lockdown flyers and asking the right questions at inquiries
Historically, migration always caused a furore. In the 16th and 17th centuries, some 50,000 French Huguenots arrived. Between 1948-73 about 550,000 newcomers came from the Caribbean.
And in the single year of 1972 an estimated 28,000 Asians arrived, having been deported from Uganda.
But the sheer scale of today's immigration statistics is unparalleled.
Even allowing for the smaller GB population in days of old, the figures which caused so much alarm back then, are utterly dwarfed by last year's net immigration total, revealed last week, of 745,000.
Unchecked, this could become a deeply problematic issue. For years, those who complained about immigration were called racists. What do we call them now, the majority?
