Sack McNulty Now

The Guardian once described Tony McNulty, the Minister of State for immigration and citizenship, as being 'among the brightest of the Blairite loyalists'.

During McNulty's period in office, mass migration from eastern Europe has increased to a level now standing at 1500% above his government's initial estimates; and the consistent inadequacy of his response to the plentiful evidence of its negative effects makes one doubt the Guardian's analysis.

On May 26 2005, the BBC reported McNulty as saying that,

"there was little evidence that the new workers had a widespread impact on jobs or wages."

On June 14 2005, the Daily Telegraph reported that Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, had noted that,

"The Home Office estimates that around 120,000 workers entered the UK from the new member countries of the European Union between March 2004 and March this year. Without this influx to fill the skill gaps in a tight labour market, it is likely earnings would have risen at a faster rate, putting upward pressure on the costs of employers".

Those two comments were made less than three weeks apart, and the balance of probabilities suggests that only one of them can be telling the whole truth. The evidence that mass migration has repressed wages either exists or it does not. The country's most powerful economist suggests it does. The minister says dismissively that there isn't much of it.

In such cases, I'll go with the country's most powerful economist.

This very morning, the DT reported McNulty as saying that "there was no evidence that migration from eastern Europe was affecting unemployment rates."

On October 30 2005, the 'Sunday Times' reported John Philpott, the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development's chief economist, as saying,

“Unemployment has risen in the past year not because more people have been joining the count — in fact slightly fewer have done so — but because fewer people are leaving,”...

“The reason for this is evident in our own quarterly survey evidence. It shows that when it comes to recruitment, benefit claimants, many of whom are not immediately job ready, are losing out to other jobseekers, in particular growing numbers of immigrant workers.”

So the evidence of migration's effect on the unemployment rate would certainly seem to exist - and the failure of the minister responsible for immigration to be aware of it raises grave doubts as to his efficacy.

The public domain now contains two very serious instances of McNulty's failure to command all aspects of his brief. One does not wish to believe that a minister charged with regulating the right of migrants to reside within our borders would stoop so low as to actually lie about his government's continued failings; so, being absolutely charitable to McNulty, one can only believe that he is unfit for office, and should be removed.

Sack McNulty now.