That was the week, that was..........

Now that the Happy Couple have named the day it is time to invest in china mug futures. Kate appears to be very bright and has had 8 years to become familiar with celebrity life. Perhaps she will improve the IQ of the Windsor dynasty. Charles certainly seems to have come from the shallow end of the gene pool.

Back in la-la land there has been yet another change of heading on immigration. The cap on non-EU immigrants will be restated to those with jobs paying more than £40,000 a year i.e. middle management level. This, of course, will make almost no difference to total inflows. The Labour government let immigration rip, presumably in the belief that the newcomers, being heavily dependent on state hand-outs, would be natural Labour voters. From 1997 the graph goes off the clock.

Unless bold action is taken, it is estimated that the immigrant population will grow by 5 million in ten years – nearly 10% of the present total population. Extrapolations suggest that GB will cease to have a white majority by 2066. Of course, this may be a worst-case scenario (i.e. scare mongering) but it has certainly brought the topic back onto the front page. One sensible thing done belatedly by Labour was to introduce a points system according to worth to the economy, which is the Australian system. There you will get a work permit if you have a scarce skill but if you are a second-hand car salesman or estate agent, forget about it. The net effect of Dave’s measures is nil. The real problem lies with students who don’t go home from their phony colleges, marriages of convenience (I hear that the going-rate is £3,500) and the lax rules about family members.

TV gave big coverage of the melt-down in Dublin. Sinn Fein was interviewed on their demand for an immediate election. This will enable them to assume responsibility for the biggest mess in Irish history. Which just goes to show that the Paddies have retained their sense of humour. I am confused by the whole fiasco. Brussels and Berlin seem more motivated by bullying than sorting out the real problem. This will be solved by the economy not by bureaucrats. FDI is flooding into Ireland – the highest for 7 years – and there is a boom in business start-ups because of the 12.5% corporation tax limit. And yet this is the very thing that Merkel and co want Ireland to give up. Madness!

And finally......

We have discovered that an advantage of the short-term memory loss that comes with age is that you can watch TV repeats without remembering the plots.