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Today's Daily Express splash warns/shouts that one in four babies in Britain are being born to migrants - putting “huge pressure on public services”.
The article claims that the “country’s population is now at a record high of 64.8 million” (it has set a new record every day for approximately 32 years by the way, that’s what growing populations do) and that migrant mothers are “fuelling Britain’s population explosion and piling pressure on already over-stretched public services”.
Of course, the other 75 per cent of mothers have nothing to do with pressure on public services.
To briefly remind you of some Britons that come from migrant parents, here’s a quick list.
Nick Clegg
The mother of the former Liberal Democrat leader is Dutch. She met Clegg's father, Nicholas Peter Clegg, CBE, during a visit to England in 1956, and they married in 1959.
The Miliband brothers
Ed and David Miliband are children of Polish-born Marion Kozak, and Belgian-born Ralph Miliband (whose parents were Polish), both Holocaust survivors.
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen was born was born Helen Lydia Mironoff and her father, Vasily Petrovich Mironoff was Russian, originally from Kuryanovo, Smolensk Oblast.
Sajid Javid
Javid was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, as one of five sons to a bus driver of Pakistani descent.
Nigel Farage’s children
Two of Mr Farage’s children, Victoria and Isabelle, were born to Kirsten Mehr, a German national, in 2000 and 2005 respectively. The Ukip leader is quoted in the Express article above...
Winston Churchill
Churchill’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, was the daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome.
Richard Curtis
Moving on to immigrants in general, screenwriter Curtis was born in Wellington, New Zealand the son of Australian parents. His father was a Czechoslovakian refugee who moved to Australia when aged 13, and Curtis moved to England when he was 11
The royal family
George I Hanover inherited the throne in 1714, speaking German and French and very little English.
In 1917, when King George V changed the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (a German dynasty), members of the royal family belong, either by birth or marriage, to the House of Windsor.
Mo Farah
One of Britain’s most successful Olympians, Farah was born in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Moreover, the Express story literally isn't news, due to the fact the one in four figure the paper seem so concerned about has been the case since 2010.
The new number of 27 per cent also isn’t a dramatic rise on previous figures.
After a sharp increase following the immigration policies of the Labour government under Tony Blair, the percentage of live births to non-UK-born mothers, while still rising, has slowed since 2008 after the initial rise.
Furthermore, the Express ran essentially an identical story on its website in August 2013, and appears to have simply updated it with new figures this January.
In the story which apparently runs over two years, Nigel Farage was quoted as saying:
These figures show the continuing failure of the government to get a grip on immigration.
The results of this increase in population can be felt in communities up and down the country as public services struggle to cope with the increase in demand.
Let’s also not forget that 24.9 per cent of the NHS workforce is currently identified as other than British, or, nearly one in four.
And for perspective, here's how many and from where the UK's immigrants originate, for the top 60 countries at least:
Top 100
