Britain | Bagehot

The British state is blind

How to cope when a government can no longer see 

Keir Starmer’s glasses broken on the floor, on top of a broken British flag
Illustration: Nate Kitch

Britain is a bit bigger than it thought. In 2023 net migration stood at 906,000 people, rather more than the 740,000 previously estimated, according to the Office for National Statistics. It is equivalent to discovering an extra Slough. New numbers for 2022 also arrived. At first the ons thought net migration stood at 606,000. Now it reckons the figure was 872,000, a difference roughly the size of Stoke-on-Trent, a small English city.

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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Blind state”

From the December 7th 2024 edition

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