The Far right and British voters

According to a report in the Daily Mail "Half of Britain 'would vote for far-Right parties if they gave up violence".

The report was about the results of a poll carried out by Populus and commissioned by the Searchlight Education Trust, who asked people if they would back a party that ‘wants to defend the English, create an English parliament, control immigration and challenge Islamic extremism’.

Apparently a total of 48 percent respondents would ‘definitely support’ or ‘consider supporting’ a party with such an agenda provided they "Shunned violence and fascist imagery".

Interestingly, more British Asians (38%) polled believed that immigration should be halted - at least until the economy is back on track as compared to 4% of white Britons and 21% of black Britons.

Not surprising considering the fact that the results of the "Transatlantic Trends" also showed that the British are the most worried about immigration in Europe, even more than the French, Spanish and Germans, even though their countries have far higher number of immigrants compared to the UK.

Non-EU students are not taking our jobs

Stephen Henderson writes about the "The crazy economics of reducing foreign student visas" on the "Left Foot Forward" blog.

He says:

Quite unlike the mythical tabloid immigrant, non-EU students are neither ‘taking our jobs’ nor are they ‘living off benefits’ – quite the reverse. Government (Home Office) estimates from a few years back say that non-EU students (in addition to the fees) bring about £8.5 billion pounds into the UK, spend it all and then leave! To put that in perspective it’s roughly the same as our quarterly balance of trade deficit.

Foreign born British Nobel Laureates 2001 - 2010

Out of 17 British Nobel laureates between 2001 - 2010, six were born outside the UK.

They are as follows:

1. Andre Geim, born in Russia, Physics, 2010
2. Konstantin Novoselov, born in Russia, Physics, 2010
3. Charles K. Kao, born in China, Physics, 2009
4. Doris Lessing, born in Iran, Literature, 2007
5. Sydney Brenner, born in South Africa, Physiology or Medicine, 2002
6. V.S. Naipaul, born in Trinidad, Literature, 2001