And, as most studies have concluded, immigration over the last 10-15 years has had, at best, a neutral effect on GDP but has a slightly negative impact on the wages of the lowest paid.

Tell that to Mr Bloodworth and the other immigrationists. They reach for GDP figures to ‘prove’ that MASS immigration has been an unqualified success for this country, and all other arguments to the contrary, such as the effect on community cohesion and shared identity, are irrelevant.

The problem is philosophical: we don’t talk about production sufficiency and production being fit for needs, which are the actually important factors, we talk about whether the economy is growing, stable or contracting etc, when actually if we all took up a more agrarian attitude to life, lived more simply, started to practice mend and make do, bought fewer things and practiced barter more than purchase etc it would be absolutely terrible for our economic figures, but there is no evidence that people would be less happy or that their well being would decline (in fact such things as obesity and stress and mental illness due to social isolation would probably rapidly decrease).

Although all the evidence exists to demonstrate these things to us, accepting them within the national discourse would require such a huge paradigm shift that it doesn’t happen (there are of course also many powerful vested interests who have long been determined that it shouldn’t happen). So here we are stuck in the madness of a society that worships GDP and runs along with this madness like a train full of inebriates who think that they are heading towards a space age paradise, but in fact they are heading towards an environmental and social cliff.