That London is becoming ever more crowded will come as no surprise to those of us who squeeze onto trains and tubes in the morning rush, sit in permanent traffic jams or wait hours in a GP's surgery for our appointment to come up. What might still come as a surprise however is the way in which City Hall goes into full Stalinist mode when explaining population growth: its Housing Strategy points "primarily to the natural growth that results from London's relatively youthful population".

This is misrepresentation on a grand scale. Why, if immigration is such an inherently good thing, City Hall feels the need to do this is a mystery. Perhaps it is because when it comes to general discussions of this issue, London is treated as somehow untouchable. It is assumed that the capital is a standing rebuke to all those who voice concerns about unfettered migration, that all you have to do is mention the success of London and all qualms and criticisms will be doused. But to suggest that yes, even London suffers from the same fracturing and dysfunction as the rest of the country would be considered by supporters of unrestricted migration to be an intolerable blow to their reasoning and argument.  

"The housing situation for thousands of Londoners is dire," says Matthew Pollard, Migration Watch's executive director. "It is clear that they would benefit from less immigration, and it's time their interests, as Londoners, are given priority." Surely Londoners leaving London is a cause for concern, just as would be Parisians leaving Paris, or Romans Rome. You'd think so, but according to the official narrative of our times that would be to define Londoners in the wrong way. That would be parochial and, no doubt, to cast oneself as one of the dreaded "left behind". So Londoners born and bred in the city should have no claims on the place, sentimental or otherwise. Claiming Londoner status now is rather like claiming citizenship of the world, that moniker which manages to wrap rootlessness, self-regard and a total lack of history into one nebulous package.