On the subject of our current online poll, I came across the article I referred to in an comment on the introductory post once again.
The Telegraph reports Britain’s official government immigration statistics are based on relatively small-scale passenger surveys at airports. Surveys that are dramatically incorrect based on a comparison with a new system which aims to actually measure migration. Incorrect by “tens of thousands” a year for international students alone.
Based on previous figures the analysis suggests that around 3,300 people a year overstay their visas, far lower than estimates which suggest tens of thousands of people “vanish” after finishing their degrees. Yes, they do vanish… back home overseas… All those foreign students we thought were staying in the UK illegally actually left a long time ago. Only 3% remain each year according to the new system’s figures.
And even the new system introduced in 2015 can’t handle it when an immigrant dies, has a second passport they use to exit the country, or someone misspells their name at customs. When the number crunchers compared airline data with immigration data from the new system, they still only got a 90% match for people needing visas. In other words, the new and significantly improved system can’t count humans either.
I rather think that this is the sort of thing that the coiner of the title phrase had in mind.