"I'm in hi-vis, so I know you can see me."

Nordic pagans famously lack warrior ethos.

You get social integration when you are welcoming. You also get it when incomers can feel safe, secure and settled - which means being able to work, live with family, and a legal route to permanent residency. If we want social integration, we should stop adopting policies that make it impossible.

To anyone who says immigration reduces social cohesion and creates tension and unrest, let us never forget: this is not inevitable. It is a choice, made by a minority of British people, to treat incomers with hostility and mistrust. The obstacle to social cohesion is racism, not immigration.

And that's before you get into the broader economic reality which is that they only way you can keep paying for the pensions and healthcare of all the people who have been 'paying in all our lives' is to increase the working-age population, and that means more immigration, not less.

Like most of us, he probably won't have 'paid in more than he's taken out' until he's well into his 30s, I should think. And this is the big weakness in this whole 'migrants should pay in before they take out, like the rest of us' line. The 'rest of us' haven't been 'paying in' all our lives.

I hate to break it to you, Govey, but clearly neither policy detail nor life in Britain are your strong suits: no one is 'paying into the system' from birth. My UK-born 16yo kid has cost the state an awful lot in education, healthcare, and Child Benefit, and he's not paid a penny in yet.

With alt text.