Comments on Five Chinese Crackers: Why 70 million anyway?

Vicky - we could well be heading that way. The he...

2009-11-24T14:45:21.997Z

Vicky - we could well be heading that way. The headline of the story I looked at in this one mentioned 74 million (by taking the most extreme projection possible).

I think this is another example of how specific numbers don't actually matter.

I've a suspicion that at some point over the n...

2009-11-24T14:27:32.963Z

I've a suspicion that at some point over the next year that figure will magically jump to 80 million, both to increase the level of panic among readers and to give the impression that the 70 million mark has been passed. I hope I'm wrong.

Oh dear. My children are part of that figure. Wh...

2009-11-24T14:20:56.225Z

Oh dear. My children are part of that figure. Whatever shall I do? MY parents emigrated to Australia when i was in my mid-teens. My kids were born over there. I moved back here with them a decade ago. So, technically, they are immigrants. They don't even get their get their citizenship/residence rights from me but from my father as I was born overseas as well (while he was on a British Army posting). Yeah, it's complicated, all right :)

It does seem that 70m is just arbitrary - don'...

2009-11-24T11:10:46.503Z

It does seem that 70m is just arbitrary - don't think I've ever seen a rationale.

Good point about population rising anyway if immigration were stopped, but would we even be able to stop it?

I suppose that if people consider the country to b...

2009-11-24T00:18:29.065Z

I suppose that if people consider the country to be too densely populated then setting a figure gives them something to aim for in terms of reversing the trend. Why they seem utterly convinced that the population rise will grind to a halt rather than being slightly delayed if immigration were to halt is beyond me though.