Well, that's to assume the mighty were in fact mighty at all. Only 4 or 5 months ago Frank Field was leading the charge to hold the government accountable over the whole sorry affair of abolishing the 10p tax rate and making a fairly good name for himself, even if he did ultimately back out of keeping to his convictions. Unfortunately it may be less the case of standing up for the needy and instead simply standing up for the intrinsically working class at the expense of all other reason. Simply put, perhaps he managed to strike it right on the liberal front with one argument, but that doesn't make him a liberally minded person...as today's news shows.

Labour MP Frank Field has launched a new all-party parliamentary group calling for significant cuts in immigration. The former minister wants a policy of balanced migration, under which immigration levels are capped in line with the number of emigrants to maintain a stable UK population over time.

Oh well, the illusion is well and truly shattered. Another MP, in fact a group of them, reading the public polls and coming up with a policy to match. It's funny really that when public displays of opinion occurred in the past they were regimentally ignored, but now when Labour are trying to grasp support among any area possible they will take any "popular opinion" and run with it.

In this case, Frank and co. want to put a stop to the problem of immigration, even more closely tying himself and his party with the Conservatives than even previous announcements on (and indulgent, insulting adverts pay account to) restrictions on immigration have caused.

Soames and Field have pointed to results of a YouGov poll suggesting that substantial reductions in immigration are backed by voters of all parties as well as Britain's existing ethnic minorities.

Well, as long as the ethnics are ok with it, now that they're actually residents of our country and citizens, then it must be a golden policy idea, eh? I've not had a chance, as the results aren't up yet, to see just how the poll was worded but given it was commissioned by MigrationWatch I'm not holding my breath as to it's objective reasoning. Let's just say that polling the public on what they are actually doing or going to do is useful, polling them about what they think is sometimes useful if the questions are worded right...but ultimately on this sort of issue public opinion means nothing compared to doing the all around right thing.

The two MPs said the government's current points-based system for non-EU migrants selected foreign workers who were most useful to the economy, but did not limit immigration. They said only a tiny minority of migrants should be allowed to remain in Britain after the expiry of four-year work permits. Anyone wishing to settle permanently after that time would be subjected to a further points system, with a government-set annual cap on the number allowed to stay.

This is the crux of their argument, not actually limiting immigration but instead balancing it out...letting people come in only if someone leaves, the sort of policy that works well on nightclub doors but perhaps less so on island nations. So what's the problem?

Well first of all, if we take the argument about balanced immigration onwards then the first question has to be how, precisely, you balance the holistic makeup of the UK. It's all well and good watching a doctor emigrate to Australia, but is a call centre worker immigrating in going to really "balance" anything? Balance to me, in this instance, seems to be a word thrown around needlessly like it is in the whole aim of finding "balanced and sustainable" communities. There is, in fact, nothing balancing about a policy that simply says no more people can come in to a country that comes out.

Not convinced? Well even taking the skills aside, if someone emigrates out of Manchester while someone immigrates in to London then no balance has been struck. If two single people of healthy age emigrate while an old man and a young child immigrate in then no balance has been struck. Exactly how prescriptive does Frank Field and his body wish to be when it comes to finding this balance?

Genuine asylum seekers, foreign students and spouses with partners overseas would be exempt from the limit, as would people from the European Economic Area, who are already allowed to live and work in Britain.

Indeed it seems there is nothing really here about balance. While accepting that EU workers can continue to live and work in the country, that students and and asylum seekers can join our population, you are already accepting that no balance can be struck. By working with this situation you are doing nothing more than making a political statement, much as Compass have done on the windfall tax. What is it that makes a Polish worker more welcome to the UK than an Indian one? A German to an American?

No, there is absolutely no sense whatsoever in asking for a balanced immigration policy while accepting that there is no balance between certain nationalities AND that people that are intrinsically different can be seen as balanced.

Mark Easton has written an interesting analysis in response to this new announcement, which can be read here.

What these maps show is that, unsurprisingly, people in London have the greatest population pressure upon them and that pressure has increased greatly in a decade. But people in the North West and North East of England and around Glasgow have actually seen population pressure falling between 1991 and 2001.

Indeed there is evidence to show that without immigration areas in the North would have declined severely in number. Far from being a balancing factor the restriction in immigration could prove to be a fatal blow to the economy in the North and in doing so further present an imbalance to the South East as people search for the best value in life.

Mark goes on to compare the number of people to the area available to live in, while accepting that not all areas are actually liveable without infrastructural investment and that our legislation and farming industry means much of our land is inaccessible for our population to live on, it is clear that far from being in a terrible situation we have better population densities than Caribbean islands.

But back to Frank and co...

Balanced migration could stabilise the UK's population at about 65 million by 2050, compared to 78.6 million if current trends continue, said the group.

So this is the other thing, trends. Trends are obviously just measures of previous data, not of what is to come. They are useful for short term analysis but the case needs to be made for long term usage. What realities are offered as to why these trends will continue for 40 years? I certainly don't have any answers, I'm not going to question the possibility with any vigour...but with Polish workers deciding that the pound is no longer strong enough for them to justify being away from their families and moving back to their place of birth, and the economy clearly going through a major change, isn't it also the case that we can argue that the population may stabilise itself as other places in Europe become more profitable places to work?

The group, which includes Britain's first Muslim peer Lord Ahmed and former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, believe their proposals would greatly reduce pressures on British public services, infrastructure and the environment and enable the economy to remain competitive.

And here is where I just tend to get angry. I've disagreed with conservatives about this in the past because it is a very prescriptive reason given for a problem that is not solely the problem of immigration. I ask, and never get an answer, what if the country goes through an unprecedented baby boom...will Frank and co. pass law to ensure we stop having babies to keep the infrastructure intact? If there is a problem with infrastructure not being able to hold up to immigration, or indeed any population increase, then there is a problem with the infrastructure

Got a problem like that? Well then fix it! Don't go around curing the potential straws for such a camels back, don't pretend you're actually solving any type of long term problem by shifting the blame, just bloody well sit down and work out how to future proof our services and infrastructure so that we don't have to worry about it regardless of what happens.

"One group that has disproportionately borne the cost of such immigration, through pressure on wages, longer waiting lists for decent housing and increased demand for public services, has been lower-paid black and white Britons," he said. "This group of our population has also often experienced a transformation of their neighbourhoods from settled working-class communities to societies which they can barely recognise."

All of these issues are showcases of ineptitude in local governance, a lack of investment in infrastructure and poor social management. I've already said that immigration has actually saved a population decline in some areas, perhaps those groups would rather recognise their communities wither and die as the lack of population fails to prop up the local economy. Would that be more acceptable for voters in the UK, so long as they didn't have to live next door to a black guy?

The real issue is that London is feeling overcrowded, and because of this coupled with a lack of investment in infrastructure people are looking for people to blame for their stresses and, possibly more importantly, increased cost of living. They're transposing it to the rest of the UK even though the rest of the country isn't feeling the "problems" of immigration, a classic case of London believing it's more than it is in the national scheme of things. Of course it's easy to point the finger at immigrants, although in reality they're really probably most frustrated by EU free-to-roam immigrants along with asylum seekers that the government refuses to allow to work and seemingly just takes up benefits for no reason, if you believe the tabloids.

Easy finger pointing is the job of the mainstream media, not for cross party lobby groups, Frank, leave the baseless and poorly researched bollocks to the likes of the Mail.