At the same time, though, any increase in Scotland’s population will affect English taxpayers more than Scottish taxpayers because more is spent on the NHS, education etc. in Scotland per head than is spent in England. That extra money is paid for by the Barnett Formula.

Do come to Brighton, though Bill, it’s lovely!

So would you generally expect a nation of 57 million to need more road space than a nation of 50 million?

I believe the UK population recently passed 60 million; taking away estimates of the Welsh (2mio), Northern Irish (1.5mio) and Scottish (5mio) residents, I would imagine therefore that England currently has around 51.5mio residents with, give or take, 12mio or so in the south-east – obviously this gives an extremely high density in that small area. Unless you restrict domestic immigration into that region by some means, the current preponderance of jobs in the finance/government industries in that region will always mean this is an attractive area for people to find work in, irrespective of whether we have immigration into the UK or not. Personally I think we need to create an alternative capital (a la Washington or Canberra), probably somewhere between Manchester and Birmingham, to create a focus for jobs in government and eventually businesses that want to be close to where the government is; ultimately, over several decades, this would lessen the chronic pressure on the south east corner – on the other hand London has been the English capital ever since England became a unitary state, a long time before the UK came into being, so there would undoubtedly be emotional resistance; I don’t preetend that my idea is probably anything other than ‘blue sky’ thinking, but I think it is the only long-term solution, even if we were to stop all immigration tomorrow, an unlikely and (in my opinion) unwelcome prospect.

In general, assuming there is still the petrol/alternative fuel to run cars like we do now in 20 or 40 years time, then I daresay 60+ mio people will require more transport and all kinds of other infrastructure than 50 mio. However I think there will have to be some kind of restriction on private car ownership – and I suspect that market forces will ultimately lead to a reduction anyway. And I can’t see cheap air flights being sustainable forever; much as I love being able to drive/fly whenever I want at pretty modest cost I think we are living in an unsustainable ‘lotus’ land in all sorts of ways; luckily I will be dead before the full effects are felt. If scientists can make cold fusion work then the whole equation changes I suppose.

Bill, I was not at all implying you were a little Scotlander, and would have no problem if you were.. I was simply saying that many of the cheerleaders of mass immigration come from areas such as Scotland and Wales where they don’t see the effects as much as people in the South and Midlands of England many of which are very opposed to it.
I said ‘if’ 3-4 million turned up on your doorstep, it was not a prediction.

Easy for you to say you want Turks in Europe Bill when you know full well very very few will be invading Scotland. I bet you’d soon change your mind if 3-4 million them turned up on ya doorstep wanting a share of your free education and generous pensions.

Your are quite incorrect in what you imply in your second sentence, Dave. We already have quite a lot of ‘invaders’ up here, relative to the size of the population, many of them other UK citizens from England; I don’t agree with much of what Jack McConnell (First Minister of Scotland) says, but his wish to encourage inward immigration into Scotland, to counter the trend to depopulation here, is not only necessary, but welcome to me, although whether the mythical figure of 3-4 million you conjure up coming to a Scotland where we have an approximate population of only 5 million in all at present is likely anyplace other than your imagination is open to severe question (in my opinion).

As for me being some kind of closet ‘little Scotlander’ (to mirror the mythical ‘little Englander’), you could not be farther from understanding me; please don’t project your own instincts/beliefs onto others. Incidentally there is a minimum 70/30 likelihood that I will move my UK home in the next year or two to the south coast of England, probably to somewhere like Brighton/Hove, Worthing or Eastbourne; I’ve been keeping my eye out for suitable properties in the area for some months – unless things have changed very much in that part of the world since I last lived in the region (in London) I think I’ll fit in just fine .

The question is why are we running out of road space?
I suppose our rapidly rising population due to immigration with over 1million people in the last 2 years alone has nothing at all to do with it??

From my standpoint as a Eurealsit I do not feel that immigration is an important issue, it is only one of many and is far down the list of my priorities. If we left the EU tomorrow we could regain control of our own borders, but that would not end immigration, but the choice would then be made by our elected government and immigration would be considered from a national point of view. The same would be true if the EU were a trading block of independent nation states.

Easy for you to say you want Turks in Europe Bill when you know full well very very few will be invading Scotland. I bet you’d soon change your mind if 3-4 million them turned up on ya doorstep wanting a share of your free education and generous pensions.