So how did we get to this point? When did we see migration policy become such a salient political issue?

I think I would go back probably something like 30, 30 years ago.

We had a sort of a right-wing party that was basically pro-business, and that tends to be lobbying for things like lower taxes, less regulation, but also for more liberal, um, rules on, on immigration.

Now, we also have then our traditional left-wing party, which is motivated primarily by concern, I think, for social justice.

And when business lobbies for less regulation and lower taxes, typically progressives would push back on that.

They would say, "No, no.

We need taxes to fund public services.

What do you think of that policy?

So how did we get to this point? When did we see migration policy become such a salient political issue?

I think I would go back probably something like 30, 30 years ago.

We had a sort of a right-wing party that is basically pro-business, and that tends to be lobbying for things like lower taxes, less regulation, but also for more liberal, um, rules on, on immigration.

Now, we also have then our traditional left-wing party, which is motivated primarily by concern, I think, for social justice.

And when business lobbies for less regulation and lower taxes, typically progressives would push back on that.

They would say, "No, no, we need taxes to fund public services.

We need to protect workers," et cetera.

What do you think of that policy?

How true is it?

Yeah.

So I mean, I think the evidence doesn't suggest that that has happened very much, if at all.

But I think there are a couple of provisos to that.

The first is we've actually had quite big increases in the minimum wage over the last twenty, twenty-five years, and so this has prevented the extent to which there can be downward pressure on, on wages for people at the bottom of, of the income distribution.

And then the second reason is that actually migration hasn't changed the shape of our labor market anywhere near as much as both the supporters and the critics claim.

So because they haven't changed the shape very much, you don't expect wages to change very much either.

I'm obviously not going to ask you to go through the whole of it now, but can you give listeners a list of just a few things that you think would make immigration policy better?