So why was the British government at that time so welcoming to immigrants?

It's slightly strange because in a sense it was welcoming to immigrants because it had become unwelcoming to Europeans specifically.

Britain left the EU in twenty twenty, and in early twenty twenty-one it canceled free movement.

So before then it had been possible for a French person or a Polish person to simply move to Britain and take whatever job they wanted, and it became impossible.

So the government thought, "Well, hang on a second.

You know, many of our industries have really depended on Europeans," and the famous one was the hospitality industry.

"And we don't want to have nobody coming into the country to do those sorts of jobs in future.

So the question here is, at this moment, under these conditions, is this what the British people want?

So why was the British government at that time so welcoming to immigrants?

It's slightly strange because in a sense, it was welcoming to immigrants because it had become unwelcoming to Europeans specifically.

Britain left the EU in twenty twenty, and in early twenty twenty-one, it canceled free movement.

So before then, it had been possible for a French person or a Polish person to simply move to Britain and take whatever job they wanted, and it became impossible.

So the government thought, "Well, hang on a second.

You know, many of our industries have really depended on Europeans," and the famous one was the hospitality industry.

"And we don't want to have nobody coming into the country to do those sorts of jobs in future.

So the question here is, at this moment, under these conditions, is this what the British people want?

And so if he does manage to get himself into the prime ministership, how do you think those two facets of himself would manifest as leader of the country?

The truth is nobody knows.

There's no real preparation for being prime minister.

Keir Starmer, after all, looked like an extremely competent, decent person, and he's been pretty underwhelming.

I think Andy Burnham has some quite clear advantages over Keir Starmer.

He has the great knack of just repeating himself, so he repeats things like, "Greater Manchester needs a London-style transport system." He's also very good at coming up with a big vision for Greater Manchester and then connecting individual policy announcements to that big vision.

And as I say, he is charming.

You said, first of all, he's not even an MP, which means he cannot stand as it goes right now.

And so if he does manage to get himself into the prime ministership, how do you think those two facets of himself would manifest as leader of the country?

The truth is, nobody knows.

There's no real preparation for being prime minister.

Keir Starmer, after all, looked like an extremely competent, decent person, and he's been pretty underwhelming.

I think Andy Burnham has some quite clear advantages over Keir Starmer.

He has the great knack of just repeating himself.

So he repeats things like, "Greater Manchester needs a London style transport system." He's also very good at coming up with a big vision for Greater Manchester and then connecting individual policy announcements to that big vision.

You said, first of all, he's not even an MP, which means he cannot stand as it goes right now.

Joel Budd is our Britain Social Affairs Editor.

A lack of high men's voices is a growing problem for amateur and church choirs.

Given the enormous scale of choral singing, it's really a problem for music in general.

The best statistics come from Germany.

In Germany, eight percent of adults say that they sing in a group or they sing publicly.

Women choral singers turn out to outnumber men by about two to one, and we see that same sex ratio in country after country in Europe.

It also seems to be roughly the American ratio, and there was even a study of Nigerian church choirs which found the same two-to-one ratio.

And then I think, you know, over the years, your voice just develops, and I just ended up singing more and more tenor.

Joel Budd is our Britain Social Affairs Editor.

A lack of high men's voices is a growing problem for amateur and church choirs.

Given the enormous scale of choral singing, it's really a problem for music in general.

The best statistics come from Germany.

In Germany, eight percent of adults say that they sing in a group or they sing publicly.

Women choral singers turn out to outnumber men by about two to one, and we see that same sex ratio in country after country in Europe.

It also seems to be roughly the American ratio, and there was even a study of Nigerian church choirs which found the same two-to-one ratio.

And

Would these reforms in Britain do what the British government now claimed they want to, which is cut asylum claims, cut visa applications?

I think it's quite likely that the reforms to regular visas will reduce applications, yes, because Britain is simply making itself less attractive to people who make considered decisions about applying for a teaching job in Britain, applying for a care home job in Britain.

On asylum seekers, it's a little bit less clear because Britain is quite appealing for asylum seekers in ways that the British government either can't control or doesn't want to control.

Britain is really very good at turning immigrants of all kinds into productive, well-educated members of British society.

Denmark is much, much less good at that.

It may possibly stem from the fact that Denmark, after the war, had a guest worker scheme and implicitly promised to Danes that anybody who arrived in the country was only going to be temporary and contingent, whereas Britain drew on its former colonies and brought in people who thought of themselves as British and allowed them to stay and make homes and so on.

One way you can see that is in employment.

And Joel, if the ultimate problem that the Labour government is trying to fix is the boost in support in Britain for reform and the collapse of their own support, will this fix that?

And how do you know all this? How did you find out how these small businesses are operating?

I found out in a couple of ways.

One was by talking to the police, both the British police, the National Crime Agency, and also the French police that deal with, um...... illegal migration.

But the other one was by talking to people who have made the crossing, people who were themselves smuggled over the channel.

Because it has often taken them several attempts to get over the channel.

They're often stuck in northern France for quite some time, and pretty much all they're thinking about is how to get (laughs) across the channel.

And so, they simply become quite expert.

Are these small businesses innovating?