This is John Batchelor, conversation with Joseph Sternberg, my colleague, he's at the Wall Street Journal

Editorial Board, he writes political economics, he's in London, and the surprising and good news,

immigration propelling the UK population to reach 70 million by

2026 where heretofore the estimate was 2036. Population especially young population is associated with prosperity.

So I ask Joe if this is regarded as good news in London.

It certainly is from the point of view of the future.

The US has a very young population and grows

and the prosperity follows.

Some countries do not have young populations

and we can say the reverse is true. Here's Joseph Sternberg on the

hesitation of British politicians to embrace this good news.

Well economically I think there is a sense in which it's very good news. Well, economically, I think there's a sense in which it's very good news, but politically

it's going to be terrible news for the governing Conservative Party.

And there are a couple reasons for that.

I think that part of Britain's problem is that the immigration debate here has become very badly skewed.

So you conflate two issues, you conflate legal immigration, which the UK's economy needs a lot of in order to sustain economic

growth and in order to be able to afford its generous welfare state And that legal immigration issue gets conflated with all of the illegal immigration

that the Conservative Party is struggling to crack down on.

These are the boats crossing the English Channel and the human

trafficking gangs and that sort of thing. So I mean certainly more legal

immigration would be good news. They're going to have to figure out how to deal with problems like the

Socialized National Health Service that struggles to provide services to a growing

...