I have been saying for some years, not many have listened obviously, that our rapidly exploding population is the biggest single political and social issue this country faces.
It's pretty obvious: When more people come into the country every year than we build houses for, there's going to be a problem.
When we don't build more roads, but the population rises, we're going to have a problem.
When there are nearly eight million people waiting for appointments with the NHS to have procedures, again, with an exploding population.
We haven't got the GPs and the hospitals to catch up.
When Tony Blair came to power the British population was 58 million people. It is now 68 million people and 85% of that rise is directly down to immigration.
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I've been banging this drum for years and years. But today, the Office of National Statistics have put out some predictions that I think might just wake everybody up.
They tell us that the population will hit 70 million in the middle of 2026. That's against the previous estimate just a few years ago saying we wouldn't reach that number until 2035.
But they also say that between now and 2036, the British population will increase by another 6.6 million people and that 6.1 million of that is directly down to immigration.
Laughably the Home Office this afternoon have put out a statement saying we're about to see a dramatic and drastic cut in net migration into Britain.
Migrants aboard a small boatPABut these are the people that have overseen this just totally extraordinary growth.
But there's another figure in these statistics that really jumps out at me. I accept that it's a prediction, but remember, all of the previous predictions by the Office of National Statistics have proved to be underestimates.
They say that between 2021 and 2036, 13.7 million people moved to the UK long-term.
And many of those that leave are people from established British families who've been in for generations, perhaps in some cases, centuries, that are going off to retire, work or live in other parts of the world.
It's the issue that no one wants to talk about. But it means an absolutely astounding cultural change in our country.
Many millions of people who've already come and millions more that will come with whom we have, historically and culturally, literally, nothing in common and I believe the implications of that, for our society are very, very serious.
I think many in Parliament and in government know it, but nobody actually dares to admit it.