Mark Reckless clearly didn't get the memo. It clearly can be racist, or stupid, to talk about immigration.

It's been a fairly normal day so far. My hot chocolate, served with marshmallows, whipped cream and chocolate flake (so shoot me...) at the station was served by a very efficient woman from Eastern Europe, before I boarded a train to London operated by a subsidiary of a Dutch rail company.

When I got to Liverpool Street, I remembered that I needed a haircut, so dropped into the barber shop across the street where another woman from somewhere else in Eastern Europe very efficiently trimmed what's left of my hair at a cost far in excess of what I'd pay at home in mid-Suffolk (well, it is 'that London' and they have overheads to meet).

And now, I'm on a Circle or Hammersmith and City line train, surrounded by people of a wide range of nationalities and races. Am I bothered? No, actually.

The supposedly shock news that a sizeable proportion of new passports granted to non-EU migrants is done so by the United Kingdom is, it seems, causing some controversy. Odd, really, because most of the fuss comes from people who purport to believe in market forces but want the votes of people who fear those very forces when push comes to rather uncomfortable shove. The fact that we have one of the strongest rates of economic growth in the EU, speak English and are the former colonial power for a vast swathe of the globe might be a contributory factor.

And for all the rhetoric of the "we're too crowded, send 'em all home" brigade, they offer no solution other than compulsion, no answer to the questions of who will do the jobs currently done by migrants, pay no heed to the utter hypocrisy of those who mourn the apparent loss of a country they would abandon the moment they had the means to retire to Spain (and in some cases already have).

I kind of like my country as it is - ever changing in an ever changing world - and I understand that standing still, regardless if how tempting it might be, is unlikely to allow us to stay prosperous in an interconnected, highly competitive global economy. It is, if you like, the difference between engagement and isolation.

And so, to those who claim that, to talk about migration is to be branded as an extremist, I say, go on then, talk about it, let's see what you've got to say. But given that most of the arguments in favour of severe restrictions on inward migration are offered in a mostly fact-free environment, don't expect an easy ride...