I, along with some fellow councillors, will be making our way to the Masonic Lodge in Silverwell Street to celebrate Trafalgar Night with our wonderful Bolton Sea Cadets.
It’s an annual celebration of Lord Nelson’s victory off the Cape of Trafalgar, west of Cadiz, over the combined forces of the French Navy and the Spanish Armada on 21 October 1805.
This victory marked the beginning of the Royal Navy’s domination of the seas for the next century and a half and the start of the ‘British Century’ and what a different country we were then.
The size of the population was strikingly different, with less than 10 million people living in the newly created United Kingdom and less than 20,000 in the borough of Bolton.
Contrast that with modern Britain. Since 1997, our population has grown by more than 10 million to nearly 68 million, all of us competing for space and resources, not least housing.
Finding homes for so many new arrivals, when we are not building enough homes to replace the existing stock, is leading to severe overcrowding and denying our young people their first step on the housing ladder.
The level of immigration to the UK is simply unsustainable.
The government may be making all the right noises about reducing immigration, but we need to bite the bullet now if we are to properly integrate people into our society and build the infrastructure to cope with this huge new influx.
The UK and Bolton have a proud record of welcoming new people and integrating them into our community, but we cannot go on like this for much longer.
Reducing the number of people coming to the UK should be a national priority. Places like Bolton, with relatively cheap housing, have taken in a disproportionate number of refugees and asylum seekers, as well as new migrants.
At the recent Conservative Party conference, I urged ministers to show the kind of leadership on this issue so ably demonstrated by Horatio Nelson, so come Rishi, read the signals, the message is clear, England expects it.
