Measuring stupidly

I wrote last week about the dangers of confusing measurements with objectives. It was with a mix of anger and bemusement that I watched a news item on the BBC last night that perfectly illustrated by way that the coalition government has shafted itself in pandering to the readership of the Daily Mail.
The government has set itself a net immigration target of 100,000 each year (for want of a better comparison, that's about a Watford's worth of people). Recently released figures show that it's currently running at 200,000. That means that the country is currently expanding at the rate of two Watfords per annum. Which, if you know Watford, is obviously a slightly daunting prospect.
It turns out that there are two main reasons for this. Firstly, because there has been a massive increase in students coming into the country. Often they are paying up to £35k per annum in fees, and overseas students now provide 15% of the UK's Higher Education funding (according to the BBC last night). Seeing as the whole of the public sector is being told that it is about to see its funding obliterated by up to 40%, one can only congratulate the Universities on taking pre-emptive, market-focused strategies.
The second reason that the net immigration figure is down is because emigration has fallen. That's right – too few Britons are leaving the country for the totals to add up.
So this leaves the government in a quandry. Stop students coming in and run the risk of the university system collapsing, or run campaigns for Brits to leave the country to hit the target. And for what? For achieving a meaningless target that in the great scheme of things is totally irrelevant (as it ignores EU migration, because we have free transit now for people as well as trade), and misses the overall point that if it weren't for immigration Great Britain would consist of nothing but a few tribes of cave dwellers and a lot of woodland.
I have an alternative. Shut Watford. I love the football team, Cassiobury Park is very nice, but other than that it wouldn't be a great loss. Now, if any of you know anyone at the Daily Mail, just tell them that Watford causes cancer, and the whole nasty mess will be resolved in a matter of weeks.