RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: They say one in 12 people in London is an illegal immigrant... is that all?

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When I read yesterday that there may be as many as 585,000 illegal immigrants living in London, my first reaction was: Is that all?

Then, on second thoughts, I remembered writing about a similar statistic fairly recently. Back in October, academics at Oxford University claimed there were only 745,000 illegals across the whole of Britain.

The figure comes from a study commissioned by Thames Water and obtained by the Daily Telegraph courtesy of a freedom of information request. It is also estimated that there are more than a million ‘irregular’ migrants, as we must now call them, living in the UK – one in 12 of the population in London.

For some reason, Thames Water has decided to distance itself from the findings. Why?

A spokesman for the company said: ‘Analysis to estimate “hidden and transient” populations is carried out by an independent firm. Thames Water played no part in the writing of the report and the conclusions drawn are those of the firm that carried out the research.’

Are the bosses of Thames Water terrified of being accused of ray-cism? Probably, such is the level of snivelling corporate cowardice these days in the face of advertising boycotts, cancel culture and hateful woke bullying. What do they think we are going to do: stop using water? Grow up.

Are they afraid Just Stop Sewage will start picketing treatment works and glueing themselves to the gates of reservoirs? If they didn’t want to know the answer they shouldn’t have asked the ‘independent firm’ to investigate in the first place.

But there’s nothing new here. Regular readers (Sid and Doris) may recall a column I wrote nine years ago, after an immigration panel judge told The Mail on Sunday that there were at least 1.5 million more people here than we knew about officially.

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A study commissioned by Thames Water suggests there are as many as 585,000 illegal immigrants living in London

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The judge said: ‘How do I know this? Partly because of the cases that come before me, but also because of the evidence of the sewage industry – an excellent way of gauging how many people are really living in this country. The discrepancy between the official figures and what is actually going down the pipes shows there are more than a million more people in London than are legally registered and another half million or more outside the capital.’

As I remarked at the time: The answer, my friend, is flowing round the U-bend. Describing migrants as ‘irregular’ rather than illegal suggests some kind of tummy trouble, which couldn’t be more pertinent in the circumstances. I also suggested putting the elite British Bog Snorkelling team on the case.

Thames Water was perfectly entitled to explore the, er, output of its customers, legal or otherwise. You’d certainly get a far more accurate assessment of the problem from Dyno-Rod than the Home Office, which for more than two decades has conspired with politicians to deceive us about the scale of immigration.

What also baffles me is that the numbers of illegals to which the authorities are prepared to admit seems to be falling. Are there really only half as many of them here as there were nine years ago?

Especially as around 150,000 largely military-age males from goodness-knows-where have rolled up in Kent on pea-green dinghies, complete with Border Force escort, and been billeted in Lenny Henry hotels in every town and city in the country.

A well-know phrase or saying about legs with bells on comes to mind.

To put this all in proper perspective (Sid and Doris can put the kettle on here, because it’s not the first time I’ve mentioned it, but if you can’t quote yourself . . .), in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Captain Beaujolais, now Lord Beaujolais, told me over a glass of (what else?) Beaujolais, that there were probably 250,000 people in London alone that the authorities knew absolutely nothing about.

His guesstimate was based on the number of foreign nationals being arrested by Scotland Yard for a variety of crimes, from driving without a licence to aggressive begging and suspected terrorism offences. Some had entered Britain in the back of lorries, others had overstayed their tourist or student visas and disappeared into the black economy. Many had torn up their papers and flatly refused to say where they’d come from.

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That was getting on for 24 years ago, come September. When it comes to lies, damned lies and immigration statistics, we’ve been fed an unrelenting diet of prize-winning porkies for the best past of three decades.

As Groucho Marx almost said: Who do you believe, the political class and the yuman rites industry or your lyin’ eyes? City girls just seem to find out early.

For the record, I have no problem with properly controlled, legal migration. My grandparents, uncle and aunt on my dad’s side were among the original Ten Pound Poms to Australia. My late parents moved to the States 50 years ago. So did my aunt and uncle on Mum’s side. My sister is an American citizen.

I live, despite what it says in the Guardian and elsewhere online, in Cosmopolitan North London. My friends and neighbours are from Jewish, Caribbean, Pakistani, Irish, Turkish, Greek, Indian etc backgrounds. Sometimes, on a night out, I’m the whitest bloke in the place. Nobody gives a monkey’s. We’re all Londoners.

As Call Me Dave used to say, when playing down his Etonian background, what matters is where you’re going, not where you come from.

Curiously, those fellow citizens who are most opposed to illegal immigration are those who came here legally, jumping through bureaucratic hoops trying to do the right thing. Cypriots who object to Albanians pretending to be Turks or Kurds, for a start.

This is the most welcoming, least racist nation on earth, certainly in Surkier Starmer’s beloved European utopia. But we must drawn the line at queue-jumpers, fake asylum seekers and those who overstay their visas.

Why, for instance, should overseas students get to bring their whole family with them? When our son went to Cambridge, we didn’t expect the university to put us up, too.

As the Southport killer and the rape-gangs scandal demonstrate, multi-culti kumbaya depends on integration, not segregation.

And the goodwill of the host nation, including long-standing immigrants now happily accounting for third and sometimes fourth generations, can only be assured if the politicians and gutless corporations stop trying to deceive us about the scale of the problem.

We shouldn’t need freedom of information laws to discover the truth. Do you believe there are only 585,000 illegals living in London?

Me neither. So, to paraphrase Jeremy Paxman, why are these lying bastards still lying to us about immigration?

Tie down your dogs. That’s the hilarious advice from the Met Office in advance of Storm Wossname, which self-important weathermen are trying to pretend is a re-run of Hurricane Katrina in New Awlins. No, it isn’t.

Eh? What are we supposed to do with our pooches – tether them like Gulliver? It’s raining dogs, Hallelujah!

There was another story yesterday from some animal lobby which claimed dogs are neglected in January because we’re too lazy to walk them in wet weather.

Cobblers. Our old lab, Ossie, would stick his nose out of the back door if it was raining and beat an instant retreat to his bed.

We had to boot him up the jacksie to get him to cock his leg against the nearest tree. I’ve heard of lock up your daughters, but tie down your cockapoo has to be a bridge too far, even for the hysterics at the Met Office who think they’re starring in The Day After Tomorrow movie every time it gets a bit gusty.