Just as the political row over the levels of immigration into Britain, particularly from eastern Europe, reaches new highs, economic indications are starting to suggest the panic may be overdone.
It just might be that in 10 years' time people will be grumbling that they can't get a Polish plumber any more and are having to pay an unreliable British workman a lot more to do the same job.
That might sound daft, given new government figures showing more than a million immigrants have arrived in the past decade.
Even though the figures are backward-looking, people have projected them into the future and started to talk of an ever-expanding population and the need to plough up the green belt to build millions of new houses. But do all those assumptions stand up to scrutiny?
The issue boils down to this: do Poles, Lithuanians and others from eastern Europe come here because they love Britain's climate and its charming people or do they come here for the work?
I suspect it is the latter. After all, did the British Auf Wiedersehen Pet builders stay in Germany in the 1980s or return home when there was more work here? Two things will determine how long east Europeans stay: the jobs available here and the jobs available back home.
Britain, as we know, has just been through the greatest house price boom of all time and commercial property has also seen a building frenzy. This has created lots of jobs on the big construction sites and house renovation.
But the commercial property bubble has already burst and there are clear signs the housing market has peaked. This could soon mean a fall in the number of jobs in areas where many eastern European workers have gone in recent years. So far, so obvious. But just as important is what's happening in the economies of eastern Europe. The figures are surprising and challenge the idea that everyone in the east has fled west because of a total lack of economic prospects back home.
Late last week the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which analyses the economies of eastern Europe and lends money to them, released its annual "Transition Report" which provides a revealing snapshot of what is happening from the Black Sea to the Baltic and across the vast expanse of Russia and the former Soviet republics.
The region, the report predicted, will enjoy record economic growth this year of 7% and only slightly less in 2008. The economy of Poland, easily the biggest country by population in eastern Europe with 38 million people, is growing at about 6.5% this year, more than double the pace of the UK. It has also been the fastest growing economy in the region since the collapse of communism. Unemployment, though still high, has fallen from 20% five years ago to 12.3% and is still dropping.
Wages rising
The EBRD's chief economist, Erik Berglöf, said pay for skilled labourers was rising very rapidly, partly owing to the fact that many of the country's most skilled workers had pushed off to Britain. Fascinatingly, he said Poles want to work in Poland, not Britain.
"Things are changing. Some economies in the east are growing rapidly now. In the long term we will see emigration [from Britain]. Many Poles would prefer to work in Poland. There is a strong force of gravitation."
In last month's elections Poles threw out the Law and Justice party and brought an end to the bizarre two-year rule of twin brothers Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski as prime minister and president. Although Lech remains president until 2010, the wave of optimism that has accompanied the new prime minister Donald Tusk and his pro-European Civil Platform party can only be good for the Polish economy.
And a strong economy may encourage some Polish workers in Britain, who have been sending money home and watching events from afar, to go back, especially if work here becomes more difficult to find. A similar phenomenon has occurred with Ireland over the past 15 years.
The EBRD report is packed with interesting data. The whole of eastern Europe is enjoying robust growth on the back of strong domestic demand, high levels of investment and the money flowing back from overseas workers. Russian growth has also been boosted by high prices of energy.
The report also contains a warning for Britain's "fly-to-let" brigade who have snapped up properties in places such as Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states in the hope of making a quick buck.
It shows house price gains of 40% a year in the likes of Ukraine, Romania and Latvia over the past three years, but warns that the boom is now over. Berglöf pointed to Latvia, where prices have begun to fall. He expects a moderation in the pace of rises, rather than outright crashes, but the risks are there.
House prices in Poland have risen more moderately, by just over 10% a year in recent years, so it may be less liable to damage by a slowdown in the property market.
The economies of the east are facing similar pressures to those in the west and will almost certainly be affected by the global credit crunch as bank loans for businesses and mortgages for home buyers become scarcer and interest rates rise. Indeed, this is the main reason the EBRD doubts growth in the region in 2008 will match this year's 7%.
Eastern Europe is fascinating because it has gone from a centrally planned economy to a capitalist one in a very short time - only 18 years. Fortunes have varied. The westernmost countries, such as Poland, have seen national income rise by an average of 42% since 1989. South-east Europe - including the Balkan countries, Romania and Bulgaria - has seen national income barely rise, while the former Soviet Union, including Russia itself, still has a lower national income than in 1989.
Transition years
The report examines peoples' attitudes to transition. The overwhelming view is that people think their household wealth has deteriorated since 1989 and the present economic situation is worse - although opinions are more positive where economies have grown quickly.
In the old days there was more or less full employment, whereas vast numbers have been thrown out of work by the transition, as inefficient communist-era factories have been closed en masse. Unemployment is clearly a main cause of unhappiness and explains the wave of "Ostalgia" sweeping East Germany, for example, where a lot of people would apparently like the Berlin Wall rebuilt.
Fortunately the EBRD report shows huge support for democracy rather than authoritarianism across all former Soviet bloc countries, in spite of the upheavals of the transition years. It also shows robust support for a market economy rather than central planning.
The one notable exception is Russia, whose people are the least keen of the whole region on democracy and free markets, probably because their brand of winner-takes-all capitalism has created huge inequality and impoverished millions.
It is to be hoped that the strong economic growth of recent years in the region will continue in spite of the global credit crunch, high oil prices and a fading property boom. The region has built up momentum and Berglöf says it has proved resilient to events so far.
The EBRD report warns the governments of the region to continue reforming institutions and public services to ensure all their people can benefit from the fruits of higher economic growth. And the more these countries improve, and the richer they will get, so will many of their brightest and best return home from the west.