Quite frequently these days when I catch the bus home the driver is Polish.
They have been recruited by Travel West Midlands because they can't get enough locals to take the jobs.
What they make of the service goodness only knows.
All too many of the new buses on the routes I take are being systematically trashed by late night thugs.
Increasing amounts of graffiti and windows with names scratched into them.
One bus I caught recently was filthy inside and out, with white sticky tape holding one of the seats together. An attempt had been made to do something about the graffiti, to little avail.
It was really quite depressing.
Most buses may have closed circuit TV on board these days but drivers are too petrified to confront the all-too-often violent trash who cause the problems.
One suggestion I heard touted recently is that Travel West Midlands "marshalls" should ride the buses late at night to try and catch some of them.
Somehow I can't see it.
Still, Polish bus drivers are welcome.
And perhaps the continuing migration to this country from Eastern Europe and all over the world should be welcomed too.
Because they are holding down inflation.
Who says so? None other than Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Sir Andrew Large, deputy governor for financial stability.
I am not sure how long ago Sir Andrew was last on a bus but the MPC has certainly picked up on the impact of migration. Governor Mervyn King remarked on it recently when he came up to Birmingham to address a meeting of the Lunar Society.
And Sir Andrew raised it again the other day.
He said the MPC had been looking for reasons "behind what seems to be a remarkably benign labour market environment with little pressure for higher wages, and yet with levels of unemployment that are at their lowest since the mid-1970s".
He went on: "For a while now on our regular visits to the different regions in the UK, MPC members have been struck by the extent to which migrant labour is active in a number of sectors of the economy, particularly people from the EU accession countries such as Poland."
Bank Agents had also painted a "sustained picture" of a significant increase in supply to the labour market.
Goodness knows how many illegal immigrants we have because even Sir Andrew admitted the trend "did not always show up".
The key, he suggested, was whether the rate of influx would continue and, if it did, what would the net effect be on demand and supply?
If you go down the lower part of Stratford Road through Sparkbrook where large numbers of the Somali community live you will find a host of sites, some former petrol stations, where hard working lads will clean your car for you for about £3.
Indeed there are so many in competition that prices are so low I have more or less given up on cleaning the car myself. Another example of a somewhat unusual form of inflation control.
