Sql Server features affecting security

A number of security benchmarks (e.g. CIS v1.0.0, FedRAMP, ..) those days we are recommending to disable Microsoft Sql Server features such as remote access, contained database authentication, cross db ownership chaining, allow updates, .. unless we actually have a real requirement for those features.

The rationale is that disabling those features, we would shrink the surface attack area.

A first step we can take is to get a report of which features are actually enabled in our database systems. The following query will do the deed (per instance):

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CREATE TABLE #Database ( [Name] VARCHAR(255), [Feature] VARCHAR(255) ) EXEC sp_MSforeachdb N' BEGIN INSERT INTO #Database SELECT ''?'' AS [Name], NAME AS [Feature] FROM sys.configurations WHERE NAME IN ( ''allow updates'', ''cross db ownership chaining'', ''contained database authentication'', ''remote access'') AND Cast(value AS INT) = 1 END ' SELECT * FROM #Database DROP TABLE #Database

What if we find out that some of those features affecting security is actually enabled?
Here is a query which will reconfigure all the databases in a given instance, disabling remote access, one of those features:. 

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EXEC sp_MSforeachdb N' BEGIN EXEC sp_configure ''show advanced options'', 1 RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE EXEC sp_configure ''remote access'', 0 RECONFIGURE EXEC sp_configure ''show advanced options'', 0 RECONFIGURE END '

As usual:

Caveat: generally, don't use the above or similar scripts in Production, as long as you don't understand and accept the consequences. 

Caveat: always read the message log.

Caveat: sp_MSforeachdb is undocumented, and AFAIK unsupported.

Caveat: the code above is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. in no event shall the author be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the software or the use or other dealings in the code above.

Why I voted No

I have already voted by post. I voted No.

A victory of the Sì would take a lot of rights from the citizens, to give more power to the central government.
Extractive and monopolistic interests are all for the Sì, as they were for the Leave in the Brexit vote.
The same age cohorts of people who voted for Leave and Trump will vote for the Sì.
The Brexit-like "vote for the sake of change" was the Sì. The No is the Remainer like option.

I strongly believe that development follows the increase in inclusiveness of the institutions, and the decrease of the sway of the extractive interests. I cannot care less about Mr Renzi's future life plans, I read the reform and I made my mind through the lens of institutional inclusiveness and market openness. And I decided to vote No.
I do understand why a lobbyist, or their owners, would disagree with me, but I cannot fathom how a common citizen could decide otherwise.

All Italians, home or abroad, will loose the right to elect their senators. Italians in Italy will have senators representing them, but they will not be elected, but named, co-opted. By politicians.
As a resident overseas the reform will take away my right to be represented in the Senate. One of the competences left to the Senate will be the relationship with the EU.
Merely the proposal to take away the power of electing the senators from the citizens should be enough to sink the reform. It is fascism, of the worst kind, how a party called "democratic" could conjure up a system where senators are not elected by citizens, but chosen by politicians?
The key to prosperity are not powerful stable executives, but open and inclusive institutions. A few days back Mrs Boschi quoted Acemoglu on that point during a debate here in London. So she knows it as well, but it didn't stop her to draft a constitutional proposal to make institutions more exclusive and to keep at distance the citizenship. Says it all, really.

Currently, the electoral weight of each region is more or less similar. After the reform, 1 millions of people in Trentino Alto Adige will have 6 senators, 4 millions of people in Tuscany will have 5. There is worst. Without a further constitutional reform Sicily will not have senators anymore, apart from 1 mayor. 5 million people represented by 1 senator. Say the mayor of Palermo is elected as senator. Palermo is currently trying to steal the port authority from Trapani. Trapani has been defended by 3 senators. Will the mayor of Palermo defend Trapani against the interests of Palermo? Science fiction.

Already now, finding a senator who spend some time to listen to you is challenging. What will happen when they will be reduced from 320 to 100 and will not be elected by the people? In the case of a win of the Si, and then Salvini winning the next election with 26% of the votes and getting 54% of the seats, and then ruling Italy for 5 years. Salvini will take the blood away from southern Italians, to disintegrate the country. Why would we wish to risk that?

I disagree the current constitution is bad. It needs some improvement, but in other directions. The Italian republic when they were changing a PM every year or so was a hydra with 100 heads. It possibly recorded the highest economical growth per capita by then in the history of mankind from 1950 to 1964. What went wrong after 1970 was that as the major alternative was the Communist Party, the parties in power started to justify purchasing the votes of people with privileges that would have been paid from future generations. And they bought out a generation of voters. I know cases of people who retired at 29. The party ended in 1992, thanks to George Soros, to who young generations of Italians should raise statues in every corner of the country, and taxpayers were left with a huge bill to pay. Meanwhile fertility rate had plummeted, and as a consequence at some point around 2000 the internal market collapsed, and never recovered. The Italian problem in 2016 is essentially demographics, too many over 45, to few under 45. The system is unsustainable, no matter what. The short term practical solution is to incentive immigration, and that was done quite successfully from 1992 to circa 2000, delaying the inevitable collapse. Successive anti immigrant governments have murdered the only serious hope of recovery of the country.

On the funny side, I voted No in 2006, but I recognise that Berlusconi's proposal was much better, and more democratic. I voted No, regretting it because I liked some of the proposals, but Berlusconi had hidden too many poisoned apples. The Renzi-Boschi's 2016 proposal is just poisoned apples. The government proposal is regressive and antidemocratic, it is taking away rights from citizens, and power from peripheries, to concentrate power in Rome, in the hands of a powerful executive.

Brexit: the Portuguese advise

Most of the European embassies and consulates in the UK, following the results of the Brexit referendum, have advised their citizens to wait and hope.

The Portuguese, however, have bucked the trend, and they set up a "Plan to support the Portuguese community on Brexit", whose main advise at the moment is:

"No entanto, recomenda-se que procurem obter o estatuto de cidadãos residentes, caso vivam há mais de 5 anos naquele país. Se ali residirem há menos de 5 anos, poderão solicitar um cartão de residente, que poderá tornar-se permanente quando se completar este período de tempo."

That's it:

"Meanwhile, it is recommended to try to get the certification of the permanent resident status if you have lived [and exercised rights treaties] more than five years in the country. If you have lived here for less than five years, you can ask a registration card, as the first step towards permanent residency when fulfilling the five years requirement"

The Portuguese Consulate also offers assistance,  by appointment, to complete the forms to request the certification of the permanent residency status:

"O Consulado atende presencialmente, por marcação prévia, os utentes que pretenderem apoio no preenchimento dos formulários. As marcações são efetuadas através do e-mail brexit.cglondres@mne.pt e não através da aplicação de agendamento online."

Pseudoxenophon pseudohellenica 2.2.10-23, the English version

Now the Greeks, being thus besieged by land and by sea, knew not what to do, since they had neither ships nor allies nor provisions; and they thought that there was no way out, save only to suffer the pains which they had themselves inflicted, not in retaliation, but in wantonness and unjustly upon the people of small states, for no other single reason than because they were in alliance with the Germans.
On this account they restored to the disfranchised their political rights and held out steadfastly, refusing to make overtures for peace even though many were dying in the country from starvation. When, however, their provisions had entirely given out, they sent ambassadors to Schäuble declaring their wish to become allies of the Germans while still keeping their banks, their infrastructures, the luxurious pensions and the Euro, and on these terms to conclude a treaty.
But Schäuble bade them go to the Eurozone leaders, saying that he himself had no authority. And when the ambassadors reported to the Greeks this reply, they sent them to the Eurozone leaders.
But when they were at Brussels, near Germany, and the Eurogroup finance ministers learned from them what proposals they were bringing,—the same, namely, as those which they had presented to Schäuble,—they directed them to go back again without coming a step farther and, if they really had any desire for peace, to take better counsel before they returned.
And when the ambassadors reached home and reported this to the people, despondency descended upon all; for they imagined that they would be reduced to slavery, and that while they were sending another set of ambassadors, many would die of the famine.
Nevertheless, no one wanted to make any proposal involving the destruction of the banks or the sale of infrastructure; for when Samaras said in the Senate that it was best to make peace with the Germans on the terms they offered—and the terms were that they should sell some infrastructures and cut the pensions to decrease the public debt,—he was thrown into prison, and a decree was passed forbidding the making of a proposal of this sort.
This being the condition of affairs in Greece, Tsipras said in the Assembly that if they were willing to send him to the Merkel, he would find out before he came back whether the Germans were insistent in the matter of the pensions because they wished to reduce the country to slavery, or in order to obtain a guarantee of good faith. Upon being sent, however, he stayed with Merkel three months and more, waiting for the time when, on account of the failure of provisions, the Greeks would agree to anything and everything which might be proposed.
And when he returned in the fourth month, he reported in the Assembly that Merkel had detained him all this time and had then directed him to go to Brussels, saying that he had no authority in the matters concerning which Tsipras asked for information, but only the Eurogroup finance ministers. After this Tsipras was chosen ambassador to Brussels with full power, being at the head of an embassy of ten.
Merkel meanwhile sent Draghi, an Italian exile, in company with some Germans, to report to the Eurogroup finance ministers that the answer he had made to Tsipras was that she only had authority in the matter of peace and war.
Now when Tsipras and the other ambassadors were at the Eurozone leaders and, on being asked with what proposals they had come, replied that they had full power to treat for peace, the Eurogroup finance ministers thereupon gave orders to summon them to Germany. When they arrived, the Eurogroup finance ministers called an assembly, at which the Finns and Slovaks in particular, though many other Europeans agreed with them, opposed making a treaty with the Greeks and favoured destroying their country.
The Germans, however, said that they would not enslave a European country which had done great service amid the greatest perils that had befallen Europe, and they offered to make peace on these conditions: that the Greeks should destroy the big banks and leave the Euro, surrender all their infrastructures except twelve, allow their exiles to return, count the same people friends and enemies as the Germans did, and follow the Germans both by land and by sea wherever they should lead the way.
So Tsipras and his fellow-ambassadors brought back this word to Greece. And as they were entering the country, a great crowd gathered around them, fearful that they had returned unsuccessful; for it was no longer possible to delay, on account of the number who were dying of the famine.
On the next day the ambassadors reported to the Assembly the terms on which the Germans offered to make peace; Tsipras acted as spokesman for the embassy, and urged that it was best to obey the Germans and tear down the expensive pensions. And while some spoke in opposition to him, a far greater number supported him, and it was voted to accept the peace.
After this Merkel came to Greece, the exiles returned, and the Europeans with great enthusiasm began to tear down the expensive pensions to the music of flute-girls, thinking that that day was the beginning of freedom for Europe.

http://ale.riolo.co.uk/2015/07/pseudoxenophon-pseudohellenica-2210-23.htmlThis work, "Pseudoxenophon pseudohellenica 2.2.10-23", is a derivative of "Xenophon, Hellenica, Carleton L. Brownson, Ed.", Perseus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu), used under CC BY-SA 3.0 US.This derivative work "Pseudoxenophon pseudohellenica 2.2.10-23" is licensed under the same “Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License” (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/) by Alessandro Riolo (http://ale.riolo.co.uk).

Referendum of the 5th July 2015

Should the draft agreement submitted in the Eurogroup meeting of the 25 June 2015 by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and which consists of two documents composing their single proposal, be accepted? 

The first document is entitled "Reforms for the completion of the Current Program and beyond" and the second "Preliminary Debt Sustainability Analysis".

Those citizens of the country rejecting the proposal of the three institutions vote:

Not approved / NO.

Those citizens of the country agreeing with the proposal of the three institutions vote: 

Approved / YES

Greece vs Magna Graecia Under 25 unemployment 1999-2014

Greece had to do quite a catch up to reach the peaks of under 25 unemployment more usual in Magna Graecia. Luckily for the Greeks, in 2014 Campania, Sicily, Apulia and above all Calabria performed worst, truer to their sad tradition:

The Eurostat data used in the diagram above can be found in the "Unemployment rates by sex, age and NUTS 2 regions (%)" dataset (lfst_r_lfu3rt).

Greece vs Magna Graecia economic inactivity rates 1999-2014

Compared with the poorer third of Italy, Greece wouldn't appear to have such a big inactivity issue. Actually, the inactivity rate for the over 15 under 64 population appears to have slightly decreased in recent years:

The Eurostat data used in the diagram above can be found in the "Economic activity rates by sex, age and NUTS 2 regions (%)" dataset (lfst_r_lfp2actrt).

Greece vs Magna Graecia GDP PPS 2000-2013

If Greece will default on its public debt in the next weeks, and the Italian government will ask its Southern states to contribute with more cuts and new taxes to the attempt to cover the gargantuan €65 billion Euros black hole that default may potentially leave on its public accounts, this will be a textbook case of stealing from the poor after giving to the rich:

Note: to compile the diagram above I had to combine the Eurostat "Regional gross domestic product by NUTS 2 regions", a series ending in 2011, with the more recent Istat "Prodotto interno lordo lato produzione", which was published after the introduction of ESA 2010. This involved some fancy transformation including applying the Eurostat purchasing power parities indices on the last couple of years myself. Chances there are that when in a couple of years Eurostat will provide us with an ESA 2010 updated "Regional gross domestic product by NUTS 2 regions" series, I'll have to review the diagram above, but we should not expect its core message to change.

P.S.: the title of the diagram and of the article is a simplification: Sardinia, like Abruzzi or Molise, was never considered part of Magna Graecia, but I did add one and left out the other two. Also, I didn't forget Basilicata, which instead was quite central to the concept of Magna Graecia, but the diagram was already pretty complex, so I decided to leave it out. Basilicata would have fared somewhere half way between Sardinia and Sicily.

Simplify and Shrink

The following scripts sets the non system databases to simple recovery model, and shrinks the related log files:

EXEC sp_MSforeachdb N'IF DatabasePropertyEx(''?'', ''Recovery'')=''FULL''
    and   DatabasePropertyEx(''?'', ''Status'')=''ONLINE''
    and ''?'' not in (''tempdb'') and ''?'' not in (''master'') and ''?'' not in (''model'') and ''?'' not in (''msdb'')
begin
  exec ('' print char(13) + char(10) + ''''Set recovery model to simple for '''' + ''''?'''';
 alter database [?] set recovery simple with NO_WAIT;'')
end'

EXEC sp_MSforeachdb N'IF DatabasePropertyEx(''?'', ''Status'')=''ONLINE''
    and ''?'' not in (''tempdb'') and ''?'' not in (''master'') and ''?'' not in (''model'') and ''?'' not in (''msdb'')
begin
 exec ('' use [?];
 declare @logFile varchar(128);
 select @logFile= mf.name from sys.master_files mf inner join sys.databases db on mf.database_id = db.database_id where type=1 and db.name = ''''?'''';
 print char(13) + char(10) + ''''Shrink ''''+ @logFile + '''' log file of ?'''';
 dbcc shrinkfile (@logFile , 0)
 '')
end'

Caveat: generally, don't use the above or similar scripts in Production, as long as you don't understand and accept the consequences. The Simple recovery model is usually fine in Test or Development environments, but again, it may not be appropriate in many scenarios.

Caveat: always read the message log.

Caveat: the second script assumption is that there is no more than 1 log file per database. If there are multiple log files per database, it would be more sensible to look at a solution which doesn't use sp_MSforeachdb.

Caveat: sp_MSforeachdb is undocumented, and AFAIK unsupported.

Caveat: the code above is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. in no event shall the author be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the software or the use or other dealings in the code above.

PIL pro capite Regionale Italiano vs British Regional per capita GDP

Per capita GDP comparison among british and italian regions (the percent column uses as index the GDP of Lombardia).

Regioni britanniche ed italiane a confronto per PIL pro capite (la colonna percentuale usa come indice il PIL della Lombardia).

	Region | Regione	GDP|PIL	%
UK	Inner London	86,000	254%
UK	North Eastern Scotland	42,700	126%
UK	Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire	38,400	113%
IT	Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano/Bozen	37,700	111%
IT	Lombardia	33,900	100%
IT	Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste	33,700	99%
IT	Emilia-Romagna	32,100	95%
UK	Cheshire	31,700	94%
IT	Provincia Autonoma di Trento	31,200	92%
IT	Veneto	30,200	89%
IT	Lazio	29,900	88%
IT	Friuli-Venezia Giulia	29,600	87%
UK	Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath area	29,400	87%
UK	Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire	28,700	85%
UK	Surrey, East and West Sussex	28,700	85%
IT	Piemonte	28,200	83%
IT	Toscana	28,200	83%
UK	Hampshire and Isle of Wight	27,400	81%
IT	Liguria	27,200	80%
UK	Eastern Scotland	26,200	77%
IT	Marche	26,100	77%
UK	East Anglia	25,200	74%
UK	West Yorkshire	25,000	74%
UK	Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire	24,800	73%
UK	East Wales	24,500	72%
UK	Greater Manchester	24,200	71%
UK	Outer London	24,100	71%
UK	North Yorkshire	24,000	71%
UK	Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire	24,000	71%
UK	South Western Scotland	23,800	70%
IT	Umbria	23,700	70%
UK	West Midlands	23,300	69%
UK	Essex	23,000	68%
UK	Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire	22,700	67%
UK	Kent	22,700	67%
UK	Dorset and Somerset	22,500	66%
IT	Abruzzo	22,400	66%
UK	Cumbria	22,300	66%
UK	Northumberland and Tyne and Wear	22,200	65%
UK	Merseyside	21,600	64%
UK	Devon	21,600	64%
UK	East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire	21,500	63%
UK	Highlands and Islands	21,500	63%
UK	Lancashire	21,000	62%
UK	Northern Ireland	21,000	62%
UK	Shropshire and Staffordshire	20,700	61%
IT	Molise	20,100	59%
UK	South Yorkshire	20,000	59%
UK	Lincolnshire	19,800	58%
IT	Sardegna	19,700	58%
UK	Tees Valley and Durham	19,100	56%
IT	Basilicata	18,300	54%
UK	Cornwall and Isles of Scilly	17,300	51%
UK	West Wales and The Valleys	17,200	51%
IT	Puglia	17,100	50%
IT	Sicilia	16,600	49%
IT	Calabria	16,400	48%
IT	Campania	16,000	47%

Eurostat data 2011 | Dati Eurostat 2011

Michaelmas stigghiola

I spent the summer of 1984 with my grandparents on their summer house on the Nebrodi mountain range, in the north east of Sicily. My parents came to pick me up in late September, and my father choose the fateful 29th September, Michaelmas, to come back home, in western Sicily. At the time there was no motorway between Messina and Buonfornello, where the Northern Sicilian highway was joining the motorway between Palermo and Catania. The Northern Sicilian highway was and actually still is a thinly asphalted Roman consular road, the via Valeria. The only major change since Marcus Valerius Laevinus legion opened it 22 centuries ago is that the western terminus was moved 20 miles north, from Marsala to Trapani. In a good day it was going to take 6 hours to reach Palermo from my grandfather mountain retreat, and the plan was to start at 4 am, and start the crossing of Palermo at 10 am. At that time, the commuting traffic would have been abated, and the hope was to complete the crossing in 1 hour or so. Saint Michael's day, tough, was not going to be a good day.

We managed to reach Palermo in 8 hours, which was putting us at risk of being delayed by the midday congestion. 

What we didn't knew, we couldn't knew, was that a couple of days before, while chatting with a journalist, Giovanni Falcone, who was at the time organising the capture of  more than 400 members of Cosa Nostra, misunderstanding one of the journalist's remarks, suspecting the journalist knew of the incoming draught, decided to close the nets that very morning.

The police surrounded the city like in a siege, and they allowed cars and buses and trains and people to come in. But not to leave.

It was the greatest traffic jam of my life.

Palermo doesn't have a beltway. It had one in the 50s, via Regione Siciliana, again, a mere variant of via Valeria, but the furious development of the 60s quickly moved that well inside the city. Traditionally, in via Regione Siciliana you feel inside Palermo from the crossing with via Oreto in the east to the crossing with via Belgio in the west (the two intersections are now roundabouts). Palermo is actually wider than that, but these 7 and a half miles are usually the main obstacle in the crossing. During a day without much congestion, and if no ones has committed suicide on the Corleone Bridge, you would expect to take half an hour to 1 hour from the two intersections. That Michaelmas it took my father 12 hours.

Most of these 12 hours were spent in absolute immobility. It looked like a movie, people were mulling around, chatting, rumours were spreading. In a fact finding mission with my dad, I heard people talking about a nuclear war between the Soviets and the Americans, a third world war, an invasion of Europe by the Soviets. My father didn't believe any of the rumours, but asked me not to report those to my mother.

We discovered the truth late in the evening, after my father got his hand on a copy of the L'Ora, which was for almost 92 years the evening newspaper of Palermo. We had been caught in the St Michael's Day great blitz.

After more than 30 years, I have a confession to make: I do remember that day, not for the traffic jam, not for the rumours, not for the thirst, not for the collective madness, but because I made my acquaintance with one of the most revered street foods of Palermo: the stigghiola.

That day I had panelle, crocchette, spleen, but you can have those all around western Sicily. To be honest, I can make myself a better spleen sandwich at home than any stall in Palermo, and that's not hard really, I'd not use lungs, just spleen, and probably a much better oil. But buying stigghiola under a bridge in via Regione Siciliana was totally a different story. I say was, because I strongly suspect the rule of law may have finally found a way to kill this very ancient tradition. The reason you could find stigghiola only in Palermo was that this is a typical Albanian dish, and the only western Sicilian city where you could historically find Albanians was Palermo. People from Mazara, Trapani, Marsala, Sciacca, Alcamo or Agrigento may have heard of stigghiola, but while they would have had first hand knowledge and cultural familiarity of panelle or arancine, the stigghiola would have felt completely foreign. Not to Palermitans, obviously. Until legal, or at least until it was allowed, the stigghiola was the crowned king of the panormitan street food.

In that fateful Michaelmas my father managed to crawl the car just in the right place. At dinner time, a chap with a portable stall came around, fired the barbecue, and started to sell stigghiola. Thanks to this sheer luck, we managed to grab a few portions, with real bread, well before the scent reached the rest of the horde.

I ate stigghiola many more times in my life, but they never tasted half as good as that night.

University qualifications: Italy vs UK

The following table describes the equivalence among the Italian and British university qualifications as understood by myself at this point in time:

Please note in Italian universities the unit of credit, the Credito Formativo Universitario (CFU) is equivalent to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) unit, while in British universities two Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS) units are equivalent to one ECTS.

This explains why we need 180 CFU to gain a Laurea, and why that should be equivalent to the 360 CATS required for a Bachelor's Degree with Honours.

Some caveat:

• In EU or EEA countries the only organizations who can officially confirm an academic equivalence is the local NARIC. 
• The Italian NARIC or the British NARIC could have different ideas on how the respective university qualifications compare one each other, they may actually even have different ideas or understanding, the table above is based on my own understanding of the respective legal and qualification frameworks.
• I am neither a solicitor, neither in any way related to any NARIC, so if you need an official statement, please go ask the specific NARIC, and if they don't agree with my understanding or with your expectations, tough luck.
• You could make a case for the Master Universitario di 2° livello to be equivalent to a short Professional Doctorate, which unfortunately doesn't exist in the British qualification framework.
• On the same note, I would probably equate a short (60 CFU) Diploma di Specializzazione di 2° livello to a Master of Philosophy with some study performed at level 8, or if the element of research was over 60 CFU, to a Research Master (MRes or MLitt), even though both these British qualifications are meant to be at level 7.

Comparative attractiveness of London for working newcomers from six selected countries in 2013/14

A notorious old saying was suggesting that London streets may be paved with gold, even though, as the good old Dick Whittington discovered the hard way all this time ago, this may be practically true only for a very selected bold and lucky few. A multitude of newcomers lands every given year in London nonetheless, hoping perhaps to follow the footsteps of that medieval merchant, "Sir" Richard Whittington, whose rags to riches life inspired the folk tale which popularised the old saying.

While London is seen as a city of opportunity from people from the most disparate, and often desperate, corners of the earth, people from different countries are attracted by London at different levels of intensity. We may in example choose a random sample of six selected countries, let's say: Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Germany. By utter chance, all of six those countries are Eurozone member states. Would you expect the active population of the countries in this sample to be attracted by London at the same level of intensity? If so, the following chart may come as a surprise:



The chart is trying to show the comparative attractiveness of London for working newcomers from six selected countries in 2013/14. Specifically, on the right hand side of the chart, the number of new NINo registrants are adjusted to take in account the different sizes of the respective active population in the country of origin, using Germany as pivot, to visualize the comparative attractiveness of London for working newcomers from six selected countries in 2013/14.

Given that the Dublin to London is the busiest passenger air international route, and in general the short distance and the historical ties, it should come to no surprise that Irish are particularly sensitive to the charm of the modern Babylon. Historical ties come possibly into play to help explain the Portuguese fascination with our much desired Cockaigne, as there must be a reason why the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, well into its seventh consecutive century of life, is the oldest alliance in the world that is still in force. On the other hand, while it is not surprising that, given the current status of the national economy in both Spain and Italy, people from both those countries may currently feel lured by London more than in any other time in recent decades, it is somewhat puzzling to note that Greeks appear slightly less enthralled than their Mediterranean counterparts. Last but not least, looking at how hard is for London to attract Germans, one wonders if this behaviour may be not so much linked with the state of the German economy, but to a completely different class of non economic related issues.

Spaniards vs Poles when starting to work in London: borough by borough

While Spaniards and Italians appear to share a very similar taste regarding the London boroughs of choice when moving in London, the comparison with the Poles suggests a somewhat different story:



Also in this case, this divergence doesn't appear to be just due recent fads (albeit in this 12 years time frame the two series aren't clearly of the same order of magnitude):

Spaniards and Italians starting to work in London: a shared experience?

When they start to work in London after moving to the UK for the first time, Spaniards and Italians appears to share a very similar taste for a specific set of London boroughs:



This doesn't actually appear to be a recent phenomenon, but it has been amazingly consistent in the last dozen years:

Where Spaniards go to live after landing in London?

In which district are Spaniards living the very first time they start to work in London?



Now, how that compares with, say, Italians or Poles?

People in employment: 2012-2013 differential by London borough of residence

People living in Lambeth and Barnet appears to be sharing the lions' share of the recent surge in job creation in London:

On the other hand Southwark and Greenwich didn't have a great job market year.

As a term of comparison, this is what happened in the last 8 years:

Italian migration increase in London: which borough is seeing the greater impact?

On which borough are we noticing the greater impact of the recent increase of Italian migration in London?

The following chart is a proposed raw measure elaborated on https://www.nomisweb.co.uk data, retrieved from the London Data Store.


Impact of Italian first time workers on London job market by London borough of residence 2013-14

The measure is a raw one [1], and it doesn't have any other particular meaning than to show the impact those incoming Italians may have on the working population dynamics of a given borough.
To be absolutely clear, this doesn't show, actually cannot show, if Italians may be taking all new local jobs, or that they may be "stealing" jobs to people previously living on a particular borough, but it is more of measure of how much Italians tend or like to move in on a specific borough when they first enter the job market in London, in relation to that borough job market dynamics.

Italians may be pouring on Brent, but this may merely means that the decrease of the number of local active participants in the job market may be partially due local people finding better jobs and moving to other districts, as they are substituted by Italians (and perhaps other overseas workers) with lower job perspectives.

[1] it is basically a ratio of the number of NINo registered for the first time to people moving in UK from Italy to the number of job positions created by and for residents of a given borough in the given year, in case of job creation, or otherwise to the number of job position destroyed by and for residents of a given borough in the given year plus the number of NINo registered for the first time to people moving in UK from Italy, in case of job destruction, my Excel formula reads as:

=IF('2005-2013'!AW4 [less than] 0,(1+ABS('2013 Overseas Pressure'!C5/'2005-2013'!AW4))*100,(100*'2013 Overseas Pressure'!C5)/'2005-2013'!AW4)

This cannot show incoming Italians are taking all new jobs on a particular borough as the borough referred is the area of residence, not necessarily where they found their first job.

Where are Italians living when they start to work in London?

When they start to work in London after moving to the UK for the first time, Italians appear to like more some districts (i.e. Westminster) and to dislike some other (i.e. Havering).

The following chart should give a more complete view of the Italians' preferences:


Please note the chart axis  is logarithmic, in base 2, so each larger circle is representing a doubling in population.

A tale of two boroughs: Italians landing in Kensington and Chelsea vs Tower Hamlets 2002 - 2014

In absolute terms, the number of Italians being issued their first national insurance number (NINo) in Kensington and Chelsea more than doubled between the 2002/03 and the 2013/14 fiscal years.
On the other hand, while up to and including the 2004/05 fiscal year the Italians starting their London working life were landing in Kensington and Chelsea in almost twice the number of those landing in the less affluent borough of Tower Hamlets, since then the latter has seen an Italian invasion: in 2013/14 the number of Italians starting their working life in UK moving to Tower Hamlets has increased more than fifteenfold!
The following chart graphically describes the relative comparison between the two boroughs: Italians are clearly flocking to Tower Hamlets.

While Tower Hamlets is less affluent than Kensington and Chelsea, its average income is still higher than the average income of more than half of Italy. Charts describing a very similar dynamics could be produced using Brent, Haringey or Lambeth in the place of Tower Hamlets, while the raise of Italian immigration to Newham or Waltham Forest appears to have picked up only in the last couple of years.