It's always interesting to see how newspapers are able to conjure vastly different headlines and stories from the same facts. One of the issues that gets the most hyperbolic reaction in the press is immigration. The Sun, Daily Mail and Express frequently talk of "floods" or "stampedes" of immigrants.

The release last week of Home Office statistics on the number of economic migrants from Bulgaria and Romania, who joined the EU at the start of 2007, needless to say, provoked a series of blustering headlines from right-wing tabloids none of whom can agree on the figures.

The Express ran with "92,000 east Europeans milk our benefits" adding that a "flood" of migrants had left taxpayers with a £102 million bill. The paper claimed that more than 4,500 "Eastern Europeans" were arriving in the UK. However, the Mail (which also cited "official figures") contended that the true figure was 120 Romanian and Bulgarian per day (fewer than 1,000 per week).

Meanwhile, the Guardian pointed out that "only 8,000 Romanian and Bulgarian migrants came to work in Britain the first three months after their countries joined the EU", noting that this figure was far lower than the claim made by certain tabloids that 300,000 would enter the UK. Indeed, the Scotsman continued in a similar vein, stating that "fewer than 200 migrants from Romania and Bulgaria applied for national insurance numbers to work in Scotland".

I'm sure I am not the only one to be slightly bemused by the disparity between these figures. Certainly, you could be forgiven for thinking that some sections of the right-wing press are fiddling the figures to fit their distortions about immigration levels.