Best Of

On topic, I think one of the big underappreciated things above the move from EU immigration to non-EU immigration is that a substantial minority of EU migrants never intended to stay in the UK. A lot came over for a few years to improve their English (and their job prospects) or to earn some cash and to save up for a property in Poland, and then returned home. We can see that in the current negative net-EU migration numbers, which means there has been essentially zero net migration from the EU since 2015.

By contrast, a much larger percentage of non-EU migrants are coming to the UK for life: this isn't about earning some extra money, or getting some additional skills - it's about a permanent shift of residence.

This means that a much higher proportion of gross migrant numbers are likely to stay in the UK than in the past.

There's also a lot more "gaming" of the system than previously.

Take study visas. Historically (i.e. before 2020), the vast, vast majority returned home - it was comfortably north of 80%, with the remainder either marrying a Brit, taking another study visa, or (for less than 10%) shifting to a work visa.

By contrast, on the Migration Observatory link I posted earlier, almost one-in-five people on study visas change to a work visa inside the first year! (Historically the number was under 2%, and were almost entirely university jobs.)

The US does many things wrong, but one thing it does do right is that it requires people to return to their home country to apply for a new visa type. You can't come to the US on a non-immigrant visa (like the one I have), and the just shift over to an immigrant one. If you want an immigrant visa, you need to return to your home country, and start the application process all over.

When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force?
Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?

We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.

If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.

That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.

Care requires zero qualifications and 81% of the UK work in the Service Sector.

Maybe if care homes paid the people cleaning the shit off your elderly relative more than a coffee shop pays a barista or a restaurant pays wait staff, then they'd be able to find people who can fill the vacancies.

Why do you think so little of the people cleaning the shit off your elderly relative that you think they have no right to any more than minimum wage?

And we can automate away barista jobs etc by investing in machinery that does the work.

I'm happy for them to get paid more, but it's taxpayers paying it so which taxes are going up or what spending is getting cut?

Cut the triple lock and pay more to people working for a living and less to people living on benefits. Pay the people looking after the elderly at least as well as the elderly themselves.

Next question?

Why can't you come up with a solution that's politically viable?

It's impossible to get elected on a manifesto commitment of ditching the triple lock so you might as well you'll pay care workers by pissing crypto.

The Government has already been elected and it was elected by working age people, not pensioners, who were the only class of people who lost the election by voting for the Conservatives. More pensioners will be voting Tory/Reform than Labour at the next election regardless of what the Government does.

If they can't do the right thing, having won a landslide election victory without pensioner votes, they don't deserve to be re-elected.

We saw the typhoon of piss over means testing the WFA. Removing the triple lock without a manifesto commitment would that to the power of 9-11. So you can go on about doing what's right, in your chiaroscuro view, but the government can only do what's politically feasible without leading to a backbench rebellion, polling catastrophe or both.

On topic, yes, insurgent parties *can* surge and fade. 1981-2 was an excellent example of that. So was 2019.

(Sidenote: the SDP was led by Roy Jenkins at that point; Owen didn't take over until after the 1983 election)

But while that can (and more often than not does), happen, it's not inevitable. The decline of both the Brexit Party, Change UK and the Lib Dems in the second half of 2019 was down to strategic errors they all made, combined with decisions made within Labour and, especially, the Tories; also, of key individuals and events.

Had Benn defeated Healey in Labour's Deputy Leadership contest, there's good evidence that that would have prompted a further and larger wave of defections - both strengthening the SDP and radicalising what was left of Labour towards the Hard Left.

Likewise, in 2019, Tom Watson was widely speculated to be considering defecting to Change UK but opted not to. Had he done so - in particular, had he done so early enough to knock some sense into their plans - that could have changed the whole future of the centre-left. But he didn't; he just faded away offstage. Meanwhile, Johnson replaced May, and Farage chose to neuter the BxP. None of which was inevitable.

And now? Labour is weak and directionless. It has lost all sense of mission and core values, which is confusing and demoralising members, activists and voters alike, while implementing policies that are by turn ineffective and unpopular. The Tories haven't come to terms with their loss and are caught between taking Reform on (which they won't) or trying to do Reform better (which they can't). Unless one or both of these change, the drift of voters away from what was once the Big Two will continue.

Obviously, Reform is not a passive player in this and while it clearly has campaigning and membership strengths, it has multiple weaknesses too, from its candidates and lack of leading players beyond Farage to its lack of experience. But the post-2008 era suggests that a lack of experience isn't the barrier it once was. The rise of populist parties around the world, including into government, is a common trend and Britain is no different. In a FPTP five-party system, where you can get a majority on 30%, Farage as PM is not at all an absurd prospect, particularly when tactical voting may be limited by the unpopularity of the two historic big parties and a lack of clear direction on where the tactical votes need to go.

Will Labour find some backbone? Who knows but I'm sceptical. Will the Tories find their mojo and some contrition? Doubtful. Will they find a new leader? Probably. Will he (probably he) be more effective? Unlikely when the same basic problem persists. Will the Tories look for a deal with Reform? Maybe but I don't see why Farage would agree to it right now under anything other than very favourable terms; terms that would probably be unacceptable to too many of the remaining Tory MPs.

Put simply, this time does feel different.

So from yesterday govts are accepting migration in the tens of thousands is not going to be happening.

We are still looking at around 240,000 net migration a year. Hardly insubstantial.

We are looking at the Boriswave being given ILR after five years with the net burden to the taxpayer that brings.

We are looking at controlling migration, not stopping it. Of course there is nothing wrong with that as there is nothing wrong with those who want unlimited mass inward migration like the handful on here crying about the speech yesterday.

It’s hardly an act worth of the Far right or Enoch Powell. The speech was measured and balanced. From the responses of some you’d think we were deporting people and going for net negative migration.

However what we do need to do is plan and out the jnfrastructure in place to accommodate our new citizens.

Why will the Boriswave be a net burden when given ILR? They're of working age, and the younger end of that. In 5 years time, they will generally be paying plenty of tax and be net contributors to the state.

No-one on PB yesterday called for "unlimited mass inward migration". That's a bit of straw man.

Minimum wage workers are not net tax contributors and your obsession with working age people as if they're all contributors is pure dishonesty. What accruals are you putting down for the fact that people with ILR get pensions?

To claim the taxes from work (not that there is much on minimum wage) but not the liabilities from pension accruals is totally dishonest. Accruals need to be counted any true accounting.

How do you even measure net contribution accurately? A healthcare assistant in the NHS might take more out in tax than they pay in, for example, but they’re still performing a vital service for the nation that cannot be measured in revenue terms. Their contribution also may enable others to get out of hospital quicker and make more money for the country. How is that contribution measured?

Likewise a minimum wage worker in a care home frees up family members to continue working full time. How do you measure that contribution?

This quickly becomes absurd. Farmers are massive net beneficiaries of the state via subsidies, yet all those on high salaries in London depend on them for food. Wages are a very poor indicator of how someone contributes to the economy and tax revenues.

Morning all. Can I go briefly off-topic for a second. As I recover from last week's mental health crisis I realise that I've not just stepped back from the metaphorical ledge temporarily, it feels like a storm which has blown itself out.

I'm going to talk this stuff through with a counsellor so that I can cement it all in place, but I can look back over some of the things I have said and done in the midst of what had been a crisis for months and think "hmmmm". A few repairs needed here and there which I'm now getting on with.

You can't instantly declare yourself better - and I'm not. But having spent ages pogoing up and down with increasing speed into the mental crash stops at top and bottom, this feels completely different, and its quite exciting to now hope that I can be past my funky worst. I've identified a list of changes I needed to make and they're in place.

I may not have been quite with it with some of the more reactive stuff I have posted on here so apologies to anyone who was on the receiving end. And hat-tip to @Leon who could could see it from a mile off even when I couldn't.

Good morning

I really respect your post and having had family members with serious PTSD and other mental health issues you must be kind to yourself and hopefully benefit from counselling

You do give me the impression you have an awful lot of commitments. and managing everything you do must be stressful at times

All the best

Good morning from deep, and I mean deep, Kent.
I am down the end of a Wealden Way so remote there is no internet apart from Starlink.

Are you in a Reform or a Lib Dem council ward, though? Kent has become one of few true LD-Ref battlegrounds. The Weald is about 50:50, with a smattering of Tories left.

And good morning from a beautiful sunny Broad street in Oxford, freshly car free thanks to the Oxford low traffic zone and much the better for it, where I’m having a coffee before heading home. I was here yesterday at an event at the business school and then a nice dinner at Balliol sitting next to Paul Johnson who’s retiring from the IFS and taking up a new role as provost of the Queens college.


2 observations:

1. There are few experiences more satisfying to me than a coffee outside on the street on a cool but bright morning. It’s up there with a beer garden on a hazy afternoon. But crucially it must be a bit cool. The temperature here is cool enough, just. Is it just me?

2. Why does Oxford feel so different from almost all other British towns? Not the murder rate - Midsomer is worse - nor the fact it’s Oxbridge (Cambridge is very different - more on that later). I think it’s that Oxford is basically a French town.

The golden limestone buildings. The monuments, the tourist hordes. The mix of mediaeval and 18th century architecture, and vast amounts of 19th century mediaeval pastiche so accurate that most tourists assume it’s old. The mix of wide boulevards and narrow walled streets. It could be Beaune or Uzes or any number of provincial French towns.

Cambridge on the other hand is basically a Flemish town on the Bruges-Gent-Antwerp model, only without the vast heavy industry in the outskirts.

So from yesterday govts are accepting migration in the tens of thousands is not going to be happening.

We are still looking at around 240,000 net migration a year. Hardly insubstantial.

We are looking at the Boriswave being given ILR after five years with the net burden to the taxpayer that brings.

We are looking at controlling migration, not stopping it. Of course there is nothing wrong with that as there is nothing wrong with those who want unlimited mass inward migration like the handful on here crying about the speech yesterday.

It’s hardly an act worth of the Far right or Enoch Powell. The speech was measured and balanced. From the responses of some you’d think we were deporting people and going for net negative migration.

However what we do need to do is plan and out the jnfrastructure in place to accommodate our new citizens.

I don't know how we build housing for 240,000 per year.

I'd suggest mostly with bricks. Glass for the windows. Hope that helps.