Best Of

I was surprised to see anti-migrant protest are taking place in a town not far from where I grew up: Horley in Surrey. Surely the post boring place in human history. Even its name is just a dreary amalgamation of those of the two nearby towns Horsham and Crawley (not particularly exciting places in themselves).

The liberal consensus is breaking down. In real-time. I can even see aspects of it fraying amongst professional middle-class people, although more cautiously and with caveats.

I don't necessarily welcome this. I've considered myself pretty liberal in the past: a believer in openness, being reasonable, free debate, a supporter of moderate migration, sceptical of ID cards, hating detention without due cause, cherishing fair rights and responsibilities, open and free trade, and international rule of law.

However, this is all breaking down because of an absolute refusal of the governing elites to compromise, and an extraordinary level of resistance to any idea that there's even a problem - let alone that they should reform - to provide answers to the problems of today; their only response seemingly to be to clamp down on dissent and double-down on hyperliberalism.

In their determination to not give an inch anywhere, they risk losing everything. And plenty of them will never see it coming until it's far far too late, and then blame anyone but themselves.

I think it is incompetence, rather than malice. (Or a refusal to compromise.)

Take the Conservative administrations under Johnson and Sunak and the issue of immigration.

They miscalculated how many people would come on the skilled worker program, and set the salary limits far too low. They miscalculated how many visa dependents would come when they opened up academic study visas. And they allowed themselves to be scared by representatives of the care homes community about worker shortages.

All of those mistakes were recognised, and changes were made. But changes were made three years after it became clear there was a problem.

The number of student visas is down sharply. The minimum salary is up dramatically.

The errors were (a) miscalculation, and (b) taking years to correct their errors.

Good businesses run on incrementalism. We have targets. If we see numbers are way out of line from what we expected, we don't commission a study, that reports back at some point in the future. We say "this number is out of whack: what is the simplest, quickest, easiest way of solving it, without causing issues down the line."

So, for the salary limit, when it was clear we were getting 3x the expected number of people, the salary limit should have ben increased by (say) 10% after three months. And if that didn't change the numbers enough, you can move it by a further 20% two months after that.

The difference between successful and unsuccessful businesses is being responsive to data.

And the Conservative government was woefully slow to respond. The models said [x] people would come, and - such is human nature - you say "oh, it's temporary, it will change". No! Be responsive, because responsiveness works in two ways.

Not getting any student visa applications, and you expected 25,000: well, maybe we can loosen up the requirements. But be constantly responsive to the data, while being very open about your targets.

The Pakistanis who apply for asylum are routinely refused are they not? And subsequently deported.

And the Bangladeshis IIRC.

Yes, nearly all of them.

Where are you getting your evidence from, because the Oxford Migration Observatory's figures from 2024 show a 51% initial grant rate for Pakistan. That's not including appeals or subsequent legal challenges. That is not being 'routinely refused' and it's certainly not 'nearly all of them' being deported. It is in fact an eye-watering grant rate from a relatively safe country.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/

There could be a lot of Christians, or gays

And? Pakistan is a huge country of 255m people. If you have upset those in your neighbourhood whether because of your religion, your sexual orientation or your actions, move. Its not a reason to come here. Its not our problem. And why the hell are 6% of Indian applicants getting asylum after appeals? The score from both of these countries should be zero. We need to start getting real about this or the whole system will be overthrown.

I was surprised to see anti-migrant protest are taking place in a town not far from where I grew up: Horley in Surrey. Surely the post boring place in human history. Even its name is just a dreary amalgamation of those of the two nearby towns Horsham and Crawley (not particularly exciting places in themselves).

The liberal consensus is breaking down. In real-time. I can even see aspects of it fraying amongst professional middle-class people, although more cautiously and with caveats.

I don't necessarily welcome this. I've considered myself pretty liberal in the past: a believer in openness, being reasonable, free debate, a supporter of moderate migration, sceptical of ID cards, hating detention without due cause, cherishing fair rights and responsibilities, open and free trade, and international rule of law.

However, this is all breaking down because of an absolute refusal of the governing elites to compromise, and an extraordinary level of resistance to any idea that there's even a problem - let alone that they should reform - to provide answers to the problems of today; their only response seemingly to be to clamp down on dissent and double-down on hyperliberalism.

In their determination to not give an inch anywhere, they risk losing everything. And plenty of them will never see it coming until it's far far too late, and then blame anyone but themselves.

The one thing we need to continue to resist is ID cards imo.

I've somewhat changed my mind. These are normal in Bulgaria, where my wife is from, and just like a driving licence. People aren't reguarly demanded to supply them.

And we don't really have any privacy anyway. We are all tracked and monitored with our data and phones wherever we go, and our ISPs and Chatbots know everything about us.

If an ID card could be disaggregated from all other databases and shown to make it impossible to work as an illegal migrant, and aid deportations, and deter new arrivals, I might take a different view now to what I did in 2006-2008.

why not just use driving licence, even if you don't drive you can get a provisional. Our lot will squander billions on a shit solution

Quite. The issue with ID cards is not the cards, it is the wide ranging surveillance powers that the British state is drooling like a hungry labrador at bringing in alongside the ID cards. They simply cannot be trusted with these powers. I wouldn't trust them with a paperclip I was fond of.

On topic this is a lay for me. I cannot see Reform having this sort of breakthrough, notwithstanding the pathetic performances of both Labour and the Tories. I still bear the scars of the SDP when we naively believed that we could break through the old duopoly and provide Thatcherite economics with Labour compassion. I think the SDP were far, far more user friendly than Reform will ever be, able to gain votes from both the left and the right. And yet we failed.

Reform show signs of winning over the socially conservative Labour element, the sort that voted for Brexit despite the attitudes of the Labour metropolitan elite. But I can't believe that they can win enough from that segment or the Tory right to give them the plurality they need. We shall see, maybe this is just wishful thinking. I believe the UK is better than this.

Yes I agree.
I suspect the prospect of a Reform government will focus voters on the anti reform option, not entirely unlike what we saw with corbyn.

Has a party ever gone from not being the official opposition to leading a government/winning most seats?

Records are there to be broken..😏

My friend with a large vinyl collection didn't appreciate it when I brought that attitude along.

Professor David “there’s gonna be a civil war” Betz might be feeling smug this morning

Looks like some flag hangers were attacked with petrol bombs last night. We can’t know for sure but the video is convincing

If this is true this is exactly what he’s been predicting. The “locals” will react with displays of anger and protests, but then THOSE will be met with violence from others. And so it spirals

https://x.com/journojones05/status/1959172414065009083?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

I don't know why you encourage this. It is appalling. It is also very sad if the flag of St George and Union Jack become associated with extreme right wing groups once more. For decades from the 70s it was an embarrassment to hang out these flags without being associated with the BNP or football thugs. They had hijacked them. Finally we got to the stage where you could display these flags with pride without being a racist or thug. You are encouraging the undoing of all of that once more. Shame on you and those doing this.

To add evidence to that it is clearly localised in areas where conflict is more likely. Where I live in a posh bit of Surrey there is not a single flag to be seen. In Southwold the only flags are the ones that have always been there.

Again, how am I “encouraging” violent attacks on flag hangers? Show me

The centrist Dorks on PB want to blame me for what is happening out there in the UK, and for me telling them about it. I like to think I’m a powerful and influential figure in the lithic sex toy carving business, but no I do not control the actions and beliefs of millions of people around the UK. Get a grip

Well you are certainly encouraging it. Definition: 'giving someone support or confidence; supportive'

There you go. I have shown you. That was easy. Next.

I accept you are not very good at it, but that wasn't the challenge.

At most, I’m encouraging people to put up patriotic flags. But I’m not even sure I’ve done that particularly. I’ve noted that it’s happening, is more the case

You’ll be pushed to find a comment where I encourage people to attack the flag hangers

You are revelling in it. And let's be clear you are not encouraging them to put up patriotic flags for patriotic reasons, you are doing it to provoke a response and you said so in one of your posts the other days. You were enjoying the prospect of such. But you have made your account private so I can't easily go and find that post. How about unprivatising your posts so we can see these posts and compare to your claim here.

Well it looks like you’re about to drive me off the site

See you tomorrow.

GP appointments problem has been in existence for 20+ years. However, in the meantime every other industry now has online booking, online chat, DMs, including getting medication from online drug providers. Its crazy we are still having the same discussion about GPs.

My response to that is why wasn't there a problem 25 or 30 years ago? You could ring up your surgery or turn up in person to make an appointment, and most of the time there weren't any significant problems. You'd get an appointment within a reasonable time.

Partly it is fewer WTE GPs per capita, partly an ageing population (demand goes up sharply with age) and partly that hospital staff dump more work on GPs via discharging patients much earlier. So demand exceeds supply. It really isn't difficult to figure out.

Streetings plan is to divert funding away from hospitals and into primary care. He realises that is where 90% of NHS contact is.

The average person in their 40s contributes a net £20k per year to the exchequer. The average person in their 90s costs the government £50k per year. Pretty much everything around our public services and public finances stems from this fact and the changing ratio of elderly to working age people.

No, it doesn't. Demographic change is relatively minor reason for the increase in public spending. England's demographics in particular aren't too bad at all due to immigration over the last 30 years. In terms of tax, economic participation rates and hours worked are much bigger drivers than demographics.

I don't think people can grasp just how quickly health spending is increasing. You'd have to have extraordinary increases in people aged 70+ to account for it (or babies), but demographic change is slow and incremental. Other spending is actually growing quite slowly or not at all, with the exception of political choices like defence.

Demographics are a useful scapegoat for people trying to avoid confronting the current fiscal challenges in my experience. Ultimately it's a political choice.

Respectfully disagree. The ratio of elderly to working age people has risen significantly in the last twenty years and has driven the rise in health spending as well as other age related spending. The ratio will continue to rise and continue to drive a worsening in the fiscal outlook. This is true not just in the UK but across the developed world (and will be far worse in some other countries, incidentally). There is already a robust positive relationship between government debt levels across countries and the old age dependency ratio.
Check out eg the OBR's 2024 fiscal risk and long term projections document.
All of the rise in government spending in the last thirty years has been driven by three items: health, welfare (including pensions) and debt service. Overall spending on everything else as a share of GDP has gone down. Of course how to deal with this is a political choice. Unfortunately, the electorate don't seem alert to the realities of the situation, and reject things like raising the pension age in line with life expectancy. Even small things like means testing the WFA are shot down.
Government debt across the developed world is a Ponzi scheme.

GP appointments problem has been in existence for 20+ years. However, in the meantime every other industry now has online booking, online chat, DMs, including getting medication from online drug providers. Its crazy we are still having the same discussion about GPs.

My response to that is why wasn't there a problem 25 or 30 years ago? You could ring up your surgery or turn up in person to make an appointment, and most of the time there weren't any significant problems. You'd get an appointment within a reasonable time.

Partly it is fewer WTE GPs per capita, partly an ageing population (demand goes up sharply with age) and partly that hospital staff dump more work on GPs via discharging patients much earlier. So demand exceeds supply. It really isn't difficult to figure out.

Streetings plan is to divert funding away from hospitals and into primary care. He realises that is where 90% of NHS contact is.

A bit more data here.

Over 1000 fewer WTE GPs over the last decade, and average list size increase of 319 per GP over that decade and 44% of appointments the same day.

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice-data-analysis

General Practice is really struggling, which in turn puts massive pressure on hospital emergency departments, and on Social Care.