No more than what many PBers who also have told Africans to have fewer kids have said.
However despite being a diehard constitutional monarchist I do respectfully take a slightly different view on this to his royal highness.
Africa has the lowest carbon emissions of any continent on earth oiutside Antartica so I don't think has much negative impact on the environment from its birthrate. Protecting endangered species is also more to do with rangers and stopping poachers and the ivory trade than the African birth rate and HRH should focus on the good work he has done on that
"How did a boy from Iraq who spoke no English come to this country and become Minister for Education? Because this is the greatest country in the world" - Nadhim Zahawi https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1463637249392791556
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
Just means there will be a poor General copping the blame when he fails to achieve the impossible. It simply isn't possible to 100% police the French shoreline...
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
"How did a boy from Iraq who spoke no English come to this country and become Minister for Education? Because this is the greatest country in the world" - Nadhim Zahawi https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1463637249392791556
Often claim they don't speak french, so prefer to come to England. Yet Zahawi shoots that fox right there, in your own post...
Its genuinely depressing reading some of BJO's posts because they are so disconnected from reality.
The idea that SKS is "expelling Jews" is weaponised levels of wrong. A small number of members expelled for their association with proscribed bodies happen to be Jewish. They're expelled for supporting things like Labour against the Witchhunt, not because they are Jewish. To purport that to be the case is pretty twisted.
Whereas in Corbyn's day the doors were opened wide to the cranks and hardcore anti-semites. Then Labour members who were Jewish left in their droves having been targeted by the party for being Jewish.
Anti-semitism seems to be the racism that doesn't get counted as racism. As David Baddiel's awful/brilliant book puts it, "Jews Don't Count". The quicker the anti-semites and their supporters are removed from Labour the better.
Genuine question, and I haven't read the book, why 'awful/brilliant'?
Its brilliantly written and compelling. But the subject matter is awful, its a tear-down littered with examples of how anti-semitism is ignored as the acceptable racism. How when Jews point this out they are marginalised and ignored. Its hard to review such a book as just "brilliant!" when its telling you bad things about society you don't want to like.
I fear BJO is lost to the hard left echo chamber. There is one of these in every CLP. Unremittingly hyperbolic and vitriolic. Whilst they’re vocal and, like cult members, impossible to argue with, they are few in number and completely unrepresentative.
It's your party now.
Re there's "one in every CLP"
Membership in Chesterfield down from 832 to 671 since SKS came to power.
161 reduction in that CLP is a small number (19%) vast majority of those will not vote Labour under SKS though.
Would that be the same Chesterfield that had a Labour majority of 13,598 in 2015 . . . but a Labour majority of 1,451 in 2019? 🤔
Yep the same one that elected a LD MP twice under Blair, that one.
Yes. They had a proper Blairite blue Tory lickspittle of a Labour MP didn't they. No wonder they voted him out in 2001.
Reg Race, the candidate,was a right winger yes.
Correct
Got it. So in protest of the retirement of Tony Benn, they voted LibDem because...? Are you saying the LibDem vote was the left wing vote in Chesterfield in 2001? I thought we were all yellow Tories?
No Paul Holmes was more left wing than Reg Race and there were 2 other more left wing candidates than either of them. I voted Labour but LD in 2005
As you know most people vote on National politics Blair was so unpopular in Chesterfield Labour lost in 2001 and 2005.
You should stick to Constituencies you know about mate..
May I ask a question BJO? I used to know the area a little back in the mid-90s: how has the social make-up of the Chesterfield/Brimington/Staveley area changed in the last couple of decades? Do you see it as becoming more middle class, less working class? Or has it not really changed?
I would say overall it probably has become more middle class. Loads of new housing in Chesterfield. Brimington North hasn't been affected as much as the Tapton side of Brimington. Staveley less so although that may change as the Barrow Hill side of Staveley is getting major funding via the New Deal.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
Sorry, but they're coming anyway. Putting daily caps on the processing might ease the crossing (maybe that's naive).
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
Its genuinely depressing reading some of BJO's posts because they are so disconnected from reality.
The idea that SKS is "expelling Jews" is weaponised levels of wrong. A small number of members expelled for their association with proscribed bodies happen to be Jewish. They're expelled for supporting things like Labour against the Witchhunt, not because they are Jewish. To purport that to be the case is pretty twisted.
Whereas in Corbyn's day the doors were opened wide to the cranks and hardcore anti-semites. Then Labour members who were Jewish left in their droves having been targeted by the party for being Jewish.
Anti-semitism seems to be the racism that doesn't get counted as racism. As David Baddiel's awful/brilliant book puts it, "Jews Don't Count". The quicker the anti-semites and their supporters are removed from Labour the better.
Genuine question, and I haven't read the book, why 'awful/brilliant'?
Its brilliantly written and compelling. But the subject matter is awful, its a tear-down littered with examples of how anti-semitism is ignored as the acceptable racism. How when Jews point this out they are marginalised and ignored. Its hard to review such a book as just "brilliant!" when its telling you bad things about society you don't want to like.
Cheers for explaining. I thought that was what you meant. A bit like the 'like' button on PB for posts that are describing awful things, you don't want to come across as liking the thing, rather than the post!
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
From memory, the French didn't want as doing that because it would encourage even more refugees to converge on Calais.
I asked this last night and I don't think anyone replied (I disappeared off to listen about the IPR for a couple of hours)
What is the desired result for most people arriving on a beach in Kent. Is it to claim asylum (in which case processing earlier or sending abroad is fine) or is it to disappear and make money via the black economy?
As the means of solving the issue really does depend on that issue.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
Sorry, but they're coming anyway. Putting daily caps on the processing might ease the crossing (maybe that's naive).
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
5 live said this morning it can take upto 18 months to process an application and with appeals upto 8 years to confirm rejection
-Most are economic migrants -We’ll stop them -We’ll send in Navy -We’ll use nets -We’ll use wave machines -We’ll send them to Albania -We’ll send them to Ascension Is
-‘My thoughts are with families of all of those who have tragically lost their lives’
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
Sorry, but they're coming anyway. Putting daily caps on the processing might ease the crossing (maybe that's naive).
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
5 live said this morning it can take upto 18 months to process an application and with appeals upto 8 years to confirm rejection
If true that is utterly absurd
What happens when you cut everything to do with our legal system to the absolute bone.
And it's so bad that's its now probably impossible to fix the system - throwing money at the problem wouldn't be enough now.
I fear BJO is lost to the hard left echo chamber. There is one of these in every CLP. Unremittingly hyperbolic and vitriolic. Whilst they’re vocal and, like cult members, impossible to argue with, they are few in number and completely unrepresentative.
It's your party now.
Re there's "one in every CLP"
Membership in Chesterfield down from 832 to 671 since SKS came to power.
161 reduction in that CLP is a small number (19%) vast majority of those will not vote Labour under SKS though.
The events of 2019 proved that delighting a narrow group of members was an electoral dead end.
Anyway, more importantly I am worried about you. I advise getting off those fringe LP social forums and news feeds. It’s good for the soul. They’re pretty toxic and a complete waste of time. Let others do the outrage thing.
PB is far better and it’s worth talking more to real LP people in the flesh.
Are you going to the PB meet up in February? We can take if you like.
I do talk to many people in the flesh most don't disagree with my views on Starmer. Perhaps they are being polite.
I am not particularly keen on Starmer, as I have posted that here on numerous occasions. I always found Corbyn a bit of a curates egg, and posted positively about him here, and indeed on a number of other hard Labour Left figures. My political likes and dislikes can be quite idiosyncratic.
What I do recognise is that Starmer is the only real alternative to the current clowning sleazebags. He may not be the best, but he is the best that there is.
And I have to concede that he is getting better. As the election gets closer (probably just 2 years away) the differences will become more stark, and the policy differences more clear.
In order to get majority support in Parliament a leader needs to draw on wider support than a narrow faction. That was why Corbyn lost two elections.
A lot of the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos were written by Boris and co in the past week.
Labour invest in HS2E / NPR and other projects to ensure we hit carbon neutral (to hit that the Government needs to be investing £12bn a year in transport infrastructure projects). Also the dementia tax. Lib Dems - target the seats where they are closer than Labour with Nimby policies as required (it's the south, that's what they want alongside no money being spent).
No. Lib Dems are not unhappy with money being spent. We are, however, strongly against its being squandered, as the present government is doing, just thrown away on the offchance that something might come out of it.
And not in the least nimbyish, Mr Eek - rather that Lib Dems want people to have some say over what happens to them. In my area, the Lib Dem council is building council houses -you know, meeting a social need. A good thing, and it has general approval. What we are opposed to is surrendering our neighbourhood to big developers, quick profits and the devastation of the countryside just so that the posh boys can get even richer.
Yesterday morning the Riksdag voted in the country’s first woman prime minister, Magdalena Andersson - Social Democrat - with the backing of coalition partner the Greens, plus the Centre and Left parties.
In the afternoon that very same Riksdag voted through the Opposition centre-right Budget.
So the Greens immediately resigned from the governing coalition.
If there is an extraordinary GE now then at least one parliamentary party - the Liberals - is going to fall below the 4% threshold. Perhaps up to 3 of the 8 parliamentary parties. The Greens are very wobbly now without Social Democrats tactical votes.
Latest Swedish poll puts the Social Democrats down 3% on the last general election and the centre right Moderates up 2%.
The poll also gives the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Swedish Democrats combined more than the Social Democrats, Greens and Left Party and Centre Party certainly if the Greens fall below the threshold like the Liberals however given as in Germany the centre right will not work with the populist right although the right combined will have more seats the centre left will likely stay in power but without the votes to get its budget through. Hence you had what occurred last night and a Social Democrat PM elected in office but not in power who swiftly has to resign
Interesting - I missed all that. I wonder if the Social Democrats couldn't put on some support on the basis of "Enough of this nonsense, give us and our reliable partners a majority". Because the centre-right won't work with the far right, they don't have a response to that.
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
Employees already have that option. If you want to improve on the status quo, how does preserving the status quo help?
Philip doesn't trust British workers to make their own decisions about their own best interests - or maybe he does but he doesn't want them to be able to.
I fear BJO is lost to the hard left echo chamber. There is one of these in every CLP. Unremittingly hyperbolic and vitriolic. Whilst they’re vocal and, like cult members, impossible to argue with, they are few in number and completely unrepresentative.
It's your party now.
Re there's "one in every CLP"
Membership in Chesterfield down from 832 to 671 since SKS came to power.
161 reduction in that CLP is a small number (19%) vast majority of those will not vote Labour under SKS though.
I assume the vast majority (all) of those members joined after Corbyn became leader and so aren't any real lose to the party and were probably more trouble than help.
More than half of the Leavers were members welk before Corbyn myself included. Nearly all we're enthused by Corbyn and have a visceral dislike of the current incumbent.
Right wingers don't do hard work like canvassing in my experience.Not even at the 2021 LEs
Interesting. While not visceral, I have a healthy dislike for the current PM. I am no longer a member of the Cons Party.
But come the GE I will assess the state of all parties before casting a vote.
If, for example, the Labour Party has succeeded in cleansing itself of people like you, and it has been a deep and thorough clean, then I would contemplate voting for them.
On the subject of the channel crossers, I met a man who worked in processing asylum seekers at a party many moons ago. He told me that migrants fell into one of three categories:
1. Were the people who were well coached to say exactly the right things. They trotted out identical answers to a hundred others, and had conveniently lost all paperwork that might support their application. He called them the "professional" asylum seekers.
2. Were those who seemed to be genuinely bemused/confused by what was going on. They'd left somewhere (usually war torn) and sort of floated towards the UK as it was on the path of least resistance, and they knew someone in Corby and they'd watched some movies in English.
3. Were people who'd has genuinely awful experiences, who'd fled after being gang raped (and were usually raped again by traffickers along the way), or who'd seen their husbands killed in front of them. This last group was often terrified of people in the first group.
-Most are economic migrants -We’ll stop them -We’ll send in Navy -We’ll use nets -We’ll use wave machines -We’ll send them to Albania -We’ll send them to Ascension Is
-‘My thoughts are with families of all of those who have tragically lost their lives’
I love how angrily the Home Office and Patel herself get over the wave machines line. As if people are making up absurd suggestions to smear them. When it was the Home Office who listed it as an idea.
Wave Machines to repel asylum seekers. Yes and Ho!
I wanted to compare these figures with those for an opinion poll with a similar swing in early 2008 - before the last election that saw a change in Prime Minister. I wondered whether there might be fewer don't knows then, and more direct switchers.
Unfortunately I can't find any data tables for polls of that vintage which have the past vote/switching data.
I fear BJO is lost to the hard left echo chamber. There is one of these in every CLP. Unremittingly hyperbolic and vitriolic. Whilst they’re vocal and, like cult members, impossible to argue with, they are few in number and completely unrepresentative.
It's your party now.
Re there's "one in every CLP"
Membership in Chesterfield down from 832 to 671 since SKS came to power.
161 reduction in that CLP is a small number (19%) vast majority of those will not vote Labour under SKS though.
The events of 2019 proved that delighting a narrow group of members was an electoral dead end.
Anyway, more importantly I am worried about you. I advise getting off those fringe LP social forums and news feeds. It’s good for the soul. They’re pretty toxic and a complete waste of time. Let others do the outrage thing.
PB is far better and it’s worth talking more to real LP people in the flesh.
I think the events of 2017 prove Socialism can be popular and without internal back stabbing we could have had a Labour Government
I think the events of 2019 show a disastrous 2nd referendum policy and an unpopular leader will result in a Tory landslide.
I think the events of 2024 will show that being Tory lite and having a useless leader will result in 2019 rather than 2017 type result
I don't disagree that socialism can be popular - after all the Tories have adopted half your policies...
The problem with the 2017 arguments is that however much of an increase Labour secured, they lost. However much that increase was, the threat of Corbyn drove a 20% surge in the Tory vote. Wasn't very efficient in England hence the temporary loss of seats, but the maths is clear.
There is another basic reality here. Your fight for your version of socialism in the Labour Party is lost. There isn't going to be a "one more heave" type moment where you finally dispatch Keir and replace him and all those throughout the party like him with true socialists.
I know that in your case that has delivered you into a position of punishment voting, saying you will vote Tory - the very thing you despise - to somehow punish the Labour party for disagreeing with you. In reality the people who disagree are the voters.
Whats worse is that none of you in your part of the left spectrum can agree on what true socialism is, hence the myriad of splinter groups and parties. Would be best if you all coalesced into a single group with a single identity and went out there offering your version of socialism to the electorate.
I disagree with both of you up to a poiint. Most people vote for a general impression. They did like the Labour programme in 2017 when the medias made the mistake of highlighting it in the belief that they'd be horrified, and they weren't much bothered that it was left-wing. But it's difficult for anyone portrayed by the media as extreme to become PM, and the media always try that on, with moderate success in 2017 and real success in 2019. Starmer is pretty immune to that accusation - he's seen as a bit boring, and a boring extremist doesn't exist. There would be a majority for someone like that offering surprisingly left-wing policies. as, possibly, we will see.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
Sorry, but they're coming anyway. Putting daily caps on the processing might ease the crossing (maybe that's naive).
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
5 live said this morning it can take upto 18 months to process an application and with appeals upto 8 years to confirm rejection
If true that is utterly absurd
What happens when you cut everything to do with our legal system to the absolute bone.
And it's so bad that's its now probably impossible to fix the system - throwing money at the problem wouldn't be enough now.
The picture emerges over time if you read pb, newspapers, follow BBC etc:
1) Tax and spend is at record highs 2) Debt and borrowing is at record highs 3) Every single feature of state provision is either: a) so bad that even lots more money won't help (as above) or b) needs tons (billions and billions) more money.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
I agree with you in principle but no way will 500-1000 entrants a day be acceptable to the Patelite reactionaries and believers of tabloid myths, they’re prolapsing at a small fraction of that.
Yesterday morning the Riksdag voted in the country’s first woman prime minister, Magdalena Andersson - Social Democrat - with the backing of coalition partner the Greens, plus the Centre and Left parties.
In the afternoon that very same Riksdag voted through the Opposition centre-right Budget.
So the Greens immediately resigned from the governing coalition.
If there is an extraordinary GE now then at least one parliamentary party - the Liberals - is going to fall below the 4% threshold. Perhaps up to 3 of the 8 parliamentary parties. The Greens are very wobbly now without Social Democrats tactical votes.
Latest Swedish poll puts the Social Democrats down 3% on the last general election and the centre right Moderates up 2%.
The poll also gives the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Swedish Democrats combined more than the Social Democrats, Greens and Left Party and Centre Party certainly if the Greens fall below the threshold like the Liberals however given as in Germany the centre right will not work with the populist right although the right combined will have more seats the centre left will likely stay in power but without the votes to get its budget through. Hence you had what occurred last night and a Social Democrat PM elected in office but not in power who swiftly has to resign
Interesting - I missed all that. I wonder if the Social Democrats couldn't put on some support on the basis of "Enough of this nonsense, give us and our reliable partners a majority". Because the centre-right won't work with the far right, they don't have a response to that.
Surely the whole point of yesterday's rejection of the Government proposed budget was that the Centre Right did indeed align with the Swedish Democrats to vote through an alternative budget. It seems that resistance to working with them is crumbling.
I fear BJO is lost to the hard left echo chamber. There is one of these in every CLP. Unremittingly hyperbolic and vitriolic. Whilst they’re vocal and, like cult members, impossible to argue with, they are few in number and completely unrepresentative.
It's your party now.
Re there's "one in every CLP"
Membership in Chesterfield down from 832 to 671 since SKS came to power.
161 reduction in that CLP is a small number (19%) vast majority of those will not vote Labour under SKS though.
Would that be the same Chesterfield that had a Labour majority of 13,598 in 2015 . . . but a Labour majority of 1,451 in 2019? 🤔
Yep the same one that elected a LD MP twice under Blair, that one.
Yes. They had a proper Blairite blue Tory lickspittle of a Labour MP didn't they. No wonder they voted him out in 2001.
Reg Race, the candidate,was a right winger yes.
Correct
Got it. So in protest of the retirement of Tony Benn, they voted LibDem because...? Are you saying the LibDem vote was the left wing vote in Chesterfield in 2001? I thought we were all yellow Tories?
No Paul Holmes was more left wing than Reg Race and there were 2 other more left wing candidates than either of them. I voted Labour but LD in 2005
As you know most people vote on National politics Blair was so unpopular in Chesterfield Labour lost in 2001 and 2005.
You should stick to Constituencies you know about mate..
May I ask a question BJO? I used to know the area a little back in the mid-90s: how has the social make-up of the Chesterfield/Brimington/Staveley area changed in the last couple of decades? Do you see it as becoming more middle class, less working class? Or has it not really changed?
I would say overall it probably has become more middle class. Loads of new housing in Chesterfield. Brimington North hasn't been affected as much as the Tapton side of Brimington. Staveley less so although that may change as the Barrow Hill side of Staveley is getting major funding via the New Deal.
Thanks. I may have to go back there to have a look around. I still remember going to pick up some wet (unfired) bricks from Staveley brickworks and not being able to find the entrance to the brickworks ...
So much industry, gone.
I know it's not quite the same area, but I might go up once they reopen Bennerley Viaduct - I've always wanted to walk across that.
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
One report yesterday said that these semi-rigid inflatable kits are being mass produced in China. Hooray, another front to be opened in the xenophobia war.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
Sorry, but they're coming anyway. Putting daily caps on the processing might ease the crossing (maybe that's naive).
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
5 live said this morning it can take upto 18 months to process an application and with appeals upto 8 years to confirm rejection
If true that is utterly absurd
I think there are lots of issues. The migrants usually have no papers, and have deliberately destroyed them. How then do you prove who they are, where they have come from, how old they are, do they have a legitimate claim for asylum?
We are also taking fewer than our fair share at the moment. Despite the sound and fury about the channel crossings, overall numbers arriving by any means is down, as the lorry routes have been effectively shut down. As a country we should do more, and do it with pride. But the best route is surely close to the areas of concern, way before the thousands of miles journeys to Calais. I'd like to think a decent government would make this case and act on it, but the Tories won't, and the Labour party will be too scared too, as it seeks to pull voters back from the Tories. Its not a politically easy win.
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
If I didn't know better I'd suggest they look military in origin. Army/navy surplus?
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
One report yesterday said that these semi-rigid inflatable kits are being mass produced in China. Hooray, another front to be opened in the xenophobia war.
For French companies (zodiac, bombard) so 2 for the price of 1.
Its genuinely depressing reading some of BJO's posts because they are so disconnected from reality.
The idea that SKS is "expelling Jews" is weaponised levels of wrong. A small number of members expelled for their association with proscribed bodies happen to be Jewish. They're expelled for supporting things like Labour against the Witchhunt, not because they are Jewish. To purport that to be the case is pretty twisted.
Whereas in Corbyn's day the doors were opened wide to the cranks and hardcore anti-semites. Then Labour members who were Jewish left in their droves having been targeted by the party for being Jewish.
Anti-semitism seems to be the racism that doesn't get counted as racism. As David Baddiel's awful/brilliant book puts it, "Jews Don't Count". The quicker the anti-semites and their supporters are removed from Labour the better.
And I disagree with you both on this too. Corbyn was (and is) ultra-tolerant, having drunk the "you just have to reason with people and they'll all eventually see sense" Kool-Aid. So he hardly expelled anyone, including cranks and anti-semites, though he also rejected deselection of centrists for the same reason. It's absurdly overstated to say that the party targeted Jewish people for being Jewish.
Conversely nobody is being expelled for being Jewish now - a small number are being expelled for endorsing extremist sects. As Ann Black observed in her last NEC report, the number is tiny (something like 20), suggesting that banning the groups was barely worth the trouble.
The decline in membership is real, but not unusual between elections. Most of the left-wingers who I know who've dropped out have drifted off rather than left in fury - they just feel they can't really be bothered to be active members if the party doesn't stand for much. They expect to vote Labour in marginals, maybe Green in other seats. BJo is actually the only one who I've met who says they'll vote Tory - that really seems rather eccentric, but to each his own.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
They can only go to a new employer paying better wages if one exists and they have the necessary qualifications. It's funny, isn't it, that the most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the best pay and working conditions?
In a free market if there's more demand for people than there is supply then employers paying better wages will exist because if they don't pay better wages then they don't fill the vacancies as we're seeing at the moment.
And no, its not funny, its often sad. The most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the most unemployment as wages for those who are employed rise above the market rate and thus others are left on the slagheap unemployable as a result. Too high a minimum wage can have the same impact especially for young people. This is something we're not seeing in this country.
Of course if the least productive people are unemployed then that will automatically raise average wages as they're no longer deflated by the least productive. But that doesn't mean society is better off with millions unemployed. The unemployed don't count in average wage figures when really if you want to compare like for like you should include the unemployed in your maths with a wage of zero.
Factor in unemployment and no, what you're claiming is not always true.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
Employees already have that option. If you want to improve on the status quo, how does preserving the status quo help?
The status quo is working. We have full employment, with supply and demand working in action to drive wages up. What's your problem with the status quo?
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
Sorry, but they're coming anyway. Putting daily caps on the processing might ease the crossing (maybe that's naive).
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
5 live said this morning it can take upto 18 months to process an application and with appeals upto 8 years to confirm rejection
If true that is utterly absurd
I think there are lots of issues. The migrants usually have no papers, and have deliberately destroyed them. How then do you prove who they are, where they have come from, how old they are, do they have a legitimate claim for asylum?
We are also taking fewer than our fair share at the moment. Despite the sound and fury about the channel crossings, overall numbers arriving by any means is down, as the lorry routes have been effectively shut down. As a country we should do more, and do it with pride. But the best route is surely close to the areas of concern, way before the thousands of miles journeys to Calais. I'd like to think a decent government would make this case and act on it, but the Tories won't, and the Labour party will be too scared too, as it seeks to pull voters back from the Tories. Its not a politically easy win.
We've already tried taking people will away from Calais but that doesn't fix any of the issues of refugees arriving at Calais and trying their luck from there. And were we to change how things work in Calais to make it safer, more will come to Calais (don't believe me, we tried that previously and that was the end result).
No more than what many PBers who also have told Africans to have fewer kids have said.
However despite being a diehard constitutional monarchist I do respectfully take a slightly different view on this to his royal highness.
Africa has the lowest carbon emissions of any continent on earth oiutside Antartica so I don't think has much negative impact on the environment from its birthrate. Protecting endangered species is also more to do with rangers and stopping poachers and the ivory trade than the African birth rate and HRH should focus on the good work he has done on that
Your dissent has been noted and details will be sent to the Lord Chamberlain. Although given who this currently is, he is perfectly well aware already of your views. And everything else you do.
@HYUFD you can't be a part-time, pick and choose monarchist. Either you support everything they do because they are the monarchy or you line up with those who would have a different system.
Yesterday morning the Riksdag voted in the country’s first woman prime minister, Magdalena Andersson - Social Democrat - with the backing of coalition partner the Greens, plus the Centre and Left parties.
In the afternoon that very same Riksdag voted through the Opposition centre-right Budget.
So the Greens immediately resigned from the governing coalition.
If there is an extraordinary GE now then at least one parliamentary party - the Liberals - is going to fall below the 4% threshold. Perhaps up to 3 of the 8 parliamentary parties. The Greens are very wobbly now without Social Democrats tactical votes.
Latest Swedish poll puts the Social Democrats down 3% on the last general election and the centre right Moderates up 2%.
The poll also gives the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Swedish Democrats combined more than the Social Democrats, Greens and Left Party and Centre Party certainly if the Greens fall below the threshold like the Liberals however given as in Germany the centre right will not work with the populist right although the right combined will have more seats the centre left will likely stay in power but without the votes to get its budget through. Hence you had what occurred last night and a Social Democrat PM elected in office but not in power who swiftly has to resign
Interesting - I missed all that. I wonder if the Social Democrats couldn't put on some support on the basis of "Enough of this nonsense, give us and our reliable partners a majority". Because the centre-right won't work with the far right, they don't have a response to that.
Surely the whole point of yesterday's rejection of the Government proposed budget was that the Centre Right did indeed align with the Swedish Democrats to vote through an alternative budget. It seems that resistance to working with them is crumbling.
Yes and no - the German and Swedish centre-right policies have always been that we respect the right of elected members to be far-right and to vote as they see fit, but we won't form a government with them. That means that they will propose a budget without consulting the far right, but if they want to vote for it, fine.
Eventually that could lead to the next step, accepting confidence and supply from them. But they've not got there yet, and would lose the centrist parties if they did.
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
According to a French TV report on TF1 that I saw... most of the boats are bought in bulk in Turkey where they are cheap and trucked to France to be stored on farms/in warehouses well away from the channel. They are deployed from there as needed on the day of the crossing.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
Sorry, but they're coming anyway. Putting daily caps on the processing might ease the crossing (maybe that's naive).
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
5 live said this morning it can take upto 18 months to process an application and with appeals upto 8 years to confirm rejection
If true that is utterly absurd
What happens when you cut everything to do with our legal system to the absolute bone.
And it's so bad that's its now probably impossible to fix the system - throwing money at the problem wouldn't be enough now.
The picture emerges over time if you read pb, newspapers, follow BBC etc:
1) Tax and spend is at record highs 2) Debt and borrowing is at record highs 3) Every single feature of state provision is either: a) so bad that even lots more money won't help (as above) or b) needs tons (billions and billions) more money.
Something will have to give; what is it?
Almost all our spending now is going on pensioners who never saved up for their retirement and have voted themselves a fortune.
When today's retirees were working they paid for the now long dead pensioners of the past, but those pensioners were much smaller in number and didn't live very long in retirement.
In exchange for paying not many people for not very long, today's pensioners expect to be paid a fortune for decades post-retirement. This problem was known decades ago when today's pensioners were still working, but nothing was done about it to provide for their own retirement.
I fear BJO is lost to the hard left echo chamber. There is one of these in every CLP. Unremittingly hyperbolic and vitriolic. Whilst they’re vocal and, like cult members, impossible to argue with, they are few in number and completely unrepresentative.
It's your party now.
Re there's "one in every CLP"
Membership in Chesterfield down from 832 to 671 since SKS came to power.
161 reduction in that CLP is a small number (19%) vast majority of those will not vote Labour under SKS though.
The events of 2019 proved that delighting a narrow group of members was an electoral dead end.
Anyway, more importantly I am worried about you. I advise getting off those fringe LP social forums and news feeds. It’s good for the soul. They’re pretty toxic and a complete waste of time. Let others do the outrage thing.
PB is far better and it’s worth talking more to real LP people in the flesh.
I think the events of 2017 prove Socialism can be popular and without internal back stabbing we could have had a Labour Government
I think the events of 2019 show a disastrous 2nd referendum policy and an unpopular leader will result in a Tory landslide.
I think the events of 2024 will show that being Tory lite and having a useless leader will result in 2019 rather than 2017 type result
I don't disagree that socialism can be popular - after all the Tories have adopted half your policies...
The problem with the 2017 arguments is that however much of an increase Labour secured, they lost. However much that increase was, the threat of Corbyn drove a 20% surge in the Tory vote. Wasn't very efficient in England hence the temporary loss of seats, but the maths is clear.
There is another basic reality here. Your fight for your version of socialism in the Labour Party is lost. There isn't going to be a "one more heave" type moment where you finally dispatch Keir and replace him and all those throughout the party like him with true socialists.
I know that in your case that has delivered you into a position of punishment voting, saying you will vote Tory - the very thing you despise - to somehow punish the Labour party for disagreeing with you. In reality the people who disagree are the voters.
Whats worse is that none of you in your part of the left spectrum can agree on what true socialism is, hence the myriad of splinter groups and parties. Would be best if you all coalesced into a single group with a single identity and went out there offering your version of socialism to the electorate.
I disagree with both of you up to a poiint. Most people vote for a general impression. They did like the Labour programme in 2017 when the medias made the mistake of highlighting it in the belief that they'd be horrified, and they weren't much bothered that it was left-wing. But it's difficult for anyone portrayed by the media as extreme to become PM, and the media always try that on, with moderate success in 2017 and real success in 2019. Starmer is pretty immune to that accusation - he's seen as a bit boring, and a boring extremist doesn't exist. There would be a majority for someone like that offering surprisingly left-wing policies. as, possibly, we will see.
"...anyone portrayed by the media as extreme..."
Nick, Jeremy Corbyn has by his own volition, and enthusiastically, portrayed himself, and indeed matched word with action, for his entire parliamentary career as extreme.
Are you saying he suddenly stopped believing in all the causes that he held so dear prior to becoming LotO.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
They can only go to a new employer paying better wages if one exists and they have the necessary qualifications. It's funny, isn't it, that the most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the best pay and working conditions?
In a free market if there's more demand for people than there is supply then employers paying better wages will exist because if they don't pay better wages then they don't fill the vacancies as we're seeing at the moment.
And no, its not funny, its often sad. The most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the most unemployment as wages for those who are employed rise above the market rate and thus others are left on the slagheap unemployable as a result. Too high a minimum wage can have the same impact especially for young people. This is something we're not seeing in this country.
Of course if the least productive people are unemployed then that will automatically raise average wages as they're no longer deflated by the least productive. But that doesn't mean society is better off with millions unemployed. The unemployed don't count in average wage figures when really if you want to compare like for like you should include the unemployed in your maths with a wage of zero.
Factor in unemployment and no, what you're claiming is not always true.
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
One report yesterday said that these semi-rigid inflatable kits are being mass produced in China. Hooray, another front to be opened in the xenophobia war.
For French companies (zodiac, bombard) so 2 for the price of 1.
I'm surprised that anyone is surprised that RIBs are being mass produced in China.
In many ways it's the classic kind of product that gets taken up by Chinese manufacturing - easy to copy/create your own design and drop the prices massively with vast scale of production.
Its genuinely depressing reading some of BJO's posts because they are so disconnected from reality.
The idea that SKS is "expelling Jews" is weaponised levels of wrong. A small number of members expelled for their association with proscribed bodies happen to be Jewish. They're expelled for supporting things like Labour against the Witchhunt, not because they are Jewish. To purport that to be the case is pretty twisted.
Whereas in Corbyn's day the doors were opened wide to the cranks and hardcore anti-semites. Then Labour members who were Jewish left in their droves having been targeted by the party for being Jewish.
Anti-semitism seems to be the racism that doesn't get counted as racism. As David Baddiel's awful/brilliant book puts it, "Jews Don't Count". The quicker the anti-semites and their supporters are removed from Labour the better.
And I disagree with you both on this too. Corbyn was (and is) ultra-tolerant, having drunk the "you just have to reason with people and they'll all eventually see sense" Kool-Aid. So he hardly expelled anyone, including cranks and anti-semites, though he also rejected deselection of centrists for the same reason. It's absurdly overstated to say that the party targeted Jewish people for being Jewish.
Conversely nobody is being expelled for being Jewish now - a small number are being expelled for endorsing extremist sects. As Ann Black observed in her last NEC report, the number is tiny (something like 20), suggesting that banning the groups was barely worth the trouble.
The decline in membership is real, but not unusual between elections. Most of the left-wingers who I know who've dropped out have drifted off rather than left in fury - they just feel they can't really be bothered to be active members if the party doesn't stand for much. They expect to vote Labour in marginals, maybe Green in other seats. BJo is actually the only one who I've met who says they'll vote Tory - that really seems rather eccentric, but to each his own.
Ultra-tolerant? I don't know the guy personally, as you do, but he (and some of his supporters) give totally the opposite impression. Corbyn has a world-view, and if you agree with that, good. If you do not, then you are in the the enemy. He appears as an extremist who sees no grey areas ever, anywhere. Which was one reason why he always ended up getting into a mess on things.
So yes, he might be ultra-tolerant of people who generally agree with him. I'm unsure it is true otherwise.
Also, I fail to see how a 'good' person would allow as much nastiness and hatred to occur in his name as it did in the Labour Party under his leadership.
So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)
We've already tried taking people will away from Calais but that doesn't fix any of the issues of refugees arriving at Calais and trying their luck from there. And were we to change how things work in Calais to make it safer, more will come to Calais (don't believe me, we tried that previously and that was the end result).
Which is why the UK needs places near Syria and Afghanistan etc to do the processing. Reach there, make your case. We can't build a centre at Calais as it will be a huge magnet for migrants.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
They can only go to a new employer paying better wages if one exists and they have the necessary qualifications. It's funny, isn't it, that the most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the best pay and working conditions?
In a free market if there's more demand for people than there is supply then employers paying better wages will exist because if they don't pay better wages then they don't fill the vacancies as we're seeing at the moment.
And no, its not funny, its often sad. The most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the most unemployment as wages for those who are employed rise above the market rate and thus others are left on the slagheap unemployable as a result. Too high a minimum wage can have the same impact especially for young people. This is something we're not seeing in this country.
Of course if the least productive people are unemployed then that will automatically raise average wages as they're no longer deflated by the least productive. But that doesn't mean society is better off with millions unemployed. The unemployed don't count in average wage figures when really if you want to compare like for like you should include the unemployed in your maths with a wage of zero.
Factor in unemployment and no, what you're claiming is not always true.
You don't believe in free markets, Phil.
I'm not a total anarchist, I do believe there have to be some minimal regulations.
But yes, I do. The free market is working at the minute as we have a supply and demand of labour and if people want more labour they can pay more for it. That is the market working as intended.
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
One report yesterday said that these semi-rigid inflatable kits are being mass produced in China. Hooray, another front to be opened in the xenophobia war.
For French companies (zodiac, bombard) so 2 for the price of 1.
I assume like most stuff that there’s expensive and cheap, and the evul peepul traffickers will be buying at the low end? The aforementioned report mentioned that one migrant/refugee said literally that the glue was still wet on the the boat they used, which seemed a bit fanciful.
Socialism - the abolition of private property and the ownership of the means of production - is never going to be popular in any democracy, which is why no democracy has ever tried it. Social democracy, on the other hand, is very popular and works. Labour's problem is that it has never quite worked this out.
I know what you mean, but it's a bit out of date, in that the far left have really lost interest in nationalisation of everything - they've come down to utilities, trains and banks, which in the first two cases is no longer seen as a very extreme view. Leftism nowadays is more about taxation of wealth and greenery.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
I agree with you in principle but no way will 500-1000 entrants a day be acceptable to the Patelite reactionaries and believers of tabloid myths, they’re prolapsing at a small fraction of that.
And every previous example in history shows that for your 500-1000 coming in daily through the nice route, several times that will show up to take the illegal route.
The nice route will be used as advertising by the people smugglers in the origin countries to drum up more trade.
This is a fix in the sense that banning second home is a fix to the housing crisis. It is something we can do, but won't actually solve the problem.
A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.
The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.
Nicola Sturgeon has been urged to focus on the health service after independence slipped to eighth in the list of voters’ priorities, a poll has found.
The proportion of voters who ranked the constitution in their preference for the Scottish government’s top three priorities fell by eight points to 13 per cent. Fewer than one third of SNP voters (28 per cent) ranked independence on their hierarchy of priorities.
Since the migrant issue seems, understandably, to be the main topic of conversation on here at the moment, here is my take.
Deterrent only works if the migrants believe that the consequences of failure are worse than their current situation or what they might have to return to. If we are to retain any vestiges of civilised behaviour we can never make make the deterrents as severe as what many of these people have already suffered. So the attempts will keep happening and people will keep dying. What we need to do is provide an alternative. We need a pressure release valve.
David Cameron suggested a version of this back in 2015 when he said we should go into the camps bordering Syria and directly airlift out those most in need, providing them with asylum in the UK and organising the entire process of getting them here. Whilst of course many of the refugees in Northern France come from places other than the Syrian camps, the basic principle seem the same to me. We should work with the French authorities and set up facilities to process asylum seekers in France and then transport those who are successful back to the UK. At the same time the arrangement with the French should be that they deal properly with those who are unsuccessful. This is not a suggestion for just a few hundred or a few thousand but for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to come to the UK. It will not be popular with many of course but politics has to be about the practical and it seems to me this is the only practical way to deal with this situation. It is not ideal as this should all have been done prior to them making dangerous journeys to get to France but you work with the situation as you find it, not as you wish it to be.
My personal preference would be for most of these migrants to be allowed in but I realise from past experience on here that that is not generally a popular solution even from those who are fairly well disposed towards them.
Is this even possible politically? I don't know. But, to butcher Sherlock Holmes, once one has eliminated the impossible, what is left, however unpalatable, has to be the answer.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
They can only go to a new employer paying better wages if one exists and they have the necessary qualifications. It's funny, isn't it, that the most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the best pay and working conditions?
In a free market if there's more demand for people than there is supply then employers paying better wages will exist because if they don't pay better wages then they don't fill the vacancies as we're seeing at the moment.
And no, its not funny, its often sad. The most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the most unemployment as wages for those who are employed rise above the market rate and thus others are left on the slagheap unemployable as a result. Too high a minimum wage can have the same impact especially for young people. This is something we're not seeing in this country.
Of course if the least productive people are unemployed then that will automatically raise average wages as they're no longer deflated by the least productive. But that doesn't mean society is better off with millions unemployed. The unemployed don't count in average wage figures when really if you want to compare like for like you should include the unemployed in your maths with a wage of zero.
Factor in unemployment and no, what you're claiming is not always true.
You don't believe in free markets, Phil.
I'm not a total anarchist, I do believe there have to be some minimal regulations.
But yes, I do. The free market is working at the minute as we have a supply and demand of labour and if people want more labour they can pay more for it. That is the market working as intended.
We are artificially restricting supply. Hence prices are likely to go up. Whether that is good or bad.
Like @HYUFD and his mix and match monarchism, a free marketeer you are not.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
I agree with you in principle but no way will 500-1000 entrants a day be acceptable to the Patelite reactionaries and believers of tabloid myths, they’re prolapsing at a small fraction of that.
We have a problem. We need a solution.
Either 1) Block the boats in some way, but no one's come from a practical solution for that. 2) Accept the crossing in a managed way which allows for process. 3) Do nothing, but bluster about how terrible the situation is and something 'must be done'/
Seems 3 is the easiest for our politicians right now.
Boris Johnson has a rating of minus 62, a 17-point decline, as allegations of sleaze engulf the prime minister and his government.
Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, had the smallest drop of any leader, of four points to minus 38.
The largest individual fall in any leader’s popularity was that of Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, who dropped 21 points to minus 1 after he had struck a personal chord with voters during the election campaign. Sir Keir Starmer, the UK Labour leader, fell 13 points to minus 35.
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
One report yesterday said that these semi-rigid inflatable kits are being mass produced in China. Hooray, another front to be opened in the xenophobia war.
For French companies (zodiac, bombard) so 2 for the price of 1.
I assume like most stuff that there’s expensive and cheap, and the evul peepul traffickers will be buying at the low end? The aforementioned report mentioned that one migrant/refugee said literally that the glue was still wet on the the boat they used, which seemed a bit fanciful.
They will be assuming a one way journey - if they are charging what they are said to be charging, one passenger is probably paying for the boat, his brother pays for the motor and the rest is profit.
The boat involved yesterday was bought in Germany and the smuggler had German vehicle registration
What do you think we should do with that information, Big G.
More boots on the ground, obvs
The correct response is the UK- France - Germany and the EU nead to address the issue jointly
That might be a possibility if the UK hadn't spent the last 5 years shitting on UK-Europe relations.
The tories don't have the guts (or competence) to do anything that would actually stop the crossings and won't get any help from the French so this issue cannot and won't be resolved under a tory government.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
I agree with you in principle but no way will 500-1000 entrants a day be acceptable to the Patelite reactionaries and believers of tabloid myths, they’re prolapsing at a small fraction of that.
We have a problem. We need a solution.
Either 1) Block the boats in some way, but no one's come from a practical solution for that. 2) Accept the crossing in a managed way which allows for process. 3) Do nothing, but bluster about how terrible the situation is and something 'must be done'/
Seems 3 is the easiest for our politicians right now.
One thing I want to know about these channel trafficking crossings is who is providing the boats. They must need lots of boats. Someone is making a mint.
One report yesterday said that these semi-rigid inflatable kits are being mass produced in China. Hooray, another front to be opened in the xenophobia war.
For French companies (zodiac, bombard) so 2 for the price of 1.
I assume like most stuff that there’s expensive and cheap, and the evul peepul traffickers will be buying at the low end? The aforementioned report mentioned that one migrant/refugee said literally that the glue was still wet on the the boat they used, which seemed a bit fanciful.
If it was me I'd spend £8,000-10,000 on a decent second hand job - a 6.5m zodiac with a 100 hp or better engine which would get ten of you across in half an hour. But I expect you are right and you can get something horrible for half that, new.
Re Boat people it clearly needs a multi-layered approach. The UK gov should be peppering radio and tv stations in countries where the people are largely coming from making it clear why it’s not a good idea.
These reasons need changed or made clear to be including:
If you arrive by non-official means (dinghies/back of a lorry etc) then you have no right to asylum claim full stop. No appeal etc just sent away.
If you arrive without documentation then you have no right to asylum or appeal etc.
If you arrive on normal flight/ferry etc and claim asylum on arrival you will be sent to a camp. The camp will be basic ex army camp - you know this before setting out so do not complain - if your life is in danger elsewhere then living in an army camp whilst your application is processed is surely better and surely better than “the jungle” or similar in Calais.
You have no right to a life on the State - make it clear as they are apparently sold fairy stories about the social welfare situation in uk. You also join any council housing list right at the bottom.
Whilst waiting for your application to be processed you also provide a documented list of skills/employment history. If your asylum claim is rejected but you are fleeing a country that’s in the shit then you can be matched to job shortages and given a (for example) 9 month work visa. If you commit crime, try to disappear etc whilst on visa you lose it and are sent away. This might help reduce staff shortages in a managed way so a win for both sides.
Heavy penalties need to be imposed on any employer who employs staff who do not have the right to live and work in UK possibly up to seizure of business assets, fine, prison for directors/owners/managers whether it’s a car wash or a top London hotel.
I know the above probably seems harsh but if you a) get the message out to potential boat people that boat is a return ticket so a waste of money then it slashes the attractiveness of boats. make it clear that they are not going to walk into any benefits so kill any pull that has.
Make it clear only official routes work so better to buy a flight than pay £3500 for a boat seat. D) show you are genuine with docs and your chances of not wasting your money/life by dodgy routes will increase your chances. E) remove the pull and reality of the black-economy workforce by making any employer damned certain they are only employing people they should.
Edit - why can’t I get rid of the stupid emoji with sunglasses on?!?! Never even typed it and it won’t go away….
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
I agree with you in principle but no way will 500-1000 entrants a day be acceptable to the Patelite reactionaries and believers of tabloid myths, they’re prolapsing at a small fraction of that.
We have a problem. We need a solution.
Either 1) Block the boats in some way, but no one's come from a practical solution for that. 2) Accept the crossing in a managed way which allows for process. 3) Do nothing, but bluster about how terrible the situation is and something 'must be done'/
Seems 3 is the easiest for our politicians right now.
1) is illegal 2) is political suicide 3) while not great is the best solution out of no sensible ones.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
I agree with you in principle but no way will 500-1000 entrants a day be acceptable to the Patelite reactionaries and believers of tabloid myths, they’re prolapsing at a small fraction of that.
We have a problem. We need a solution.
Either 1) Block the boats in some way, but no one's come from a practical solution for that. 2) Accept the crossing in a managed way which allows for process. 3) Do nothing, but bluster about how terrible the situation is and something 'must be done'/
Seems 3 is the easiest for our politicians right now.
Boris Johnson has a rating of minus 62, a 17-point decline, as allegations of sleaze engulf the prime minister and his government.
Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, had the smallest drop of any leader, of four points to minus 38.
The largest individual fall in any leader’s popularity was that of Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, who dropped 21 points to minus 1 after he had struck a personal chord with voters during the election campaign. Sir Keir Starmer, the UK Labour leader, fell 13 points to minus 35.
Anas going big on rats and doing photo ops with full wheely bins during COP26 is yet to filter through surely?
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
That only works if you take everybody who wants to come.
Sorry, but they're coming anyway. Putting daily caps on the processing might ease the crossing (maybe that's naive).
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
5 live said this morning it can take upto 18 months to process an application and with appeals upto 8 years to confirm rejection
If true that is utterly absurd
I think there are lots of issues. The migrants usually have no papers, and have deliberately destroyed them. How then do you prove who they are, where they have come from, how old they are, do they have a legitimate claim for asylum?
We are also taking fewer than our fair share at the moment. Despite the sound and fury about the channel crossings, overall numbers arriving by any means is down, as the lorry routes have been effectively shut down. As a country we should do more, and do it with pride. But the best route is surely close to the areas of concern, way before the thousands of miles journeys to Calais. I'd like to think a decent government would make this case and act on it, but the Tories won't, and the Labour party will be too scared too, as it seeks to pull voters back from the Tories. Its not a politically easy win.
One of the things the charity I volunteer gives out grants for is travel to embassies to obtain paperwork.
Whats needed for the border crossing is a good dose of humanity. The people are there, they're going to keep coming.
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
I agree with you in principle but no way will 500-1000 entrants a day be acceptable to the Patelite reactionaries and believers of tabloid myths, they’re prolapsing at a small fraction of that.
We have a problem. We need a solution.
Either 1) Block the boats in some way, but no one's come from a practical solution for that. 2) Accept the crossing in a managed way which allows for process. 3) Do nothing, but bluster about how terrible the situation is and something 'must be done'/
Seems 3 is the easiest for our politicians right now.
1) is illegal 2) is political suicide 3) while not great is the best solution out of no sensible ones.
Pretty much. But I prefer solutions to letting people die, so if only we had someone standing up for 2.
Of course, I would then also find a way of getting people out of the county if they abuse our hospitality.
Its genuinely depressing reading some of BJO's posts because they are so disconnected from reality.
The idea that SKS is "expelling Jews" is weaponised levels of wrong. A small number of members expelled for their association with proscribed bodies happen to be Jewish. They're expelled for supporting things like Labour against the Witchhunt, not because they are Jewish. To purport that to be the case is pretty twisted.
Whereas in Corbyn's day the doors were opened wide to the cranks and hardcore anti-semites. Then Labour members who were Jewish left in their droves having been targeted by the party for being Jewish.
Anti-semitism seems to be the racism that doesn't get counted as racism. As David Baddiel's awful/brilliant book puts it, "Jews Don't Count". The quicker the anti-semites and their supporters are removed from Labour the better.
Genuine question, and I haven't read the book, why 'awful/brilliant'?
Its brilliantly written and compelling. But the subject matter is awful, its a tear-down littered with examples of how anti-semitism is ignored as the acceptable racism. How when Jews point this out they are marginalised and ignored. Its hard to review such a book as just "brilliant!" when its telling you bad things about society you don't want to like.
Tbh I'd have it the other way round. An important but not especially well-written book imo. Like Bryant's book. JRM's is badly written as well, though it is hard to describe that book as important.
The boat involved yesterday was bought in Germany and the smuggler had German vehicle registration
What do you think we should do with that information, Big G.
There has been considerable speculation as to the source of the boat and this answers that query
Not sure why you should ask that question
Because I am interested in your take on it. Bought in Germany and German registration. Now what.
I have already said it is for the UK- France-Germany - EU to address the issue
For an illustration of how we are rapidly fucking over our own country internationally I recommend you listen to Martha Kearney's interview today on Today at 8.10 with whatever fuckwit minister it was, saying we need to work with our international partners (ie France & Germany) to solve this. I mean it's not as though we have done anything of late which would make such an activity problematical.
Whilst I can think of additional reasons for the disparity in number beside official policy, I hesitate to suggest the French probably have a point.
The French do have a point, absolutely pains me to say it.
According to OECD's latest report on vacant housing, France has over three million vacant dwellings; England has fewer than a quarter of a million.
Germany has over 1.8 million, Spain has 3.4 million, Portugal 700k, Greece 500k, Poland 1m, FINLAND has 320k - nearly one in seven of their dwellings are vacant.
"We're the same size" is quite far from telling the whole story.
1) Block the boats in some way, but no one's come from a practical solution for that.
I've posted this a few times before but the Australian tow back protocol is entirely feasible and effective but the government doesn't have the balls to do it.
You can't legally tow back beyond the French 12 mile TL so they'd have to follow the Australian tow back model: load the informal immigrants into a lifeboat, tow it west to Brest just outside the TL and pay off one of them with cash to drive the lifeboat onto the French coast.
If they did that two or three times the crossings would stop.
The boat involved yesterday was bought in Germany and the smuggler had German vehicle registration
What do you think we should do with that information, Big G.
More boots on the ground, obvs
The correct response is the UK- France - Germany and the EU nead to address the issue jointly
That might be a possibility if the UK hadn't spent the last 5 years shitting on UK-Europe relations.
The tories don't have the guts (or competence) to do anything that would actually stop the crossings and won't get any help from the French so this issue cannot and won't be resolved under a tory government.
I'm pretty sure you mean that joyously we have reclaimed control of our borders after the shame of the preceding 40 years where we were forced to work together with the dastardly foreigners to help secure our frontier.
Its genuinely depressing reading some of BJO's posts because they are so disconnected from reality.
The idea that SKS is "expelling Jews" is weaponised levels of wrong. A small number of members expelled for their association with proscribed bodies happen to be Jewish. They're expelled for supporting things like Labour against the Witchhunt, not because they are Jewish. To purport that to be the case is pretty twisted.
Whereas in Corbyn's day the doors were opened wide to the cranks and hardcore anti-semites. Then Labour members who were Jewish left in their droves having been targeted by the party for being Jewish.
Anti-semitism seems to be the racism that doesn't get counted as racism. As David Baddiel's awful/brilliant book puts it, "Jews Don't Count". The quicker the anti-semites and their supporters are removed from Labour the better.
And I disagree with you both on this too. Corbyn was (and is) ultra-tolerant, having drunk the "you just have to reason with people and they'll all eventually see sense" Kool-Aid. So he hardly expelled anyone, including cranks and anti-semites, though he also rejected deselection of centrists for the same reason. It's absurdly overstated to say that the party targeted Jewish people for being Jewish.
Conversely nobody is being expelled for being Jewish now - a small number are being expelled for endorsing extremist sects. As Ann Black observed in her last NEC report, the number is tiny (something like 20), suggesting that banning the groups was barely worth the trouble.
The decline in membership is real, but not unusual between elections. Most of the left-wingers who I know who've dropped out have drifted off rather than left in fury - they just feel they can't really be bothered to be active members if the party doesn't stand for much. They expect to vote Labour in marginals, maybe Green in other seats. BJo is actually the only one who I've met who says they'll vote Tory - that really seems rather eccentric, but to each his own.
And yet we have plenty of evidence of Labour Party officers at CLP level openly hounding Jewish members and fostering a welcoming atmosphere to other anti-semite cranks. Aided and abetted by officers at national level who were also cranks.
Sorry but this "Corbyn was ultra-tolerant" excuse doesn't wash. You don't go to wreath-laying for terrorists or endlessly share platforms with hardcore anti-semites because you are tolerant.
Its genuinely depressing reading some of BJO's posts because they are so disconnected from reality.
The idea that SKS is "expelling Jews" is weaponised levels of wrong. A small number of members expelled for their association with proscribed bodies happen to be Jewish. They're expelled for supporting things like Labour against the Witchhunt, not because they are Jewish. To purport that to be the case is pretty twisted.
Whereas in Corbyn's day the doors were opened wide to the cranks and hardcore anti-semites. Then Labour members who were Jewish left in their droves having been targeted by the party for being Jewish.
Anti-semitism seems to be the racism that doesn't get counted as racism. As David Baddiel's awful/brilliant book puts it, "Jews Don't Count". The quicker the anti-semites and their supporters are removed from Labour the better.
And I disagree with you both on this too. Corbyn was (and is) ultra-tolerant, having drunk the "you just have to reason with people and they'll all eventually see sense" Kool-Aid. So he hardly expelled anyone, including cranks and anti-semites, though he also rejected deselection of centrists for the same reason. It's absurdly overstated to say that the party targeted Jewish people for being Jewish.
Conversely nobody is being expelled for being Jewish now - a small number are being expelled for endorsing extremist sects. As Ann Black observed in her last NEC report, the number is tiny (something like 20), suggesting that banning the groups was barely worth the trouble.
The decline in membership is real, but not unusual between elections. Most of the left-wingers who I know who've dropped out have drifted off rather than left in fury - they just feel they can't really be bothered to be active members if the party doesn't stand for much. They expect to vote Labour in marginals, maybe Green in other seats. BJo is actually the only one who I've met who says they'll vote Tory - that really seems rather eccentric, but to each his own.
There does seem a lot of anger on the left though. Eg I follow Owen Jones and although he's still Labour and spends most of his time attacking Tories and the right he's also a frequent and strong critic of Starmer and how he's running the party.
A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.
The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.
I'm contemplating that I shall have to vote SNP to remove Peppa Pig from Downing street and his local lickspittle Duguid. That doesn't mean I would vote Yes for independence (though I do support a 2nd referendum as that is the clear electoral mandate given in May).
I'm also contemplating that my likely vote for another party rather invalidates my personal membership criteria for the Libems...
Whilst I can think of additional reasons for the disparity in number beside official policy, I hesitate to suggest the French probably have a point.
The French do have a point, absolutely pains me to say it.
According to OECD's latest report on vacant housing, France has over three million vacant dwellings; England has fewer than a quarter of a million.
Germany has over 1.8 million, Spain has 3.4 million, Portugal 700k, Greece 500k, Poland 1m, FINLAND has 320k - nearly one in seven of their dwellings are vacant.
"We're the same size" is quite far from telling the whole story.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
They can only go to a new employer paying better wages if one exists and they have the necessary qualifications. It's funny, isn't it, that the most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the best pay and working conditions?
In a free market if there's more demand for people than there is supply then employers paying better wages will exist because if they don't pay better wages then they don't fill the vacancies as we're seeing at the moment.
And no, its not funny, its often sad. The most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the most unemployment as wages for those who are employed rise above the market rate and thus others are left on the slagheap unemployable as a result. Too high a minimum wage can have the same impact especially for young people. This is something we're not seeing in this country.
Of course if the least productive people are unemployed then that will automatically raise average wages as they're no longer deflated by the least productive. But that doesn't mean society is better off with millions unemployed. The unemployed don't count in average wage figures when really if you want to compare like for like you should include the unemployed in your maths with a wage of zero.
Factor in unemployment and no, what you're claiming is not always true.
You don't believe in free markets, Phil.
This is, and has always been, the most ridiculous argument on free movement. Free markets need proper regulation to work in favour of people, in this case regulations are immigration controls. You wouldn't have an unregulated financial services market, consumers need protection from exploitative companies. In this scenario, employees need protection from exploitative employers.
The boat involved yesterday was bought in Germany and the smuggler had German vehicle registration
What do you think we should do with that information, Big G.
There has been considerable speculation as to the source of the boat and this answers that query
Not sure why you should ask that question
Because I am interested in your take on it. Bought in Germany and German registration. Now what.
I have already said it is for the UK- France-Germany - EU to address the issue
For an illustration of how we are rapidly fucking over our own country internationally I recommend you listen to Martha Kearney's interview today on Today at 8.10 with whatever fuckwit minister it was, saying we need to work with our international partners (ie France & Germany) to solve this. I mean it's not as though we have done anything of late which would make such an activity problematical.
Thank goodness none of the people who were cackling about stuffing Johnny Crappo over submarines are now whining about the French not trusting noble Britannia.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
They can only go to a new employer paying better wages if one exists and they have the necessary qualifications. It's funny, isn't it, that the most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the best pay and working conditions?
In a free market if there's more demand for people than there is supply then employers paying better wages will exist because if they don't pay better wages then they don't fill the vacancies as we're seeing at the moment.
And no, its not funny, its often sad. The most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the most unemployment as wages for those who are employed rise above the market rate and thus others are left on the slagheap unemployable as a result. Too high a minimum wage can have the same impact especially for young people. This is something we're not seeing in this country.
Of course if the least productive people are unemployed then that will automatically raise average wages as they're no longer deflated by the least productive. But that doesn't mean society is better off with millions unemployed. The unemployed don't count in average wage figures when really if you want to compare like for like you should include the unemployed in your maths with a wage of zero.
Factor in unemployment and no, what you're claiming is not always true.
You don't believe in free markets, Phil.
This is, and has always been, the most ridiculous argument on free movement. Free markets need proper regulation to work in favour of people, in this case regulations are immigration controls. You wouldn't have an unregulated financial services market, consumers need protection from exploitative companies. In this scenario, employees need protection from exploitative employers.
London’s #Stratford railway station recorded the most passenger entries and exits with 14 million in 2020-21 - a year that saw Britain’s passenger usage drop 78% compared to the previous year.
A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.
The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.
I'm contemplating that I shall have to vote SNP to remove Peppa Pig from Downing street and his local lickspittle Duguid. That doesn't mean I would vote Yes for independence (though I do support a 2nd referendum as that is the clear electoral mandate given in May).
I'm also contemplating that my likely vote for another party rather invalidates my personal membership criteria for the Libems...
So you've finally completed your journey from Labour to SNP, then. Not very much of a Unionist, in the end. You betrayed the Labour party and now you're going to betray the UK. There's a special place in hell for turncoats like you.
No more than what many PBers who also have told Africans to have fewer kids have said.
However despite being a diehard constitutional monarchist I do respectfully take a slightly different view on this to his royal highness.
Africa has the lowest carbon emissions of any continent on earth oiutside Antartica so I don't think has much negative impact on the environment from its birthrate. Protecting endangered species is also more to do with rangers and stopping poachers and the ivory trade than the African birth rate and HRH should focus on the good work he has done on that
Your dissent has been noted and details will be sent to the Lord Chamberlain. Although given who this currently is, he is perfectly well aware already of your views. And everything else you do.
@HYUFD you can't be a part-time, pick and choose monarchist. Either you support everything they do because they are the monarchy or you line up with those who would have a different system.
He's a diehard Henry VIII-ist. Or was. Imagine how Henry VIII would react to this nonsense from him.
The idea that all skills shortages can be filled by increasing wages is bonkers. Some can be filled that way, sure. But borders get in the way. Otherwise the richest cities on Earth would never have any skills shortages. The truth is there are a finite amount of chefs who have permits to work in London and that cohort has been massively reduced by restrictions on immigration (eg Brexit). That’s a simple fact. We need people.
As countries become more advanced and more productive, lower productivity jobs get priced out of the market. That's a good thing.
If the restaurant business in question brings a sufficiently high value to its customers, then it can put up prices and pay its chefs more. If it can't do that then it's because other businesses are producing more value. When it goes out of business then average productivity will be higher.
People have been bemoaning low productivity UK for decades. Now we are actually leaving the low productivity stuff behind, people want immigration policy to bail them out.
There's a lot of truth in this. People are used to obtaining cheap products and services that are often made cheap because businesses have access to a large pool of desperate staff willing to labour under crap conditions for bugger all money.
We have been here before in history. When the Black Death killed off half the peasantry, the other half suddenly found that they were in a workers' market. Lords who were willing to pay premium wages to get their land worked continued to get it worked. Those who weren't found all their peasants ran away to work for lords with a better grasp of the new economic realities, and their estates went fallow. The feudal system collapsed. Nobody apart from scalper lords thought the collapse of feudalism to be a bad thing.
What will now happen is that businesses that are desperate for staff will have to work out ways to manage with fewer staff; or they'll have to pay their staff more, and find efficiencies elsewhere so that the bill doesn't get passed on to the customer; or they'll need to pay their staff more, pass the cost onto the customer, and provide a good enough service that the customer is willing to pay a premium; or they'll have to close.
If you want people to be paid decent wages then a period of wage inflation can only be a good thing. The fact that there is a certain strand of supposedly left-leaning opinion (particularly amongst wealthy metropolitans) that is utterly desperate to reopen the borders to limitless migratory flows therefore exposes the hollowness of their ideological posturing. They don't care about low paid workers at all - they just want to indulge in internationalist virtue signalling, and to keep their cheap lattes, cheap cleaners, cheap nannies and cheap plumbers.
We all like cheap, but if it is to continue in future it must be achieved through lean working practices and automation, not through paying people naff all and flogging them to death. If that means that some concerns that previously relied on chefs working 12-hour shifts for the minimum wage find that said chefs are leaving, and nobody else is willing to labour under such rotten conditions, then hurrah.
One way to ensure better working conditions and higher levels of pay is to make it easier for workers to organise collectively and to withdraw their labour. Are you up for that?
No.
Let people do it individually. If employers are providing a bad wage then workers can withdraw their labour individually by going to a new employer.
The problem with striking etc is its trying to compel a better wage even from those who are paying good wages already and then putting picket lines up trying to stop others from taking the jobs.
They can only go to a new employer paying better wages if one exists and they have the necessary qualifications. It's funny, isn't it, that the most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the best pay and working conditions?
In a free market if there's more demand for people than there is supply then employers paying better wages will exist because if they don't pay better wages then they don't fill the vacancies as we're seeing at the moment.
And no, its not funny, its often sad. The most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the most unemployment as wages for those who are employed rise above the market rate and thus others are left on the slagheap unemployable as a result. Too high a minimum wage can have the same impact especially for young people. This is something we're not seeing in this country.
Of course if the least productive people are unemployed then that will automatically raise average wages as they're no longer deflated by the least productive. But that doesn't mean society is better off with millions unemployed. The unemployed don't count in average wage figures when really if you want to compare like for like you should include the unemployed in your maths with a wage of zero.
Factor in unemployment and no, what you're claiming is not always true.
You don't believe in free markets, Phil.
This is, and has always been, the most ridiculous argument on free movement. Free markets need proper regulation to work in favour of people, in this case regulations are immigration controls. You wouldn't have an unregulated financial services market, consumers need protection from exploitative companies. In this scenario, employees need protection from exploitative employers.
Let's have a free market in housing.
No planning control. None.
The NIMBY Lib Dems would self-combust over that one.
Re Boat people it clearly needs a multi-layered approach. The UK gov should be peppering radio and tv stations in countries where the people are largely coming from making it clear why it’s not a good idea.
These reasons need changed or made clear to be including:
(1) If you arrive by non-official means (dinghies/back of a lorry etc) then you have no right to asylum claim full stop. No appeal etc just sent away.
(2) If you arrive without documentation then you have no right to asylum or appeal etc.
(3) If you arrive on normal flight/ferry etc and claim asylum on arrival you will be sent to a camp. The camp will be basic ex army camp - you know this before setting out so do not complain - if your life is in danger elsewhere then living in an army camp whilst your application is processed is surely better and surely better than “the jungle” or similar in Calais.
(4) You have no right to a life on the State - make it clear as they are apparently sold fairy stories about the social welfare situation in uk. You also join any council housing list right at the bottom.
(5) Whilst waiting for your application to be processed you also provide a documented list of skills/employment history. If your asylum claim is rejected but you are fleeing a country that’s in the shit then you can be matched to job shortages and given a (for example) 9 month work visa. If you commit crime, try to disappear etc whilst on visa you lose it and are sent away. This might help reduce staff shortages in a managed way so a win for both sides.
(6) Heavy penalties need to be imposed on any employer who employs staff who do not have the right to live and work in UK possibly up to seizure of business assets, fine, prison for directors/owners/managers whether it’s a car wash or a top London hotel.
I know the above probably seems harsh but if you a) get the message out to potential boat people that boat is a return ticket so a waste of money then it slashes the attractiveness of boats. make it clear that they are not going to walk into any benefits so kill any pull that has.
Make it clear only official routes work so better to buy a flight than pay £3500 for a boat seat. D) show you are genuine with docs and your chances of not wasting your money/life by dodgy routes will increase your chances. E) remove the pull and reality of the black-economy workforce by making any employer damned certain they are only employing people they should.
Edit - why can’t I get rid of the stupid emoji with sunglasses on?!?! Never even typed it and it won’t go away….
You've made some interesting points which I have numbered for ease of reference.
1 - I assume that we would reopen official routes to claim asylum?
1 & 2 - the problem with people who don't have paperwork is how you reject them. At a Border Control Post we can refuse entry, but if they just walk off the beach you can't do that - and people will keep doing that. And if we are to reject them and send them back, where to if they have no ID?
3 - We have had similar ideas before - there was a badly run private sector detention centre which hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. But in principle I don't object, having seen some of the hateful environments we ship people to when placed in the country. Would need to be humane, medical care, education, on-site legal etc
4 - I think we need to be clear to whom we are referring. A non-national with indefinite leave to remain is different to someone who later takes citizenship
5 - would be a huge step forward from our current system. Contrary to the media claims asylum seekers are housed in Murder Mile houses that nobody else will live in and subsist on vouchers that barely pay for the absolute basics. When so many can work and have skills this seems stupid - and is likely the reason that so many just disappear off into the black economy.
6 - yep. And yet the government have zero interest in doing so. Can't think why...
Comments
Once again, we are years ahead of the curve.
However despite being a diehard constitutional monarchist I do respectfully take a slightly different view on this to his royal highness.
Africa has the lowest carbon emissions of any continent on earth oiutside Antartica so I don't think has much negative impact on the environment from its birthrate. Protecting endangered species is also more to do with rangers and stopping poachers and the ivory trade than the African birth rate and HRH should focus on the good work he has done on that
"How did a boy from Iraq who spoke no English come to this country and become Minister for Education? Because this is the greatest country in the world" - Nadhim Zahawi
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1463637249392791556
Set up a border crossing facility, Allow 500-1000 people per day to cross safely with transfer provided, focusing on women and children, process their details, give them medical checks and food, water and clothing, then a tranfer to safe secure facility in the UK.
All this nonense about an offshore facility is rubbish-never going to happen. Whilst the the people keep coming, and sometimes keep dying.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/g8dunbfqqh/TheTimes_VI_211118_W.pdf
Just means there will be a poor General copping the blame when he fails to achieve the impossible. It simply isn't possible to 100% police the French shoreline...
Staveley less so although that may change as the Barrow Hill side of Staveley is getting major funding via the New Deal.
But that is also needed is a more robust facilty to remove people from the country when and if needed.
I asked this last night and I don't think anyone replied (I disappeared off to listen about the IPR for a couple of hours)
What is the desired result for most people arriving on a beach in Kent. Is it to claim asylum (in which case processing earlier or sending abroad is fine) or is it to disappear and make money via the black economy?
As the means of solving the issue really does depend on that issue.
If true that is utterly absurd
-Most are economic migrants
-We’ll stop them
-We’ll send in Navy
-We’ll use nets
-We’ll use wave machines
-We’ll send them to Albania
-We’ll send them to Ascension Is
-‘My thoughts are with families of all of those who have tragically lost their lives’
https://twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/1463792949062479878
And it's so bad that's its now probably impossible to fix the system - throwing money at the problem wouldn't be enough now.
And not in the least nimbyish, Mr Eek - rather that Lib Dems want people to have some say over what happens to them. In my area, the Lib Dem council is building council houses -you know, meeting a social need. A good thing, and it has general approval. What we are opposed to is surrendering our neighbourhood to big developers, quick profits and the devastation of the countryside just so that the posh boys can get even richer.
But come the GE I will assess the state of all parties before casting a vote.
If, for example, the Labour Party has succeeded in cleansing itself of people like you, and it has been a deep and thorough clean, then I would contemplate voting for them.
1. Were the people who were well coached to say exactly the right things. They trotted out identical answers to a hundred others, and had conveniently lost all paperwork that might support their application. He called them the "professional" asylum seekers.
2. Were those who seemed to be genuinely bemused/confused by what was going on. They'd left somewhere (usually war torn) and sort of floated towards the UK as it was on the path of least resistance, and they knew someone in Corby and they'd watched some movies in English.
3. Were people who'd has genuinely awful experiences, who'd fled after being gang raped (and were usually raped again by traffickers along the way), or who'd seen their husbands killed in front of them. This last group was often terrified of people in the first group.
Wave Machines to repel asylum seekers. Yes and Ho!
Unfortunately I can't find any data tables for polls of that vintage which have the past vote/switching data.
1) Tax and spend is at record highs
2) Debt and borrowing is at record highs
3) Every single feature of state provision is either:
a) so bad that even lots more money won't help (as above)
or
b) needs tons (billions and billions) more money.
Something will have to give; what is it?
So much industry, gone.
I know it's not quite the same area, but I might go up once they reopen Bennerley Viaduct - I've always wanted to walk across that.
We are also taking fewer than our fair share at the moment. Despite the sound and fury about the channel crossings, overall numbers arriving by any means is down, as the lorry routes have been effectively shut down. As a country we should do more, and do it with pride. But the best route is surely close to the areas of concern, way before the thousands of miles journeys to Calais. I'd like to think a decent government would make this case and act on it, but the Tories won't, and the Labour party will be too scared too, as it seeks to pull voters back from the Tories. Its not a politically easy win.
Conversely nobody is being expelled for being Jewish now - a small number are being expelled for endorsing extremist sects. As Ann Black observed in her last NEC report, the number is tiny (something like 20), suggesting that banning the groups was barely worth the trouble.
The decline in membership is real, but not unusual between elections. Most of the left-wingers who I know who've dropped out have drifted off rather than left in fury - they just feel they can't really be bothered to be active members if the party doesn't stand for much. They expect to vote Labour in marginals, maybe Green in other seats. BJo is actually the only one who I've met who says they'll vote Tory - that really seems rather eccentric, but to each his own.
And no, its not funny, its often sad. The most unionised countries tend to be the ones that have the most unemployment as wages for those who are employed rise above the market rate and thus others are left on the slagheap unemployable as a result. Too high a minimum wage can have the same impact especially for young people. This is something we're not seeing in this country.
Of course if the least productive people are unemployed then that will automatically raise average wages as they're no longer deflated by the least productive. But that doesn't mean society is better off with millions unemployed. The unemployed don't count in average wage figures when really if you want to compare like for like you should include the unemployed in your maths with a wage of zero.
Factor in unemployment and no, what you're claiming is not always true.
@HYUFD you can't be a part-time, pick and choose monarchist. Either you support everything they do because they are the monarchy or you line up with those who would have a different system.
Eventually that could lead to the next step, accepting confidence and supply from them. But they've not got there yet, and would lose the centrist parties if they did.
When today's retirees were working they paid for the now long dead pensioners of the past, but those pensioners were much smaller in number and didn't live very long in retirement.
In exchange for paying not many people for not very long, today's pensioners expect to be paid a fortune for decades post-retirement. This problem was known decades ago when today's pensioners were still working, but nothing was done about it to provide for their own retirement.
That doesn't leave much money for anything else.
Nick, Jeremy Corbyn has by his own volition, and enthusiastically, portrayed himself, and indeed matched word with action, for his entire parliamentary career as extreme.
Are you saying he suddenly stopped believing in all the causes that he held so dear prior to becoming LotO.
In many ways it's the classic kind of product that gets taken up by Chinese manufacturing - easy to copy/create your own design and drop the prices massively with vast scale of production.
So yes, he might be ultra-tolerant of people who generally agree with him. I'm unsure it is true otherwise.
Also, I fail to see how a 'good' person would allow as much nastiness and hatred to occur in his name as it did in the Labour Party under his leadership.
We've already tried taking people will away from Calais but that doesn't fix any of the issues of refugees arriving at Calais and trying their luck from there. And were we to change how things work in Calais to make it safer, more will come to Calais (don't believe me, we tried that previously and that was the end result).
Which is why the UK needs places near Syria and Afghanistan etc to do the processing. Reach there, make your case. We can't build a centre at Calais as it will be a huge magnet for migrants.
(Apols - messed up the quotes...
But yes, I do. The free market is working at the minute as we have a supply and demand of labour and if people want more labour they can pay more for it. That is the market working as intended.
The boat involved yesterday was bought in Germany and the smuggler had German vehicle registration
#sealion #invasionbarges
#Godwin
The nice route will be used as advertising by the people smugglers in the origin countries to drum up more trade.
This is a fix in the sense that banning second home is a fix to the housing crisis. It is something we can do, but won't actually solve the problem.
Not sure why you should ask that question
A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.
The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8
The proportion of voters who ranked the constitution in their preference for the Scottish government’s top three priorities fell by eight points to 13 per cent. Fewer than one third of SNP voters (28 per cent) ranked independence on their hierarchy of priorities.
Deterrent only works if the migrants believe that the consequences of failure are worse than their current situation or what they might have to return to. If we are to retain any vestiges of civilised behaviour we can never make make the deterrents as severe as what many of these people have already suffered. So the attempts will keep happening and people will keep dying. What we need to do is provide an alternative. We need a pressure release valve.
David Cameron suggested a version of this back in 2015 when he said we should go into the camps bordering Syria and directly airlift out those most in need, providing them with asylum in the UK and organising the entire process of getting them here. Whilst of course many of the refugees in Northern France come from places other than the Syrian camps, the basic principle seem the same to me. We should work with the French authorities and set up facilities to process asylum seekers in France and then transport those who are successful back to the UK. At the same time the arrangement with the French should be that they deal properly with those who are unsuccessful. This is not a suggestion for just a few hundred or a few thousand but for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to come to the UK. It will not be popular with many of course but politics has to be about the practical and it seems to me this is the only practical way to deal with this situation. It is not ideal as this should all have been done prior to them making dangerous journeys to get to France but you work with the situation as you find it, not as you wish it to be.
My personal preference would be for most of these migrants to be allowed in but I realise from past experience on here that that is not generally a popular solution even from those who are fairly well disposed towards them.
Is this even possible politically? I don't know. But, to butcher Sherlock Holmes, once one has eliminated the impossible, what is left, however unpalatable, has to be the answer.
In fact, it rather suggests that the French have cracked down on the sellers of RIBs in the area.
Like @HYUFD and his mix and match monarchism, a free marketeer you are not.
Either
1) Block the boats in some way, but no one's come from a practical solution for that.
2) Accept the crossing in a managed way which allows for process.
3) Do nothing, but bluster about how terrible the situation is and something 'must be done'/
Seems 3 is the easiest for our politicians right now.
Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, had the smallest drop of any leader, of four points to minus 38.
The largest individual fall in any leader’s popularity was that of Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, who dropped 21 points to minus 1 after he had struck a personal chord with voters during the election campaign. Sir Keir Starmer, the UK Labour leader, fell 13 points to minus 35.
The tories don't have the guts (or competence) to do anything that would actually stop the crossings and won't get any help from the French so this issue cannot and won't be resolved under a tory government.
Voters believe that an SNP majority of Scottish seats at the next general election would not be a mandate for an independence referendum.
And it is the French Interior Minister who announced that the capsized boat was brought in Germany and the smuggler had German vehicle registration
These reasons need changed or made clear to be including:
If you arrive by non-official means (dinghies/back of a lorry etc) then you have no right to asylum claim full stop. No appeal etc just sent away.
If you arrive without documentation then you have no right to asylum or appeal etc.
If you arrive on normal flight/ferry etc and claim asylum on arrival you will be sent to a camp. The camp will be basic ex army camp - you know this before setting out so do not complain - if your life is in danger elsewhere then living in an army camp whilst your application is processed is surely better and surely better than “the jungle” or similar in Calais.
You have no right to a life on the State - make it clear as they are apparently sold fairy stories about the social welfare situation in uk. You also join any council housing list right at the bottom.
Whilst waiting for your application to be processed you also provide a documented list of skills/employment history. If your asylum claim is rejected but you are fleeing a country that’s in the shit then you can be matched to job shortages and given a (for example) 9 month work visa. If you commit crime, try to disappear etc whilst on visa you lose it and are sent away. This might help reduce staff shortages in a managed way so a win for both sides.
Heavy penalties need to be imposed on any employer who employs staff who do not have the right to live and work in UK possibly up to seizure of business assets, fine, prison for directors/owners/managers whether it’s a car wash or a top London hotel.
I know the above probably seems harsh but if you a) get the message out to potential boat people that boat is a return ticket so a waste of money then it slashes the attractiveness of boats.
Make it clear only official routes work so better to buy a flight than pay £3500 for a boat seat. D) show you are genuine with docs and your chances of not wasting your money/life by dodgy routes will increase your chances. E) remove the pull and reality of the black-economy workforce by making any employer damned certain they are only employing people they should.
Edit - why can’t I get rid of the stupid emoji with sunglasses on?!?! Never even typed it and it won’t go away….
2) is political suicide
3) while not great is the best solution out of no sensible ones.
Of course, I would then also find a way of getting people out of the county if they abuse our hospitality.
Germany has over 1.8 million, Spain has 3.4 million, Portugal 700k, Greece 500k, Poland 1m, FINLAND has 320k - nearly one in seven of their dwellings are vacant.
"We're the same size" is quite far from telling the whole story.
Figures taken from HM1.1 Housing stock and construction
https://www.oecd.org/housing/data/affordable-housing-database/housing-market.htm
Sorry but this "Corbyn was ultra-tolerant" excuse doesn't wash. You don't go to wreath-laying for terrorists or endlessly share platforms with hardcore anti-semites because you are tolerant.
I'm also contemplating that my likely vote for another party rather invalidates my personal membership criteria for the Libems...
French argument is that UK system is already too tough as it requires migrants to be on UK soil before applying, incentivising crossings.
No planning control. None.
https://twitter.com/railandroad/status/1463803745930821632
London’s #Stratford railway station recorded the most passenger entries and exits with 14 million in 2020-21 - a year that saw Britain’s passenger usage drop 78% compared to the previous year.
1 - I assume that we would reopen official routes to claim asylum?
1 & 2 - the problem with people who don't have paperwork is how you reject them. At a Border Control Post we can refuse entry, but if they just walk off the beach you can't do that - and people will keep doing that. And if we are to reject them and send them back, where to if they have no ID?
3 - We have had similar ideas before - there was a badly run private sector detention centre which hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. But in principle I don't object, having seen some of the hateful environments we ship people to when placed in the country. Would need to be humane, medical care, education, on-site legal etc
4 - I think we need to be clear to whom we are referring. A non-national with indefinite leave to remain is different to someone who later takes citizenship
5 - would be a huge step forward from our current system. Contrary to the media claims asylum seekers are housed in Murder Mile houses that nobody else will live in and subsist on vouchers that barely pay for the absolute basics. When so many can work and have skills this seems stupid - and is likely the reason that so many just disappear off into the black economy.
6 - yep. And yet the government have zero interest in doing so. Can't think why...