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Some better MidTerms polling for the Dems – politicalbetting.com

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  • We still seem to have an invasion of inadequates on the UK government's front bench.

    https://twitter.com/ruth_wishart/status/1587336416966631424?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    Labour MP saying on Newsnight that the problem is that it takes two years to deal with the claims. Tory MP saying pretty much the same thing. Just another consequence of austerity and lack of resources?

    I wonder what the 'assumption' is. Suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but I'm not sure about assylum claims and whether they're considered genuine until proven false.
    Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that has signed the 1951 Convention and to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim

    https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/refugee-asylum-facts/the-truth-about-asylum/

    So, yes, basically.
    People can stay while their claim is being processed, but they’re not allowed to work. Most are held in detention centres, unless coming under the exceptions here: https://www.gov.uk/claim-asylum/after-your-screening So, it’s more like being treated as guilty until you can prove your case.
    Held on remand.
    in concentration camps....

    ...who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler.....
    like remand centres.

    As they have no money and no friends or family here that they are coming to join for economic reasons they'll be a bit pushed if we don't provide accommodation for them.
  • Aldi is set to become the first UK supermarket to pay store assistants a minimum of £11.00 an hour. The pay increase will be put in place from 1st January 2023.

    https://twitter.com/taj_ali1/status/1587126864245661701?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    Puts even more pressure on social care wages.
  • TOPPING said:

    Yeah it's another classic.

    We want something to be done about asylum seekers but don't want to pay to put the systems in place which would do just that.

    I heard the 75% success rate on the radio yesterday also, the problem being the time it takes to get to a decision.

    Oh and the influx of foreigners if you don't like foreigners.

    Careful now. I keep pointing out that Tories have cut provision and refuse to pay for it. And that some Tories don't want foreigners here at all. It upsets some. Don't like the photograph they ate being shown.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Braverman made clear she had ignored the law limiting detention to 48 hrs, but what does Sunak do?
    Given all those Tory MPs who agreed with her, will he order her to change policy?

    And if not, where does it leave his "integrity" pledge?

    https://inews.co.uk/opinion/rishi-sunaks-support-of-suella-braverman-is-putting-his-premiership-in-increasing-danger-1945944

    And it is English law she is breaking. Nothing to do with the EU and ECJ.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited November 2022

    In my opinion, the government, media and think tanks are still struggling to explain to us where a £40bn black hole appeared from, when and how it appeared. Todays Express, Telegraph and Mail show government preparing markets and us for no surprises on budget day, with dire warnings of higher tax on way.

    But. Take this gibberish for example "While the recent focus has been on conditions improving post-Trussonomics, the central picture remains one of a weaker growth, higher borrowing costs and expensive tax cuts that have left a fiscal hole of at least £40 billion to fill."

    What expensive tax cuts?

    https://news.sky.com/story/tax-rises-likely-as-government-faces-unpalatable-menu-to-fill-40bn-black-hole-leading-think-tank-warns-12735375

    Looking at the Sky charts - I’m no economic wizard girl, I don’t even have a GCSE in maths - but is tax up, funding cuts and austerity 2.0 really what those charts are telling us? Or quite the opposite? There’s one chart with gas price so low it makes Truss promise of 2 years of help look a tad unnecessary to put it politely, but look at how much money saved by not doing that, so what’s the best use of this money?

    Cut VAT. VAT holidays. Help footfall, help businesses, help growth in my opinion.

    The policy behind the coming budget is not adding up in my opinion.

    we already have the highest tax take for generations - No point in a "tory" government as it is socialist anyway
    Socialist would have been what Corbyn would have done - maxxed out the borrowing in the first few months of taking power. Then left with nothing to support the furlough schemes when Covid hit. But hey, the private sector could go swing in the breeze under Corbyn.

    THAT is socialism.

    Anybody saying what Sunak did was anything other than a pragmatic approach to keeping the private sector alive through Covid is talking bollocks.
    Sunak put up taxes on those who work for a living, in order to fund a triple lock and tax cuts for those living in no small part on welfare, and for new welfare entitlements to prevent people from having to fund their own care which might hit inheritances.

    When most welfare nowadays goes to pensioners, and the Tories are just as bad as Labour at featherbedding them, then the Tories aren't as anti-socialist as they pretend to be. The Tories just like to act like theirs is a good kind of welfare but its welfare all the same.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,089
    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,960
    Fishing said:

    In my opinion, the government, media and think tanks are still struggling to explain to us where a £40bn black hole appeared from, when and how it appeared. Todays Express, Telegraph and Mail show government preparing markets and us for no surprises on budget day, with dire warnings of higher tax on way.

    But. Take this gibberish for example "While the recent focus has been on conditions improving post-Trussonomics, the central picture remains one of a weaker growth, higher borrowing costs and expensive tax cuts that have left a fiscal hole of at least £40 billion to fill."

    What expensive tax cuts?

    https://news.sky.com/story/tax-rises-likely-as-government-faces-unpalatable-menu-to-fill-40bn-black-hole-leading-think-tank-warns-12735375

    Looking at the Sky charts - I’m no economic wizard girl, I don’t even have a GCSE in maths - but is tax up, funding cuts and austerity 2.0 really what those charts are telling us? Or quite the opposite? There’s one chart with gas price so low it makes Truss promise of 2 years of help look a tad unnecessary to put it politely, but look at how much money saved by not doing that, so what’s the best use of this money?

    Cut VAT. VAT holidays. Help footfall, help businesses, help growth in my opinion.

    The policy behind the coming budget is not adding up in my opinion.

    we already have the highest tax take for generations - No point in a "tory" government as it is socialist anyway
    Socialist would have been what Corbyn would have done - maxxed out the borrowing in the first few months of taking power. Then left with nothing to support the furlough schemes when Covid hit. But hey, the private sector could go swing in the breeze under Corbyn.

    THAT is socialism.

    Anybody saying what Sunak did was anything other than a pragmatic approach to keeping the private sector alive through Covid is talking bollocks.
    Paying my perfectly healthy 30-something neighbours to sunbathe for months to stop a disease that kills mostly 80 year olds with preexisting conditions isn't pragmatic, it's crazy, as is wasting £37 billion - almost the defence budget - on PPE from their mates, and, unsurprisingly, has created a huge culture of laziness and dependency in this country and elsewhere (or rather hugely increased a culture that was already there).
    You think we had the luxury of time to craft a means tested Covid programme?

    I don't give a pass to anybody that exploited the PPE crisis for personal gain. I am very happy to prosecute after the event. But what is undeniable is that in a world desperate for PPE, where everyone was cutting each other's throats for supplies, worldwide, our Government procured enough to ensure the NHS could operate.

    You would have cut them no slack if they had failed in that task.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    TOPPING said:

    Yeah it's another classic.

    We want something to be done about asylum seekers but don't want to pay to put the systems in place which would do just that.

    I heard the 75% success rate on the radio yesterday also, the problem being the time it takes to get to a decision.

    Oh and the influx of foreigners if you don't like foreigners.

    Are the delays really a surprise, when it takes two or three years to bring serious criminal cases to court ?

    The 'economies' by way of cuts in court and administrative systems in recent years likely cost us a great deal more than they save.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Excl: Senior Tories warn that Suella Braverman risks fuelling support for far-right extremists after describing the Channel migrant crisis as an "invasion":

    https://bit.ly/3DR1o2i


    The problem for Rishi is the "far-right extremists" are Tory voters
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Scott_xP said:

    Excl: Senior Tories warn that Suella Braverman risks fuelling support for far-right extremists after describing the Channel migrant crisis as an "invasion":

    https://bit.ly/3DR1o2i


    The problem for Rishi is the "far-right extremists" are Tory voters

    No, they really are not - unless you are far to the left yourself.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited November 2022
    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    I think they are angling for government to become a customer, relying on the sunk cost fallacy in a few years time.

    I said several years ago that Brexit would stop us participating in the re-engineering of European car manufacturing, and got a lot of pushback.
    Not so much recently.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,089
    Nigelb said:

    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    I think they are angling for government to become a customer, relying on the sunk cost fallacy in a few years time.
    This quote from their website seems to sum up the problem for me

    "Without domestic battery production the UK could see its motor industry migrate abroad."

    But, of course, the converse is true. As the motor industry migrates abroad, noone needs domestic UK battery production.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    edited November 2022

    Scott_xP said:

    Excl: Senior Tories warn that Suella Braverman risks fuelling support for far-right extremists after describing the Channel migrant crisis as an "invasion":

    https://bit.ly/3DR1o2i


    The problem for Rishi is the "far-right extremists" are Tory voters

    No, they really are not - unless you are far to the left yourself.
    I would contend that "far-right extremists" are generally Tory voters; only a very small proportion of Tory voters of course but Scott's still right.

    In the same way, far-left extremists are generally Labour voters.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    In my opinion, the government, media and think tanks are still struggling to explain to us where a £40bn black hole appeared from, when and how it appeared. Todays Express, Telegraph and Mail show government preparing markets and us for no surprises on budget day, with dire warnings of higher tax on way.

    But. Take this gibberish for example "While the recent focus has been on conditions improving post-Trussonomics, the central picture remains one of a weaker growth, higher borrowing costs and expensive tax cuts that have left a fiscal hole of at least £40 billion to fill."

    What expensive tax cuts?

    https://news.sky.com/story/tax-rises-likely-as-government-faces-unpalatable-menu-to-fill-40bn-black-hole-leading-think-tank-warns-12735375

    Looking at the Sky charts - I’m no economic wizard girl, I don’t even have a GCSE in maths - but is tax up, funding cuts and austerity 2.0 really what those charts are telling us? Or quite the opposite? There’s one chart with gas price so low it makes Truss promise of 2 years of help look a tad unnecessary to put it politely, but look at how much money saved by not doing that, so what’s the best use of this money?

    Cut VAT. VAT holidays. Help footfall, help businesses, help growth in my opinion.

    The policy behind the coming budget is not adding up in my opinion.

    we already have the highest tax take for generations - No point in a "tory" government as it is socialist anyway
    Socialist would have been what Corbyn would have done - maxxed out the borrowing in the first few months of taking power. Then left with nothing to support the furlough schemes when Covid hit. But hey, the private sector could go swing in the breeze under Corbyn.

    THAT is socialism.

    Anybody saying what Sunak did was anything other than a pragmatic approach to keeping the private sector alive through Covid is talking bollocks.
    Corbyn would have been a disastrous PM, but he lost, he never became PM. Instead we had another disaster. Your narrative whether likely or otherwise is a fiction.

    Sunak's support through COVID was significant, whether he adopted the most appropriate mechanism, whether it was open to eye- watering abuse, and whether it was value for (borrowed) money however, does warrant scrutiny.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    An update on the Kerch Brudge:

    Kerch Bridge Update: Minister of Transportation Savelev says that 250 light cars on average cross the bridge per hour. Heavy cargo is being sent via occupied land corridor from Rostov oblast (7.5k trucks since Oct 8). Only 16 train pairs have been sent across the bridge so far

    Minister of Transportation Savelev says that the Crimean ferries have transported 12k trucks, 515 railcars and 23k ppl since Oct 8

    https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1587167853412847616
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    mwadams said:

    Nigelb said:

    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    I think they are angling for government to become a customer, relying on the sunk cost fallacy in a few years time.
    This quote from their website seems to sum up the problem for me

    "Without domestic battery production the UK could see its motor industry migrate abroad."

    But, of course, the converse is true. As the motor industry migrates abroad, noone needs domestic UK battery production.
    It would be good to have both.
    But it's very hard to see how that now might happen.

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    The very name Britishvolt seems designed to soak up patriotic investors. It will no doubt end in tears.
  • mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    Also the high performance cars would use different chemistry in their batteries to what most mass market cars would use. Makes one wonder if this is going to be a successful battery maker.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Braverman has supporters on the Tory benches. Why Sunak appointed and won’t fire her… yet. https://twitter.com/markjenkinsonmp/status/1587355626140737536
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Roger Gale tells @TimesRadio that “very high-level information” from the Home Office has revealed that alternative accommodation was used by Priti Patel, Grant Shapps, but not Suella Braverman. “I do not accept or trust this Home Secretary’s word”.
    https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1587352566450487296
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,168
    Ishmael_Z said:

    I heard the leader of a Tory council in Kent this morning on 5L, started off by throwing his hands up at the numbers coming over. By the end of his interview he had admitted the numbers were very similar to the early 2000s, and the biggest issues were backlogs of processing causing overcrowding. Yet again this sorry business can be brought to the desks of Tory Home secretaries not doing their job. When you cut off or slim down the easier routes to applications the asylum seekers will then choose other routes, less easy and more dangerous to them. If 80% of the asylum seekers are successful in the end, why not make it more straightforward in the first palce with more offices in France and Belgium, with paid passage on a ferry. So much cheaper and easier on the people of Kent compared to now. I wouldn't be averse to returning the boat people to France if a proper system was in place there.

    Because the only practical way of rationing asylum is preventing them getting here in the first place, if they are guaranteed to succeed when they get here.
    They are not guaranteed to succeed when they get here. From Oxford University:

    “In 2021, the share of asylum applications (main applicants, excluding dependants) receiving a grant at initial decision rose to a record-high of 72% (with 28% being refused), which is much higher than in previous years. In 2018, the initial decision grant rate was 33% (Figure 4). The Home Office credits the increase predominantly due to a 98% fall in the number of people being subject to “third country refusals” (3,300 people in 2020 to 50 in 2021). A third country refusal refers to the UK determining that it is not the country responsible for considering a person’s asylum claim because they have a connection to a safe third country. These refusals were typically processed under the Dublin system, which the UK left on 1 January 2021. The reduction in third country refusals will have increased the overall success rate of asylum claims. But there are other factors driving the change. One is a change in the composition of applicants. For example, in recent years, there has been an increase in nationals whose asylum application success rate is higher than the average, such as Iranians.”

    See figures 4 & 5 at https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/

    And I note:

    “People who originally came to the UK to seek asylum made up an estimated 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population and 0.6% of the UK’s total resident population in 2019

    “An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This made up 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019 of 9.48 million, and 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more”
  • TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Only once. I went to the external utility room at work and found someone squatting there. He'd forced the lock and had food, clothes and all his [not many] belongings it seems in there.

    I both felt sorry for him, and was utterly horrified that he was using the very large and rather old [1980s] commercial gas boiler as an ashtray. No idea how long he'd been living there, but clearly had been smoking a lot and there was a lot of ash and cigarette butts stomped out on the boiler. The many large "NO SMOKING" and "DANGER GAS" signs had clearly been ignored. I hate to think what would have happened had that behaviour sparked a fire.

    I tried to explain to him he couldn't be there and pointed to the signs, but it was hard to talk to him as he didn't speak English. But he started packing his bags straight away and was gone within the hour and I never saw him again.

    Horrible situation for him, life in England was clearly not what he'd been expecting. I feel awful for him, but it was a very dangerous situation he was putting himself and possibly us in living and smoking in the utility room like that, and using a boiler as an ashtray.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MikeL said:

    The Democrats being level in the Senate seems extraordinary once you consider all the sparsely populated red states having 2 senators each.

    Worth noting that in the 2020 Presidential Election, Biden and Trump both won 25 states (Biden also won the District of Columbia).

    So the two "extra" Electoral College votes for each state which are not proportional made no difference at all (in fact Biden gained a net two as he won DC).

    The point is there are a fair number of small states which the Dems win - both Vermont and Delaware have one House seat; Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Hawaii all have two House seats.
    Two very large states : Texas and Florida are pretty reliably red.
    Florida voted for Obama twice and elected Bill Nelson as Senator three times. About 40% of its House representatives are Dems.

    Yes, it leans Republican but I wouldn’t describe it as ‘pretty reliably red.’

    And Texas has been slowly trending blue for some time (though not as fast as many predicted in the early 2000s).
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    Ishmael_Z said:

    I heard the leader of a Tory council in Kent this morning on 5L, started off by throwing his hands up at the numbers coming over. By the end of his interview he had admitted the numbers were very similar to the early 2000s, and the biggest issues were backlogs of processing causing overcrowding. Yet again this sorry business can be brought to the desks of Tory Home secretaries not doing their job. When you cut off or slim down the easier routes to applications the asylum seekers will then choose other routes, less easy and more dangerous to them. If 80% of the asylum seekers are successful in the end, why not make it more straightforward in the first palce with more offices in France and Belgium, with paid passage on a ferry. So much cheaper and easier on the people of Kent compared to now. I wouldn't be averse to returning the boat people to France if a proper system was in place there.

    Because the only practical way of rationing asylum is preventing them getting here in the first place, if they are guaranteed to succeed when they get here.
    They are not guaranteed to succeed when they get here. From Oxford University:

    “In 2021, the share of asylum applications (main applicants, excluding dependants) receiving a grant at initial decision rose to a record-high of 72% (with 28% being refused), which is much higher than in previous years. In 2018, the initial decision grant rate was 33% (Figure 4). The Home Office credits the increase predominantly due to a 98% fall in the number of people being subject to “third country refusals” (3,300 people in 2020 to 50 in 2021). A third country refusal refers to the UK determining that it is not the country responsible for considering a person’s asylum claim because they have a connection to a safe third country. These refusals were typically processed under the Dublin system, which the UK left on 1 January 2021. The reduction in third country refusals will have increased the overall success rate of asylum claims. But there are other factors driving the change. One is a change in the composition of applicants. For example, in recent years, there has been an increase in nationals whose asylum application success rate is higher than the average, such as Iranians.”

    See figures 4 & 5 at https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/

    And I note:

    “People who originally came to the UK to seek asylum made up an estimated 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population and 0.6% of the UK’s total resident population in 2019

    “An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This made up 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019 of 9.48 million, and 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more”
    OK but the fails are also an expensive problem. They don't vanish in a puff of smoke.
  • Pretty remarkable that after one week, opinion polls suggest Sunak has closed the gap between Labour & Tories on which party has best candidate for PM, while some polls have put the Tories ahead of Labour on economic competence 1/

    Ofc Conservatives still trail Labour heavily in opinion polls. But one key question now is whether voters will have long enough memories to punish Tories for Truss’s disastrous reign at next election, or whether a period of stable Govt by Sunak allows public anger to subside 2/2


    https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1587357686353494017
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    .@RobertJenrick tells @BBCr4today "Manston is a site which just a few weeks ago was operating correctly."
    What happened a few weeks ago? Suella Braverman was appointed Home Secretary.

    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1587358802122268674
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Only once. I went to the external utility room at work and found someone squatting there. He'd forced the lock and had food, clothes and all his [not many] belongings it seems in there.

    I both felt sorry for him, and was utterly horrified that he was using the very large and rather old [1980s] commercial gas boiler as an ashtray. No idea how long he'd been living there, but clearly had been smoking a lot and there was a lot of ash and cigarette butts stomped out on the boiler. The many large "NO SMOKING" and "DANGER GAS" signs had clearly been ignored. I hate to think what would have happened had that behaviour sparked a fire.

    I tried to explain to him he couldn't be there and pointed to the signs, but it was hard to talk to him as he didn't speak English. But he started packing his bags straight away and was gone within the hour and I never saw him again.

    Horrible situation for him, life in England was clearly not what he'd been expecting. I feel awful for him, but it was a very dangerous situation he was putting himself and possibly us in living and smoking in the utility room like that, and using a boiler as an ashtray.
    Very interesting thanks did you get from him where he was from.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,089

    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    The very name Britishvolt seems designed to soak up patriotic investors. It will no doubt end in tears.
    The classic British Engineering path: King's Award for Industry, lake, flagpole, bankruptcy.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
    Albanian child thieves in my local Oriental supermarket, Longdan, Camden

    Next
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    The UK government will probably pay Nissan to use them. That seems to be the obvious play given their location.

    They are being very cagey about where this 30m quid suddenly appeared from this week.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,168
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    I heard the leader of a Tory council in Kent this morning on 5L, started off by throwing his hands up at the numbers coming over. By the end of his interview he had admitted the numbers were very similar to the early 2000s, and the biggest issues were backlogs of processing causing overcrowding. Yet again this sorry business can be brought to the desks of Tory Home secretaries not doing their job. When you cut off or slim down the easier routes to applications the asylum seekers will then choose other routes, less easy and more dangerous to them. If 80% of the asylum seekers are successful in the end, why not make it more straightforward in the first palce with more offices in France and Belgium, with paid passage on a ferry. So much cheaper and easier on the people of Kent compared to now. I wouldn't be averse to returning the boat people to France if a proper system was in place there.

    Because the only practical way of rationing asylum is preventing them getting here in the first place, if they are guaranteed to succeed when they get here.
    They are not guaranteed to succeed when they get here. From Oxford University:

    “In 2021, the share of asylum applications (main applicants, excluding dependants) receiving a grant at initial decision rose to a record-high of 72% (with 28% being refused), which is much higher than in previous years. In 2018, the initial decision grant rate was 33% (Figure 4). The Home Office credits the increase predominantly due to a 98% fall in the number of people being subject to “third country refusals” (3,300 people in 2020 to 50 in 2021). A third country refusal refers to the UK determining that it is not the country responsible for considering a person’s asylum claim because they have a connection to a safe third country. These refusals were typically processed under the Dublin system, which the UK left on 1 January 2021. The reduction in third country refusals will have increased the overall success rate of asylum claims. But there are other factors driving the change. One is a change in the composition of applicants. For example, in recent years, there has been an increase in nationals whose asylum application success rate is higher than the average, such as Iranians.”

    See figures 4 & 5 at https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/

    And I note:

    “People who originally came to the UK to seek asylum made up an estimated 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population and 0.6% of the UK’s total resident population in 2019

    “An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This made up 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019 of 9.48 million, and 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more”
    OK but the fails are also an expensive problem. They don't vanish in a puff of smoke.
    Those whose applications fail are generally deported. If the UK government is being slow to process these cases and then deport them, that would appear to be the fault of successive Conservative Home Secretaries.
  • DJ41DJ41 Posts: 792
    edited November 2022
    It's a bit obvious what main issue the Tories will fight the next general election on. It won't be "the economy" or whether or not whoever is prime minister at the time lied about having a booze-up. It will be immigration. (But for the true dimwit, everything is connected with immigration - housing, education, the economy, employment, foreign policy, policing, health, and why they feel like cr*p all the time.) And I don't mean immigration by ultra high net worthers or even plain old high net worthers who fly in from Hong Kong, Karachi, Kiev, Saudi, or anywhere else. I mean "those Romanians next door", and "350 million on small boats", or whatever the headline figure will be - it will be memorable. They won't finish 30pp behind Labour. I wouldn't be surprised if they win more votes than Labour. Labour unfortunately is unlikely to do well in an immigration election.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Successive Con Home Secs have assumed that - even if they break promises/ don't deliver policy change - they will get credit for saying they want to reduce numbers/ 'get tough'. The limits of that political strategy are now being shown https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1587234342790651905
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
    Albanian child thieves in my local Oriental supermarket, Longdan, Camden

    Next
    Thanks. Did they rob you? Or did you see them steal from the shop?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,168

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    I heard the leader of a Tory council in Kent this morning on 5L, started off by throwing his hands up at the numbers coming over. By the end of his interview he had admitted the numbers were very similar to the early 2000s, and the biggest issues were backlogs of processing causing overcrowding. Yet again this sorry business can be brought to the desks of Tory Home secretaries not doing their job. When you cut off or slim down the easier routes to applications the asylum seekers will then choose other routes, less easy and more dangerous to them. If 80% of the asylum seekers are successful in the end, why not make it more straightforward in the first palce with more offices in France and Belgium, with paid passage on a ferry. So much cheaper and easier on the people of Kent compared to now. I wouldn't be averse to returning the boat people to France if a proper system was in place there.

    Because the only practical way of rationing asylum is preventing them getting here in the first place, if they are guaranteed to succeed when they get here.
    They are not guaranteed to succeed when they get here. From Oxford University:

    “In 2021, the share of asylum applications (main applicants, excluding dependants) receiving a grant at initial decision rose to a record-high of 72% (with 28% being refused), which is much higher than in previous years. In 2018, the initial decision grant rate was 33% (Figure 4). The Home Office credits the increase predominantly due to a 98% fall in the number of people being subject to “third country refusals” (3,300 people in 2020 to 50 in 2021). A third country refusal refers to the UK determining that it is not the country responsible for considering a person’s asylum claim because they have a connection to a safe third country. These refusals were typically processed under the Dublin system, which the UK left on 1 January 2021. The reduction in third country refusals will have increased the overall success rate of asylum claims. But there are other factors driving the change. One is a change in the composition of applicants. For example, in recent years, there has been an increase in nationals whose asylum application success rate is higher than the average, such as Iranians.”

    See figures 4 & 5 at https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/

    And I note:

    “People who originally came to the UK to seek asylum made up an estimated 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population and 0.6% of the UK’s total resident population in 2019

    “An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This made up 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019 of 9.48 million, and 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more”
    OK but the fails are also an expensive problem. They don't vanish in a puff of smoke.
    Those whose applications fail are generally deported. If the UK government is being slow to process these cases and then deport them, that would appear to be the fault of successive Conservative Home Secretaries.
    From https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/deportation-and-voluntary-departure-from-the-uk/

    “In 2021, there were around 9,500 returns, comprising both enforced and voluntary returns, though this number will increase due to initial undercounting of voluntary returns. This is down from a peak of around 47,000 in 2013 (Figure 2).

    “In every year from 2007 onwards, total voluntary returns (given by the sum of Facilitated or monitored and Independent returns) outnumbered enforced returns. The Home Office prefers voluntary returns (National Audit Office, 2020, p. 35), in part because its research shows that they are much cheaper. The Home Office reported in 2013 that the average cost of a voluntary return was £1,000, compared to £15,000 for an enforced return (Home Office, 2013, p. 4).

    “The fall in returns after 2015 has been driven by declines in both enforced and voluntary returns, though the number of voluntary returns has fallen more steeply (though, as explained above, some of this fall in 2020 and 2021 is due to initial undercounting). This fall is likely due to several factors. The Home Office suggests that one factor for the overall fall in returns is “tighter screening of passengers prior to travel”, to reduce the entry of people who may go on to become irregular migrants (Home Office, 2022a).

    […]

    “The decline in enforced returns in 2021 forms part of a longer-term fall in enforced returns after 2012. The Home Office (2019a) reports that falls in enforced returns (before the pandemic) coincided with changes across the immigration system. According to the Home Office, these changes included the government reducing the use of detention and the size of the detention estate (see our briefing on Immigration Detention in the UK), and the government implementing changes following the Windrush scandal to give more scrutiny to detention decisions and ‘make better use of face-to-face engagement’ with detainees (Joint Committee on Human Rights, 2019, p. 4). A review of illegal working by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (2019) also identified factors that may have reduced removals following Windrush, including a pause in data sharing between government departments and lower morale among front-line enforcement staff.”

    And also note:

    “In 2021, 779 people who left the UK departed via enforced or voluntary return had previously sought asylum in the UK – equivalent to 8% of all departures. This suggests that 92% of returnees in 2021 were not asylum seekers (note that these percentages will change because Independent returns are provisional and subject to upward revision).”
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
    Albanian child thieves in my local Oriental supermarket, Longdan, Camden

    Next
    Thanks. Did they rob you? Or did you see them steal from the shop?

    Saw them steal, flagrantly. And simply walk out the shop

    They were so blatant and unafraid I just stood there. Bewildered. Then asked the shopkeeper who explained
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,089
    Dura_Ace said:

    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    The UK government will probably pay Nissan to use them. That seems to be the obvious play given their location.

    They are being very cagey about where this 30m quid suddenly appeared from this week.
    You mean their location hasn't been chosen for its optimal Low Emission Environment Friendly ESG nature? I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

    Given that the government are paying Nissan to stay there, and, as you posit, paying Nissan to use BritishVolt, can we all have a free Nissan EV?
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
    Albanian child thieves in my local Oriental supermarket, Longdan, Camden

    Next
    Thanks. Did they rob you? Or did you see them steal from the shop?
    KKK active in my area but they have never lynched me personally so I keep quiet about it
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Volt business plan…

    Pick a company name that confuses ministers and makes them think they’re buying a Tesla.
    Milk the the U.K. taxpayer for every penny you can get.

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
    Albanian child thieves in my local Oriental supermarket, Longdan, Camden

    Next
    Thanks. Did they rob you? Or did you see them steal from the shop?

    Saw them steal, flagrantly. And simply walk out the shop

    They were so blatant and unafraid I just stood there. Bewildered. Then asked the shopkeeper who explained
    Thanks.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461

    Ishmael_Z said:

    I heard the leader of a Tory council in Kent this morning on 5L, started off by throwing his hands up at the numbers coming over. By the end of his interview he had admitted the numbers were very similar to the early 2000s, and the biggest issues were backlogs of processing causing overcrowding. Yet again this sorry business can be brought to the desks of Tory Home secretaries not doing their job. When you cut off or slim down the easier routes to applications the asylum seekers will then choose other routes, less easy and more dangerous to them. If 80% of the asylum seekers are successful in the end, why not make it more straightforward in the first palce with more offices in France and Belgium, with paid passage on a ferry. So much cheaper and easier on the people of Kent compared to now. I wouldn't be averse to returning the boat people to France if a proper system was in place there.

    Because the only practical way of rationing asylum is preventing them getting here in the first place, if they are guaranteed to succeed when they get here.
    They are not guaranteed to succeed when they get here. From Oxford University:

    “In 2021, the share of asylum applications (main applicants, excluding dependants) receiving a grant at initial decision rose to a record-high of 72% (with 28% being refused), which is much higher than in previous years. In 2018, the initial decision grant rate was 33% (Figure 4). The Home Office credits the increase predominantly due to a 98% fall in the number of people being subject to “third country refusals” (3,300 people in 2020 to 50 in 2021). A third country refusal refers to the UK determining that it is not the country responsible for considering a person’s asylum claim because they have a connection to a safe third country. These refusals were typically processed under the Dublin system, which the UK left on 1 January 2021. The reduction in third country refusals will have increased the overall success rate of asylum claims. But there are other factors driving the change. One is a change in the composition of applicants. For example, in recent years, there has been an increase in nationals whose asylum application success rate is higher than the average, such as Iranians.”

    See figures 4 & 5 at https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/

    And I note:

    “People who originally came to the UK to seek asylum made up an estimated 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population and 0.6% of the UK’s total resident population in 2019

    “An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This made up 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019 of 9.48 million, and 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more”
    What on earth are you doing on here, filling the site with actual evidence rather than tabloid prejudice? Don't you know how the site works?
  • mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    The UK government will probably pay Nissan to use them. That seems to be the obvious play given their location.

    They are being very cagey about where this 30m quid suddenly appeared from this week.
    You mean their location hasn't been chosen for its optimal Low Emission Environment Friendly ESG nature? I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

    Given that the government are paying Nissan to stay there, and, as you posit, paying Nissan to use BritishVolt, can we all have a free Nissan EV?
    Would you want an 11 year old Nissan Leaf? They were bad enough a design at 3 years old (I had one 2014-2017). Now? Practically geriatric.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    A good friend of mine was staying and working illegally (cash-in-hand bar work) in the late 2000s, before she returned to her native Australia. That's pretty much it though - I've worked with people from all over the world, btu had no reason to assume they were here illegally.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    50/50 for the Senate according to 538. Predicted number of GOP seats is 50.5.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/senate/?cid=rrpromo
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    DJ41 said:

    It's a bit obvious what main issue the Tories will fight the next general election on. It won't be "the economy" or whether or not whoever is prime minister at the time lied about having a booze-up. It will be immigration. (But for the true dimwit, everything is connected with immigration - housing, education, the economy, employment, foreign policy, policing, health, and why they feel like cr*p all the time.) And I don't mean immigration by ultra high net worthers or even plain old high net worthers who fly in from Hong Kong, Karachi, Kiev, Saudi, or anywhere else. I mean "those Romanians next door", and "350 million on small boats", or whatever the headline figure will be - it will be memorable. They won't finish 30pp behind Labour. I wouldn't be surprised if they win more votes than Labour. Labour unfortunately is unlikely to do well in an immigration election.

    For people competing directly with immigrants for housing, education and jobs, it is not dim-witted

    Tory line needs to be immigration is out of control! We have the answer!! All they are doing, is demonstrate that they don't. Last I saw lab were more trusted than con by about 5 points on immigration. They will offer to do a deal with France. They will be fine.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    Ishmael_Z said:

    I heard the leader of a Tory council in Kent this morning on 5L, started off by throwing his hands up at the numbers coming over. By the end of his interview he had admitted the numbers were very similar to the early 2000s, and the biggest issues were backlogs of processing causing overcrowding. Yet again this sorry business can be brought to the desks of Tory Home secretaries not doing their job. When you cut off or slim down the easier routes to applications the asylum seekers will then choose other routes, less easy and more dangerous to them. If 80% of the asylum seekers are successful in the end, why not make it more straightforward in the first palce with more offices in France and Belgium, with paid passage on a ferry. So much cheaper and easier on the people of Kent compared to now. I wouldn't be averse to returning the boat people to France if a proper system was in place there.

    Because the only practical way of rationing asylum is preventing them getting here in the first place, if they are guaranteed to succeed when they get here.
    They are not guaranteed to succeed when they get here. From Oxford University:

    “In 2021, the share of asylum applications (main applicants, excluding dependants) receiving a grant at initial decision rose to a record-high of 72% (with 28% being refused), which is much higher than in previous years. In 2018, the initial decision grant rate was 33% (Figure 4). The Home Office credits the increase predominantly due to a 98% fall in the number of people being subject to “third country refusals” (3,300 people in 2020 to 50 in 2021). A third country refusal refers to the UK determining that it is not the country responsible for considering a person’s asylum claim because they have a connection to a safe third country. These refusals were typically processed under the Dublin system, which the UK left on 1 January 2021. The reduction in third country refusals will have increased the overall success rate of asylum claims. But there are other factors driving the change. One is a change in the composition of applicants. For example, in recent years, there has been an increase in nationals whose asylum application success rate is higher than the average, such as Iranians.”

    See figures 4 & 5 at https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/

    And I note:

    “People who originally came to the UK to seek asylum made up an estimated 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population and 0.6% of the UK’s total resident population in 2019

    “An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This made up 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019 of 9.48 million, and 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more”
    What on earth are you doing on here, filling the site with actual evidence rather than tabloid prejudice? Don't you know how the site works?
    Twit
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    Dura_Ace said:

    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    The UK government will probably pay Nissan to use them. That seems to be the obvious play given their location.

    They are being very cagey about where this 30m quid suddenly appeared from this week.
    From the asylum seekers' hotel budget, presumably. Braverman didn't want it.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    Ghedebrav said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    A good friend of mine was staying and working illegally (cash-in-hand bar work) in the late 2000s, before she returned to her native Australia. That's pretty much it though - I've worked with people from all over the world, btu had no reason to assume they were here illegally.
    Would add that as CoG of a primary in Manchester I've also had a fair amount of experience with children or families of refugees. None that I would put in the 'illegal immigrant' category though.
  • TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    Don't call them that. They are INVADERS. Brutes the lot of them. Listen to what you posted. "helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns" - stealing OUR jobs that we don't want to do.

    And they arrived illegally on a boat instead of not claiming asylum legally as there is no legal route. So an CRIMINALS surely it's only right that we warehouse them illegally in unsanitary conditions until we can deport them to be beaten to death.

    Its what Churchill would have wanted.
  • DJ41DJ41 Posts: 792
    And the alt-right gears up for what it really really wants - race war, literally. Half of them have probably been "playing" it "virtually" for years already. This is very scary, and the "just accept Brexit and move on" mantra even when it comes from reasonably kind people with good intentions doesn't get to grip with the real divisions and how they are developing - as sadly the "culture war" strategists on the racist right know all too well.
  • KeystoneKeystone Posts: 127
    Nigelb said:

    mwadams said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Good news

    Britishvolt secures funding

    BBC News - UK battery firm Britishvolt averts collapse as funding secured
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63459393

    Aston Martin and Lotus aren't mass market car makes, they need bigger carmakers.
    The new Lotus Eletre SUV is going to be built in Wuhan (JUST LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED THERE!) so they aren't going to be shipping battery packs to China for that.

    AM have no definite BEV model on their roadmap and their hybid, the fucking awful Valhalla, uses a Merc powertrain.

    I honestly think they've just chucked out the names of two semi-prestigous UK manufacturers to catch the eye.
    I've not yet understood what their value proposition is. Why would anyone loop them into their supply chain? Seems high risk for no obvious benefit.
    I think they are angling for government to become a customer, relying on the sunk cost fallacy in a few years time.

    I said several years ago that Brexit would stop us participating in the re-engineering of European car manufacturing, and got a lot of pushback.
    Not so much recently.
    To be fair - Brexit simply distracted the government's attention. It's a longer term problem of failing to understand heavy industry.

    The big problem with selling off assets to foreign owners is that they privilege domestic manufacturing sites when the industry changes. (Look where the Japs are designing and assembling their most sophisticated models).

    Like the looming pensions mess - it's a serious Tory failure that escapes serious scrutiny. Still if the West Midlands voters know what they want, they deserve to get it good and hard, as Mencken put it.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    Don't call them that. They are INVADERS. Brutes the lot of them. Listen to what you posted. "helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns" - stealing OUR jobs that we don't want to do.

    And they arrived illegally on a boat instead of not claiming asylum legally as there is no legal route. So an CRIMINALS surely it's only right that we warehouse them illegally in unsanitary conditions until we can deport them to be beaten to death.

    Its what Churchill would have wanted.
    White flight satire at its best

    Immigration causes no problem to anyone EXCEPT THE POOR. Serve them right for being poor.
  • Children as young as nine were prescribed puberty blockers at a Scottish gender identity clinic branded "Sturgeon's Tavistock," a report has revealed….

    The report also showed a “disproportionately” high number of children undergoing gender treatment who were referred to endocrinologists at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow from 2011 to 2019 had autism. Nearly 40 per cent of children referred suffered from mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression.

    Psychiatrists and campaigners have demanded that the Scottish Government immediately close down the clinic over its readiness to medicate "clearly vulnerable and troubled" children with "experimental" and "dangerous" drugs. They have accused Nicola Sturgeon's administration of pursuing an "ideologically-driven activist agenda" based on affirming children's feelings rather than on medical evidence.


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/31/children-young-nine-prescribed-puberty-blockers-nicola-sturgeon/
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
    Albanian child thieves in my local Oriental supermarket, Longdan, Camden

    Next
    Thanks. Did they rob you? Or did you see them steal from the shop?

    Saw them steal, flagrantly. And simply walk out the shop

    They were so blatant and unafraid I just stood there. Bewildered. Then asked the shopkeeper who explained
    Thanks.

    Of course I have surely encountered illegal immigrants in multiple other ways - much more benign or sad or whatever. It’s simply that you don’t know, most of the time - the criminality here meant there had been police involved which meant the shopkeeper had the info

    Indeed on reflection my lovely Thai cleaner Nok was - I reckon - probably an illegal immigrant for a while. Certainly her status was unsure

    She’s friendly, kind, generous, hard working, completely honest, loves the UK and its freedoms - and she has fought for years to get settled status (which she now has) via the legal routes

    It’s people like her who probably suffer most from these Albanians waltzing in. She spent half a decade doing it the right way, they spend half an hour on a boat and treat us as laughable fools
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268

    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    Don't call them that. They are INVADERS. Brutes the lot of them. Listen to what you posted. "helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns" - stealing OUR jobs that we don't want to do.

    And they arrived illegally on a boat instead of not claiming asylum legally as there is no legal route. So an CRIMINALS surely it's only right that we warehouse them illegally in unsanitary conditions until we can deport them to be beaten to death.

    Its what Churchill would have wanted.
    You can put the used Kleenex in the bin now
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    ...

    Pretty remarkable that after one week, opinion polls suggest Sunak has closed the gap between Labour & Tories on which party has best candidate for PM, while some polls have put the Tories ahead of Labour on economic competence 1/

    Ofc Conservatives still trail Labour heavily in opinion polls. But one key question now is whether voters will have long enough memories to punish Tories for Truss’s disastrous reign at next election, or whether a period of stable Govt by Sunak allows public anger to subside 2/2


    https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1587357686353494017

    A rather one sided argument that has selected polls to fit the narrative. Weren't we all expecting a honeymoon? It has been rather tardy, but it's on its way. How long it lasts is the question.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401
    Breaking News:

    Sunil has joined the Rail Forums site!
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited November 2022

    Pretty remarkable that after one week, opinion polls suggest Sunak has closed the gap between Labour & Tories on which party has best candidate for PM, while some polls have put the Tories ahead of Labour on economic competence 1/

    Ofc Conservatives still trail Labour heavily in opinion polls. But one key question now is whether voters will have long enough memories to punish Tories for Truss’s disastrous reign at next election, or whether a period of stable Govt by Sunak allows public anger to subside 2/2


    https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1587357686353494017

    He'll probably close the gap in the polls as well over the next 6 months.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    I once went out with an American girl who was overstaying her visa. Generally a good experience.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Really think England need to up a couple of gears here. The NZ batting line up is formidable.
  • Good for the kids, they seem to have been paying attention in their modern studies classes.

    https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1587357871947350016?s=61&t=1j4k9wwf_ESszRAFY4_KEA



  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited November 2022
    So as of now we have had:

    1. Some woman off the radio.
    2. Some bloke sleeping rough.
    3. An Aussie bar worker.
    4. Some kids thieving from the supermarket.
    5. The most delightful Thai woman now thankfully legal.
    6. A whole load of immigrants, at an actual centre, who seem like normal people.

    I am failing to see a crisis here. I see a policy objective (reduce the number of illegal immigrants) and some wholly inadequate policy measures on their own terms to try to achieve that objective.

    And this occupies so much of the country (and PB's) waking hours.

    Tow backs, offshore centres, deals with France, P&O cruise ships anchored off Dover.

    I fail to see what meeting an illegal immigrant (if indeed they were but let's assume yes) somehow made the PB collective experiences so toxic and threatening.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Braverman is only interested in her survival and Sunak was only interested in his ambition. What is truly desperate is that for a decade now Tory candidates at every level have always tacked to the hard right in search of members’ votes.
    https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1587354859895984129
    https://twitter.com/los_fisher/status/1587353695213289473
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Ishmael_Z said:

    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    Don't call them that. They are INVADERS. Brutes the lot of them. Listen to what you posted. "helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns" - stealing OUR jobs that we don't want to do.

    And they arrived illegally on a boat instead of not claiming asylum legally as there is no legal route. So an CRIMINALS surely it's only right that we warehouse them illegally in unsanitary conditions until we can deport them to be beaten to death.

    Its what Churchill would have wanted.
    White flight satire at its best

    Immigration causes no problem to anyone EXCEPT THE POOR. Serve them right for being poor.
    Ah, it's on behalf of OTHER PEOPLE that we are so upset.

    https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/man-claims-hius-life-being-ruined-by-immigration-but-cant-explain-how-20170227122932
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    The problem here is that Braverman just generalises about the topic and presents simple answers, in a 'populist' style. There are more effective ways of presenting the same policy, such that it can appeal to the 'red wall' without alienating other voters. However, I am pretty sure that in any event the actual action won't match the rhetoric, so she will just end up looking incompetent, as was the case with her predecessor. But the harm will probably be worse because the expectations she is setting are higher.

  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
    Albanian child thieves in my local Oriental supermarket, Longdan, Camden

    Next
    Thanks. Did they rob you? Or did you see them steal from the shop?
    KKK active in my area but they have never lynched me personally so I keep quiet about it
    Twit
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Suella Braverman is successfully defining herself as the heroic straight-talker who is saying the things the rest of the political establishment are afraid to say. Now, what has recent political history taught us happens next. Do voters say "damn her, I'm with the establishment".
    https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1587366484325666816
  • Andy_JS said:

    Pretty remarkable that after one week, opinion polls suggest Sunak has closed the gap between Labour & Tories on which party has best candidate for PM, while some polls have put the Tories ahead of Labour on economic competence 1/

    Ofc Conservatives still trail Labour heavily in opinion polls. But one key question now is whether voters will have long enough memories to punish Tories for Truss’s disastrous reign at next election, or whether a period of stable Govt by Sunak allows public anger to subside 2/2


    https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1587357686353494017

    He'll probably close the gap in the polls as well over the next 6 months.
    How do you see the "how much money left at the end of the month/how much month left at the end of the money" real economy going over the next six to twenty-five months?

    While the £25bn tax rises and £25bn spending cuts talk is blatant pitch rolling so that the reality isn't so bad, milk and honey look like they are going to be rather off the menu. That doesn't do government popularity much good.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    Just had a remarkable breakfast conversation in my hotel in Hella, Iceland

    All about AI. I realised I was sitting with two experts - in very different ways
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630
    TOPPING said:

    So as of now we have had:

    1. Some woman off the radio.
    2. Some bloke sleeping rough.
    3. An Aussie bar worker.
    4. Some kids thieving from the supermarket.
    5. The most delightful Thai woman now thankfully legal.
    6. A whole load of immigrants, at an actual centre, who seem like normal people.

    I am failing to see a crisis here. I see a policy objective (reduce the number of illegal immigrants) and some wholly inadequate policy measures on their own terms to try to achieve that objective.

    And this occupies so much of the country (and PB's) waking hours.

    Tow backs, offshore centres, deals with France, P&O cruise ships anchored off Dover.

    I fail to see what being an illegal immigrant (if indeed they were but let's assume yes) somehow made the PB collective experiences so toxic and threatening.

    The best way to reduce illegal immigrants and specifically the dinghy boats is to have a pathway for processing which has the potential for legal settlement. The UK takes almost half as many asylum seekers than the EU average (https://bit.ly/3zy4C8l) and we have an extremely hostile process. Of course desperate people will do desperate things when there are no humane options.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    In language straight from the Donald Trump playbook, Britain’s Home Sec. claims there’s an “invasion on our southern coast” by criminals & others pretending to be under threat. She’s a Brexiteer who claimed leaving the EU would give the UK control of its borders. It didn’t work.
    https://twitter.com/BillNeelyReport/status/1587196455239942149
    https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1587137418062356480
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    The politics behind the Manston migrant centre row are even more sinister than they look (by @Anoosh_C)
    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2022/11/suella-braverman-manston-asylum-channel-migrants
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184
    1st November and our heating still isn't on.
    I reckon over the past month in this house, for central heating purposes, we've used less than 10% of the gas we used last year.
    Obviously we're still cooking and washing as much, and using a similar amount og electricity (though we're wfh marginally less), but still, if we're typical, gas consumption must be well down on last year.
    Helpedby a mild Autumn of course. Whether we can maintain this into December and January remains to be seen.
    But still. All helps, surely.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    DavidL said:

    Children as young as nine were prescribed puberty blockers at a Scottish gender identity clinic branded "Sturgeon's Tavistock," a report has revealed….

    The report also showed a “disproportionately” high number of children undergoing gender treatment who were referred to endocrinologists at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow from 2011 to 2019 had autism. Nearly 40 per cent of children referred suffered from mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression.

    Psychiatrists and campaigners have demanded that the Scottish Government immediately close down the clinic over its readiness to medicate "clearly vulnerable and troubled" children with "experimental" and "dangerous" drugs. They have accused Nicola Sturgeon's administration of pursuing an "ideologically-driven activist agenda" based on affirming children's feelings rather than on medical evidence.


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/31/children-young-nine-prescribed-puberty-blockers-nicola-sturgeon/

    This is genuinely evil. The damage done to these poor kids will distort and harm the rest of their lives. No doubt people are doing this with honest intentions but for goodness sake stop, just stop.
    Ideological intentions, not honest. It's evil.
  • Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    Don't call them that. They are INVADERS. Brutes the lot of them. Listen to what you posted. "helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns" - stealing OUR jobs that we don't want to do.

    And they arrived illegally on a boat instead of not claiming asylum legally as there is no legal route. So an CRIMINALS surely it's only right that we warehouse them illegally in unsanitary conditions until we can deport them to be beaten to death.

    Its what Churchill would have wanted.
    You can put the used Kleenex in the bin now
    ...who's the w**ker here?...

    Welcome back from exile by the way.

    (Hiltz! Cooler!)
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    Don't call them that. They are INVADERS. Brutes the lot of them. Listen to what you posted. "helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns" - stealing OUR jobs that we don't want to do.

    And they arrived illegally on a boat instead of not claiming asylum legally as there is no legal route. So an CRIMINALS surely it's only right that we warehouse them illegally in unsanitary conditions until we can deport them to be beaten to death.

    Its what Churchill would have wanted.
    White flight satire at its best

    Immigration causes no problem to anyone EXCEPT THE POOR. Serve them right for being poor.
    Ah, it's on behalf of OTHER PEOPLE that we are so upset.

    https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/man-claims-hius-life-being-ruined-by-immigration-but-cant-explain-how-20170227122932
    Yes

    I am on balance against the persecution of Jews, gays, trans and black people too, despite being neither j g t nor b. Or perhaps just pretending to be against it. That article is the nadir of the dm on both logical and comic grounds and I don't know why you keep linking to it.
  • TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    Don't call them that. They are INVADERS. Brutes the lot of them. Listen to what you posted. "helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns" - stealing OUR jobs that we don't want to do.

    And they arrived illegally on a boat instead of not claiming asylum legally as there is no legal route. So an CRIMINALS surely it's only right that we warehouse them illegally in unsanitary conditions until we can deport them to be beaten to death.

    Its what Churchill would have wanted.
    White flight satire at its best

    Immigration causes no problem to anyone EXCEPT THE POOR. Serve them right for being poor.
    Ah, it's on behalf of OTHER PEOPLE that we are so upset.

    https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/man-claims-hius-life-being-ruined-by-immigration-but-cant-explain-how-20170227122932
    Not sure if Ishmael understands the point he was trying to make. My old council ward had both crushing poverty in part and housed asylum seekers - always in the roughest of the rough in homes that the LHA could not otherwise fill.

    The poor sods who the Home Office stuck in these houses found themselves in the midst of a shithole. The ones the local charity were trying to support were genuine asylum seekers with horror stories of their past who followed the no work no money rules as they pursued their claim.

    They did not cause a problem to the local poor. They took no jobs. Claimed no benefits. Didn't overpopulate the local school which was half full. The problems the locals had was themselves. There are some seriously bad communities in this country with multi-generational problems of poverty, deprivation and ignorance. Asylum seekers are not the cause of their ills.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    edited November 2022
    Leon said:

    Just had a remarkable breakfast conversation in my hotel in Hella, Iceland

    All about AI. I realised I was sitting with two experts - in very different ways

    You sure they weren't androids?

    (Welcome back btw)
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630

    Children as young as nine were prescribed puberty blockers at a Scottish gender identity clinic branded "Sturgeon's Tavistock," a report has revealed….

    The report also showed a “disproportionately” high number of children undergoing gender treatment who were referred to endocrinologists at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow from 2011 to 2019 had autism. Nearly 40 per cent of children referred suffered from mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression.

    Psychiatrists and campaigners have demanded that the Scottish Government immediately close down the clinic over its readiness to medicate "clearly vulnerable and troubled" children with "experimental" and "dangerous" drugs. They have accused Nicola Sturgeon's administration of pursuing an "ideologically-driven activist agenda" based on affirming children's feelings rather than on medical evidence.


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/31/children-young-nine-prescribed-puberty-blockers-nicola-sturgeon/

    Puberty blockers are not "experimental" or "dangerous" drugs - they have been used for decades for children with precocious puberty and the effects are pretty well understood. The issue now is that some people wish to eliminate treatment known to make trans children more comfortable.

    I don't expect people to watch, but I find videos like this a great resource:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7XYfffLMEQ
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    Scott_xP said:

    In language straight from the Donald Trump playbook, Britain’s Home Sec. claims there’s an “invasion on our southern coast” by criminals & others pretending to be under threat. She’s a Brexiteer who claimed leaving the EU would give the UK control of its borders. It didn’t work.
    https://twitter.com/BillNeelyReport/status/1587196455239942149
    https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1587137418062356480

    More than 1% of the male population of Albania has arrived in the UK.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    darkage said:

    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    The problem here is that Braverman just generalises about the topic and presents simple answers, in a 'populist' style. There are more effective ways of presenting the same policy, such that it can appeal to the 'red wall' without alienating other voters. However, I am pretty sure that in any event the actual action won't match the rhetoric, so she will just end up looking incompetent, as was the case with her predecessor. But the harm will probably be worse because the expectations she is setting are higher.

    I am not understanding this she has the answers claim. Illegally not book them hotels and get JRed for it does not look like a masterplan.
  • Leon said:

    Just had a remarkable breakfast conversation in my hotel in Hella, Iceland

    All about AI. I realised I was sitting with two experts - in very different ways

    You sure they weren't androids?

    (Welcome back btw)
    Or that he'd suffered some kind of mental spasm from eating that fermented shark and the experts - and indeed the breakfast - were just the figments of his deranged imagination?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    O/T the generic polls now look pretty solid for Republicans. 538 have them at 50/50 for the Senate, which seems about right.
  • TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    A couple of times I went to property fires in or above fast food takeaways, proper fires, smoke billowing out the windows, kebab grease on fire in extractor vents (nearly as poetic as assault ships on fire off the shoulder of orion🤣). On both occasions, I was in the first BA team through the door and up the stairs, to be met by at least 10 dazed and coughing illegal immigrants who were too scared to evacuate as they knew the police were outside. Had to literally punch, kick and drag them down the stairs to safety. Once outside, they all took off running in different directions. Turns out that by day they worked at a couple of local car washes and at night delivered takeaways for various bosses and slept in shifts on mattresses in derelict flats above the shops that weren't legally habitable (no seperation from the cooking area, no fire alarms or suppression, amongst many other issues).
    So in all, not really good or bad for me (although one of the shops was my main source of food on a night out before I turned hippy!)
    Bad for the poor immigrants, no more than slaves really.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286

    Zelensky wanted war, according to Lula.

    @kjovano
    Zelensky "is as responsible as Putin for the war", Brazil's incoming president, Lula, tells Time.

    Lula blames Nato for the war, completely ignoring Russian officials' attacks on #Ukraine's national identity.


    https://twitter.com/kjovano/status/1587057798382338049

    Off message for his supporters in Europe and North America.
  • DJ41 said:

    And the alt-right gears up for what it really really wants - race war, literally. Half of them have probably been "playing" it "virtually" for years already. This is very scary, and the "just accept Brexit and move on" mantra even when it comes from reasonably kind people with good intentions doesn't get to grip with the real divisions and how they are developing - as sadly the "culture war" strategists on the racist right know all too well.

    What a lot of nonsense.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    Scott_xP said:

    In language straight from the Donald Trump playbook, Britain’s Home Sec. claims there’s an “invasion on our southern coast” by criminals & others pretending to be under threat. She’s a Brexiteer who claimed leaving the EU would give the UK control of its borders. It didn’t work.
    https://twitter.com/BillNeelyReport/status/1587196455239942149
    https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1587137418062356480

    She's not even a poundland Trump though. I don't think she's fooling many people; she just looks desperate and out of her depth.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited November 2022
    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TimS said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    My parents both help out at the local asylum reception centre in the midlands. This is where they go after the initial application and screening. Thankfully the conditions are somewhat better than Manston. Most there are from the usual locations: Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. Typical reasons for leaving the source country are local level persecution, beatings, death threats e.g. by local police or officials usually because the individual has unorthodox political views, religion or sexuality (there are quite a few gay men from orthodox Muslim countries) or have got on the wrong side of the local mafia which happens to run the police force.

    One family are Iranians who escaped after the husband converted to Christianity and was first jailed then beaten. They have just been confirmed at the local church. Their application will probably be accepted. They went round to my parents' house for dinner a few weeks ago. Daughter appears to be a little child genius.

    Residents are allowed to do unpaid work in the community and several of them do things like helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns, visiting nursing homes to learn English while keeping someone company. A number of others though seem to be either so bored and listless, or in such a deep depression, that they barely leave their accommodation, including some families.

    From what I can tell it seems a large proportion, including the Iranian family I mentioned, arrived on small boats. Several had all their possessions stolen from them by the traffickers on the way.

    People, essentially.
    Don't call them that. They are INVADERS. Brutes the lot of them. Listen to what you posted. "helping out at the local nature reserve, mowing the church lawns" - stealing OUR jobs that we don't want to do.

    And they arrived illegally on a boat instead of not claiming asylum legally as there is no legal route. So an CRIMINALS surely it's only right that we warehouse them illegally in unsanitary conditions until we can deport them to be beaten to death.

    Its what Churchill would have wanted.
    White flight satire at its best

    Immigration causes no problem to anyone EXCEPT THE POOR. Serve them right for being poor.
    Ah, it's on behalf of OTHER PEOPLE that we are so upset.

    https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/man-claims-hius-life-being-ruined-by-immigration-but-cant-explain-how-20170227122932
    Yes

    I am on balance against the persecution of Jews, gays, trans and black people too, despite being neither j g t nor b. Or perhaps just pretending to be against it. That article is the nadir of the dm on both logical and comic grounds and I don't know why you keep linking to it.
    Because it's so true.

    There is some nebulous link to "the poor" which, being the kind, generous person you are, you are concerned for in some abstract way. But that's it. You are not really sure of the dynamics of schools, hospitals, housing, etc. Not really. You just feel it will be bad. Moreso than other immigration and yes absolutely, we should be doing something about illegal immigration - as @148grss notes upthread.

    Plus well done for an early godwin.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,960
    Cookie said:

    1st November and our heating still isn't on.
    I reckon over the past month in this house, for central heating purposes, we've used less than 10% of the gas we used last year.
    Obviously we're still cooking and washing as much, and using a similar amount og electricity (though we're wfh marginally less), but still, if we're typical, gas consumption must be well down on last year.
    Helpedby a mild Autumn of course. Whether we can maintain this into December and January remains to be seen.
    But still. All helps, surely.

    You are fortunate not to have to accommodate my wife. She could live in a volcano and still complain about a cold draft getting in....
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    TOPPING said:

    PB survey time.

    Who on here has had any experience with illegal immigrants. Or suspected illegal immigrants.

    Was it a good or bad or only read about in the right wing press experience.

    TIA.

    Elderly lady in Kent on r4 yesterday saying she found a teenage Albanian bloke in her living room. No personal experience because I live in a remote and agreeable part of the country. Then again I have no personal experience of racism, but am still allowed to have views on its consequences for other people. And I have personal experience of paying taxes for all those hotel bills
    So no in other words.

    Thx. Next.
    Albanian child thieves in my local Oriental supermarket, Longdan, Camden

    Next
    Thanks. Did they rob you? Or did you see them steal from the shop?

    Saw them steal, flagrantly. And simply walk out the shop

    They were so blatant and unafraid I just stood there. Bewildered. Then asked the shopkeeper who explained
    Thanks.

    Of course I have surely encountered illegal immigrants in multiple other ways - much more benign or sad or whatever. It’s simply that you don’t know, most of the time - the criminality here meant there had been police involved which meant the shopkeeper had the info

    Indeed on reflection my lovely Thai cleaner Nok was - I reckon - probably an illegal immigrant for a while. Certainly her status was unsure

    She’s friendly, kind, generous, hard working, completely honest, loves the UK and its freedoms - and she has fought for years to get settled status (which she now has) via the legal routes

    It’s people like her who probably suffer most from these Albanians waltzing in. She spent half a decade doing it the right way, they spend half an hour on a boat and treat us as laughable fools
    Albanians? Well you'll never be short of a taxi, or an anecdote.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Leon said:

    Just had a remarkable breakfast conversation in my hotel in Hella, Iceland

    All about AI. I realised I was sitting with two experts - in very different ways

    You sure they weren't androids?

    (Welcome back btw)
    Or that he'd suffered some kind of mental spasm from eating that fermented shark and the experts - and indeed the breakfast - were just the figments of his deranged imagination?
    It's a well know fact that fermented shark is a powerful hallucinogen.
This discussion has been closed.