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Some better MidTerms polling for the Dems – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    Nasty would work if it was competent. Nasty and incompetent? Less good.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,799
    edited November 2022
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Btw, those Lula comments about the responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine were back in May this year.
    https://www.reuters.com/world/lulas-ukraine-comments-are-russian-attempts-distort-truth-ukrainian-official-2022-05-05/

    Does anyone actually know his current views ?

    Given how insane this views were, would be quite a road to Damascus conversion (and I would struggle to believe it). May, Russia had already invaded and clear to everybody what they were doing. And it also had all the classic tropes, its NATO fault, its EU / European countries fault, if only Ukraine had negotiated properly...
    It would, but I'm nonetheless curious.
    I struggle to believe his genuine view will have changed regardless of how he might alter his public statements, in the same way as Corbyn's won't have.

    It one thing having had that kind of view say 6 months before the invasion. Naïve, but some merit in saying try to deescalate, require talks, etc, but as Macron and Israelis found out, Putin wasn't interested in this.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,473

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
  • What year did Braverman's family invade the UK?

    They came legally, presumably.
  • Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Yes - when you are lied to for long enough you believe the lies. So people wrongly believe that asylum seekers must claim in the first safe country. That we take our fair share. That the boat people are illegal and instead should come legally. That asylum seekers live a life of riley.

    The lies have been sown deliberately by Tory politicians and Tory newspapers specifically to drive this as a wedge issue. And it has worked! The problem of course is that having been hardened to the people on boats, voters expect results. And surprisingly enough aren't getting them...
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,300
    Now then...
  • 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
    People don't like large numbers of people taking the piss.

    They just want the boats stopped and an end to the criminality and the exploitation of loopholes. It's about confidence in control and fairness.

    The subhuman/far-right argument is a non-sequitur, usually used by those who don't really want to do anything about it and would prefer to fight a strawman.
    I have to ask a question. People want the boats stopped and the piss-taking stopped. A significant driver for Syrians, Iranians, Afghans etc being on the boats is that we offer them no legal route to claim asylum. So are people willing to accept them coming *legally* via a reopened route?

    I suspect the answer is no. Which means that when you say people want the boats stopped, they want the asylum seekers to stop coming completely. Which puts us as some kind of pariah state refusing to follow the international treaties we are party to.
    No, I'm not. Those international treaties worked in an era when there were as many people in Europe as subsaharan Africa (currently 1 European for 1.55 SSAs; due to reach 1:3 by 2050 and 1:6 by 2100), travel across borders was much more difficult, and you couldn't look on your smartphone to see how fantastic the life you were missing out on was. I'm entirely willing to support refugees in the closest country to the one they're fleeing, which as an added bonus means we can support far more of them - for the cost of bringing 20,000 Afghan refugees to the UK, we could have taken care of 325,000 in Pakistan. But the idea that being conscripted in Eritrea or converting to Christianity in Iran gives you a golden ticket to move to a first world country and never leave is simply unworkable - let alone the idea that you can get that golden ticket by the state you arrive in being unable to prove that you're not an Eritreian conscript or an Iranian Christian. The sooner we change that idea, the less cruelty we will inflict on people overall.
    The vast majority of refugees are in the country closest to the one they're fleeing. The highest number of refugees in a country are in Türkiye, with 3.7 million, coming mostly from Syria. Second highest is Colombia, with 2.5 million (from Venezuela). Shouldn't the rest of the world help these countries by spreading the load a bit?
    No. We could spend five billion pounds resettling 200,000 Syrian migrants in the UK and we would barely make a dent in the original number of refugees while creating a vast problem with assimilation. Conversely, we could spend £2.6bn directly to support those refugees in a much more efficient and effective way, which holds out the hope that at some point those refugees can go home and rebuild their lives.

    Frankly, I find it creepy that so many people are only pro-refugee when they get to bring them home and coo over them like some sort of pet. Aww, look at him: he's learning English and volunteering in the community.
    I posted about this yesterday. People flee dirt poor and violent countries. Much of the violence comes from poverty and inequality. So we could work with these countries to make them less poor and reduce the drive for people to flee. It would be cheaper...
    We can and should do what we can to help the rest of the world develop, and have done extremely successfully for many decades, but because its the right thing to do and not to reduce the drive for people to flee.

    Doing so actually increases migration. People who are utterly impoverished generally can't afford to traverse the world. People who come out of poverty can afford to survive but also want more than mere survival and can see opportunities around the globe that are better.

    Poor countries that reduce absolute poverty on global measurements end up seeing more emigration, not less.

    We should still support them and reduce poverty and accept migration because its the right thing to do, not out of selfish desires.
    Increased emigration, but that's not the same as increased refugee numbers. RP was talking about reducing refugee numbers.
    People fleeing economic conditions, whether they be called economic migrants or refugees, are still emigrants.

    And the data is overwhelming, unambiguous and clear. Reducing poverty increases emigration, it doesn't reduce it. Anyone who claims that we should reduce poverty to reduce emigration is on a hiding to nothing. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/emigration-rises-along-economic-development-aid-agencies-should-face-not-fear-it

    But we shouldn't seek to keep poor countries poor to reduce migration. Migration, development etc are good things and people should make the case for that honestly and not try to exploit prejudice to further their own agenda.
    You're raising a range of interesting points. However, this is an area where there are various overlapping issues and I think it's useful to be clear what we're talking about.

    There's a lot of immigration to the UK from Germany, the US, China, India, Australia etc. Most of these people are economic migrants. They are coming for jobs. They are not claiming asylum. They are not entering the country via a small boat traversing the Channel.

    Asylum seekers only constitute about 6% of immigration to the UK. They are largely fleeing conflict.
    Conflict in France?
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,677
    Andy_JS said:

    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
    People don't like large numbers of people taking the piss.

    They just want the boats stopped and an end to the criminality and the exploitation of loopholes. It's about confidence in control and fairness.

    The subhuman/far-right argument is a non-sequitur, usually used by those who don't really want to do anything about it and would prefer to fight a strawman.
    I have to ask a question. People want the boats stopped and the piss-taking stopped. A significant driver for Syrians, Iranians, Afghans etc being on the boats is that we offer them no legal route to claim asylum. So are people willing to accept them coming *legally* via a reopened route?

    I suspect the answer is no. Which means that when you say people want the boats stopped, they want the asylum seekers to stop coming completely. Which puts us as some kind of pariah state refusing to follow the international treaties we are party to.
    No, I'm not. Those international treaties worked in an era when there were as many people in Europe as subsaharan Africa (currently 1 European for 1.55 SSAs; due to reach 1:3 by 2050 and 1:6 by 2100), travel across borders was much more difficult, and you couldn't look on your smartphone to see how fantastic the life you were missing out on was. I'm entirely willing to support refugees in the closest country to the one they're fleeing, which as an added bonus means we can support far more of them - for the cost of bringing 20,000 Afghan refugees to the UK, we could have taken care of 325,000 in Pakistan. But the idea that being conscripted in Eritrea or converting to Christianity in Iran gives you a golden ticket to move to a first world country and never leave is simply unworkable - let alone the idea that you can get that golden ticket by the state you arrive in being unable to prove that you're not an Eritreian conscript or an Iranian Christian. The sooner we change that idea, the less cruelty we will inflict on people overall.
    The vast majority of refugees are in the country closest to the one they're fleeing. The highest number of refugees in a country are in Türkiye, with 3.7 million, coming mostly from Syria. Second highest is Colombia, with 2.5 million (from Venezuela). Shouldn't the rest of the world help these countries by spreading the load a bit?
    No. We could spend five billion pounds resettling 200,000 Syrian migrants in the UK and we would barely make a dent in the original number of refugees while creating a vast problem with assimilation. Conversely, we could spend £2.6bn directly to support those refugees in a much more efficient and effective way, which holds out the hope that at some point those refugees can go home and rebuild their lives.

    Frankly, I find it creepy that so many people are only pro-refugee when they get to bring them home and coo over them like some sort of pet. Aww, look at him: he's learning English and volunteering in the community.
    I posted about this yesterday. People flee dirt poor and violent countries. Much of the violence comes from poverty and inequality. So we could work with these countries to make them less poor and reduce the drive for people to flee. It would be cheaper...
    The West has spent the last 50 years pouring huge amounts of aid money into poor countries.
    Which has been quite effective
    https://upgrader.gapminder.org/q/21/
    Also https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles&url=v1 with particular emphasis on 2000 onwards
    (the MDGs have been quite successful overall, although with some issues, some unintended consequences and perhaps not enough attention to local variations)
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,473

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Yes - when you are lied to for long enough you believe the lies. So people wrongly believe that asylum seekers must claim in the first safe country. That we take our fair share. That the boat people are illegal and instead should come legally. That asylum seekers live a life of riley.
    Before accusing people of wrongly thinking that we take our "fair share", can you define what you mean by that, why it is a meaningful metric, and how you think it should be calculated?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Btw, those Lula comments about the responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine were back in May this year.
    https://www.reuters.com/world/lulas-ukraine-comments-are-russian-attempts-distort-truth-ukrainian-official-2022-05-05/

    Does anyone actually know his current views ?

    Given how insane this views were, would be quite a road to Damascus conversion (and I would struggle to believe it). May, Russia had already invaded and clear to everybody what they were doing. And it also had all the classic tropes, its NATO fault, its EU / European countries fault, if only Ukraine had negotiated properly...
    It would, but I'm nonetheless curious.
    I struggle to believe his genuine view will have changed regardless of how he might alter his public statements, in the same way as Corbyn's won't have.

    It one thing having had that kind of view say 6 months before the invasion. Naïve, but some merit in saying try to deescalate, require talks, etc, but as Macron and Israelis found out, Putin wasn't interested in this.
    I don't think they're quite the same.

    Lula, despite his ideological views, was something of a pragmatist regarding foreign policy (and got on OK with Bush). He might not have changed his views, but I'd still like to know,
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Hancock whip suspended. Lol, tit
  • TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    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
    People don't like large numbers of people taking the piss.

    They just want the boats stopped and an end to the criminality and the exploitation of loopholes. It's about confidence in control and fairness.

    The subhuman/far-right argument is a non-sequitur, usually used by those who don't really want to do anything about it and would prefer to fight a strawman.
    I have to ask a question. People want the boats stopped and the piss-taking stopped. A significant driver for Syrians, Iranians, Afghans etc being on the boats is that we offer them no legal route to claim asylum. So are people willing to accept them coming *legally* via a reopened route?

    I suspect the answer is no. Which means that when you say people want the boats stopped, they want the asylum seekers to stop coming completely. Which puts us as some kind of pariah state refusing to follow the international treaties we are party to.
    No, I'm not. Those international treaties worked in an era when there were as many people in Europe as subsaharan Africa (currently 1 European for 1.55 SSAs; due to reach 1:3 by 2050 and 1:6 by 2100), travel across borders was much more difficult, and you couldn't look on your smartphone to see how fantastic the life you were missing out on was. I'm entirely willing to support refugees in the closest country to the one they're fleeing, which as an added bonus means we can support far more of them - for the cost of bringing 20,000 Afghan refugees to the UK, we could have taken care of 325,000 in Pakistan. But the idea that being conscripted in Eritrea or converting to Christianity in Iran gives you a golden ticket to move to a first world country and never leave is simply unworkable - let alone the idea that you can get that golden ticket by the state you arrive in being unable to prove that you're not an Eritreian conscript or an Iranian Christian. The sooner we change that idea, the less cruelty we will inflict on people overall.
    The vast majority of refugees are in the country closest to the one they're fleeing. The highest number of refugees in a country are in Türkiye, with 3.7 million, coming mostly from Syria. Second highest is Colombia, with 2.5 million (from Venezuela). Shouldn't the rest of the world help these countries by spreading the load a bit?
    No. We could spend five billion pounds resettling 200,000 Syrian migrants in the UK and we would barely make a dent in the original number of refugees while creating a vast problem with assimilation. Conversely, we could spend £2.6bn directly to support those refugees in a much more efficient and effective way, which holds out the hope that at some point those refugees can go home and rebuild their lives.

    Frankly, I find it creepy that so many people are only pro-refugee when they get to bring them home and coo over them like some sort of pet. Aww, look at him: he's learning English and volunteering in the community.
    The answer to the refugee problem is to ensure that peoples' homelands are attractive places to live; just as the answer to Islamic terrorism is to persuade its proponents that Western liberal democracy is attractive and superior to violent religious fundamentalism.

    These are not short term fixes. But we continue to try to find short term fixes for these problems and are amazed when they don't work.
    We should make people's homelands attractive places to live, because its the right thing to do, but it will increase the number of people trying to get here not reduce it.

    The wealthier people are, the more they can afford to invest in their future by taking opportunities to move to the developed world.
    We want to make their world the developed world. How many economic migrants or asylum seekers do we get from South Korea?
    Emigration consistently increases as poor nations become better off until it peaks at ~$20k GDP/capita by PPP but remains higher even for wealthiest nations than it does in poorest.

    image

    Proportionately far, far more people migrate from South Korea than from Vietnam.
  • Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Btw, those Lula comments about the responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine were back in May this year.
    https://www.reuters.com/world/lulas-ukraine-comments-are-russian-attempts-distort-truth-ukrainian-official-2022-05-05/

    Does anyone actually know his current views ?

    Given how insane this views were, would be quite a road to Damascus conversion (and I would struggle to believe it). May, Russia had already invaded and clear to everybody what they were doing. And it also had all the classic tropes, its NATO fault, its EU / European countries fault, if only Ukraine had negotiated properly...
    It would, but I'm nonetheless curious.
    I struggle to believe his genuine view will have changed regardless of how he might alter his public statements, in the same way as Corbyn's won't have.

    It one thing having had that kind of view say 6 months before the invasion. Naïve, but some merit in saying try to deescalate, require talks, etc, but as Macron and Israelis found out, Putin wasn't interested in this.
    Wait till you hear about the journey of the PBer who pre Ukraine invasion considered Putin the guardian of Western Christian culture, was handing out white feathers with the best of them at the height of WeareallUkraine-mania and now wants a deal with Putin to avoid nuclear apocalypse. It'd make ye dizzy.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,938
    Chief Whip Simon Hart MP said: “Following a conversation with Matt Hancock, I have considered the situation and believe this is a matter serious enough to warrant suspension of the whip with immediate effect.”
    https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1587400003202564098
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918
    malcolmg said:

    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
    People don't like large numbers of people taking the piss.

    They just want the boats stopped and an end to the criminality and the exploitation of loopholes. It's about confidence in control and fairness.

    The subhuman/far-right argument is a non-sequitur, usually used by those who don't really want to do anything about it and would prefer to fight a strawman.
    I have to ask a question. People want the boats stopped and the piss-taking stopped. A significant driver for Syrians, Iranians, Afghans etc being on the boats is that we offer them no legal route to claim asylum. So are people willing to accept them coming *legally* via a reopened route?

    I suspect the answer is no. Which means that when you say people want the boats stopped, they want the asylum seekers to stop coming completely. Which puts us as some kind of pariah state refusing to follow the international treaties we are party to.
    No, I'm not. Those international treaties worked in an era when there were as many people in Europe as subsaharan Africa (currently 1 European for 1.55 SSAs; due to reach 1:3 by 2050 and 1:6 by 2100), travel across borders was much more difficult, and you couldn't look on your smartphone to see how fantastic the life you were missing out on was. I'm entirely willing to support refugees in the closest country to the one they're fleeing, which as an added bonus means we can support far more of them - for the cost of bringing 20,000 Afghan refugees to the UK, we could have taken care of 325,000 in Pakistan. But the idea that being conscripted in Eritrea or converting to Christianity in Iran gives you a golden ticket to move to a first world country and never leave is simply unworkable - let alone the idea that you can get that golden ticket by the state you arrive in being unable to prove that you're not an Eritreian conscript or an Iranian Christian. The sooner we change that idea, the less cruelty we will inflict on people overall.
    The vast majority of refugees are in the country closest to the one they're fleeing. The highest number of refugees in a country are in Türkiye, with 3.7 million, coming mostly from Syria. Second highest is Colombia, with 2.5 million (from Venezuela). Shouldn't the rest of the world help these countries by spreading the load a bit?
    No. We could spend five billion pounds resettling 200,000 Syrian migrants in the UK and we would barely make a dent in the original number of refugees while creating a vast problem with assimilation. Conversely, we could spend £2.6bn directly to support those refugees in a much more efficient and effective way, which holds out the hope that at some point those refugees can go home and rebuild their lives.

    Frankly, I find it creepy that so many people are only pro-refugee when they get to bring them home and coo over them like some sort of pet. Aww, look at him: he's learning English and volunteering in the community.
    I posted about this yesterday. People flee dirt poor and violent countries. Much of the violence comes from poverty and inequality. So we could work with these countries to make them less poor and reduce the drive for people to flee. It would be cheaper...
    We can and should do what we can to help the rest of the world develop, and have done extremely successfully for many decades, but because its the right thing to do and not to reduce the drive for people to flee.

    Doing so actually increases migration. People who are utterly impoverished generally can't afford to traverse the world. People who come out of poverty can afford to survive but also want more than mere survival and can see opportunities around the globe that are better.

    Poor countries that reduce absolute poverty on global measurements end up seeing more emigration, not less.

    We should still support them and reduce poverty and accept migration because its the right thing to do, not out of selfish desires.
    Increased emigration, but that's not the same as increased refugee numbers. RP was talking about reducing refugee numbers.
    People fleeing economic conditions, whether they be called economic migrants or refugees, are still emigrants.

    And the data is overwhelming, unambiguous and clear. Reducing poverty increases emigration, it doesn't reduce it. Anyone who claims that we should reduce poverty to reduce emigration is on a hiding to nothing. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/emigration-rises-along-economic-development-aid-agencies-should-face-not-fear-it

    But we shouldn't seek to keep poor countries poor to reduce migration. Migration, development etc are good things and people should make the case for that honestly and not try to exploit prejudice to further their own agenda.
    You're raising a range of interesting points. However, this is an area where there are various overlapping issues and I think it's useful to be clear what we're talking about.

    There's a lot of immigration to the UK from Germany, the US, China, India, Australia etc. Most of these people are economic migrants. They are coming for jobs. They are not claiming asylum. They are not entering the country via a small boat traversing the Channel.

    Asylum seekers only constitute about 6% of immigration to the UK. They are largely fleeing conflict.
    I thought they were from Albania
    Albania doesn't make the top 15 in terms of countries asylum seekers come from, on 2021 data. We haven't got the complete 2022 data yet. There appears to have been a spike recently in Albanians on boats (and people coming off boats are not all asylum seekers). It's still far from clear what the actual numbers are. Full Fact criticised some of Priti Patel's comments as exaggerating the situation.

    If there is this recent spike in Albanians who do not have valid asylum claims, then existing processes should filter them out and deport them back to Albania. If existing processes aren't doing that, the problem lies with the Home Office.
  • This week @ScotParl will attend the Nordic Council for the first time. It’s a welcome opportunity to strengthen ties with the Nordic countries whose parliaments are similar in size and structure to ours.

    Find out more👇
    ow.ly/Z9YB50LpKtF


    https://twitter.com/poscotparl/status/1587123503811084288?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,837
    edited November 2022

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    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
    People don't like large numbers of people taking the piss.

    They just want the boats stopped and an end to the criminality and the exploitation of loopholes. It's about confidence in control and fairness.

    The subhuman/far-right argument is a non-sequitur, usually used by those who don't really want to do anything about it and would prefer to fight a strawman.
    I have to ask a question. People want the boats stopped and the piss-taking stopped. A significant driver for Syrians, Iranians, Afghans etc being on the boats is that we offer them no legal route to claim asylum. So are people willing to accept them coming *legally* via a reopened route?

    I suspect the answer is no. Which means that when you say people want the boats stopped, they want the asylum seekers to stop coming completely. Which puts us as some kind of pariah state refusing to follow the international treaties we are party to.
    No, I'm not. Those international treaties worked in an era when there were as many people in Europe as subsaharan Africa (currently 1 European for 1.55 SSAs; due to reach 1:3 by 2050 and 1:6 by 2100), travel across borders was much more difficult, and you couldn't look on your smartphone to see how fantastic the life you were missing out on was. I'm entirely willing to support refugees in the closest country to the one they're fleeing, which as an added bonus means we can support far more of them - for the cost of bringing 20,000 Afghan refugees to the UK, we could have taken care of 325,000 in Pakistan. But the idea that being conscripted in Eritrea or converting to Christianity in Iran gives you a golden ticket to move to a first world country and never leave is simply unworkable - let alone the idea that you can get that golden ticket by the state you arrive in being unable to prove that you're not an Eritreian conscript or an Iranian Christian. The sooner we change that idea, the less cruelty we will inflict on people overall.
    The vast majority of refugees are in the country closest to the one they're fleeing. The highest number of refugees in a country are in Türkiye, with 3.7 million, coming mostly from Syria. Second highest is Colombia, with 2.5 million (from Venezuela). Shouldn't the rest of the world help these countries by spreading the load a bit?
    No. We could spend five billion pounds resettling 200,000 Syrian migrants in the UK and we would barely make a dent in the original number of refugees while creating a vast problem with assimilation. Conversely, we could spend £2.6bn directly to support those refugees in a much more efficient and effective way, which holds out the hope that at some point those refugees can go home and rebuild their lives.

    Frankly, I find it creepy that so many people are only pro-refugee when they get to bring them home and coo over them like some sort of pet. Aww, look at him: he's learning English and volunteering in the community.
    The answer to the refugee problem is to ensure that peoples' homelands are attractive places to live; just as the answer to Islamic terrorism is to persuade its proponents that Western liberal democracy is attractive and superior to violent religious fundamentalism.

    These are not short term fixes. But we continue to try to find short term fixes for these problems and are amazed when they don't work.
    We should make people's homelands attractive places to live, because its the right thing to do, but it will increase the number of people trying to get here not reduce it.

    The wealthier people are, the more they can afford to invest in their future by taking opportunities to move to the developed world.
    We want to make their world the developed world. How many economic migrants or asylum seekers do we get from South Korea?
    Emigration consistently increases as poor nations become better off until it peaks at ~$20k GDP/capita by PPP but remains higher even for wealthiest nations than it does in poorest.

    image

    Proportionately far, far more people migrate from South Korea than from Vietnam.
    So it's back to worrying about the number of French investment bankers who are coming over here and taking our jobs, is it?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,466

    What year did Braverman's family invade the UK?

    They came legally, presumably.
    From Kenya and Mauritius.

    Two things that may surprise you:

    1. Braverman lived in France for two years, as an Erasmus Programme student and then as an Entente Cordiale Scholar, where she studied a master's degree in European and French law at Panthéon-Sorbonne University

    2. She is named after the character Sue Ellen Ewing from the American television soap opera Dallas
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,938
    A source close to Matt Hancock (!) says he doing it for the Yoof https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1587401011517431810/photo/1
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,300
    Now then...

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Yes - when you are lied to for long enough you believe the lies. So people wrongly believe that asylum seekers must claim in the first safe country. That we take our fair share. That the boat people are illegal and instead should come legally. That asylum seekers live a life of riley.

    The lies have been sown deliberately by Tory politicians and Tory newspapers specifically to drive this as a wedge issue. And it has worked! The problem of course is that having been hardened to the people on boats, voters expect results. And surprisingly enough aren't getting them...
    All this is true. We don't have a reasoned debate in the UK. However, as others have suggested, the model of refugee status that arose after WW2 is broken in the modern world. Realistically the people that bust a gut to get to the UK are likely to be young, hard working etc. Make them legally able to work and they will pay tax.
    I suspect some in the UK are afraid of islamic terrorism, and having a large influx of people whose culture may not reflect their own. But as others have said its a miniscule % each year, when we are screaming out for labour.

    We really should fund overseas locations to take refugees. Would solve a few issues.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,536
    edited November 2022

    Scott_xP said:

    One of the Brexit opportunities is that we get to keep all migrants who cross the channel because we no longer have to abide by the pesky Dublin convention which allowed us to send them back to the EU country from which they came
    We took back control

    https://twitter.com/nazirafzal/status/1587383060227624963

    Money, borders, laws, and waters...

    A PM gone for rule-breaking, a PM sacked by markets, UK hands tied by treaty, Protocol fallout, fisheries in bad shape, Dover crossings.

    All four need management and cooperation. Delusion of 'control' made all four worse.

    This is the lesson.
    https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1587389425687855104/photo/1

    How many were we actually sending back to EU countries before? I would hazard a guess at near zero.
    Recently, hundreds: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9031/CBP-9031.pdf So, not zero, but not a huge number either.
    Were we offered a continuation of Dublin during the withdrawal negotiations, and declined it, or were we not offered it?
  • Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    I would like to say going on this kind of cr*p telly would disqualify you from occupying any kind of senior role in government, but we live in a world where a president of the US can have had their own reality TV show and the PM of the UK can come to prominence having hosted and gained a reputation as a clown on a panel show, so to be honest, I fear these things are no longer barriers.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854

    What year did Braverman's family invade the UK?

    They came legally, presumably.
    From Kenya and Mauritius.

    Two things that may surprise you:

    1. Braverman lived in France for two years, as an Erasmus Programme student and then as an Entente Cordiale Scholar, where she studied a master's degree in European and French law at Panthéon-Sorbonne University

    2. She is named after the character Sue Ellen Ewing from the American television soap opera Dallas
    I doubt that she's a drunk, but she's certainly an unfit Home Secretary.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918
    rkrkrk 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.

    Distant family member sought asylum in the UK. Claimed persecution etc. but I personally know this not to be true. He was an economic migrant looking for work opportunities/better life for children.

    Might have been a bit of an ethical dilemma to be honest, but UK authorities processed and rejected them. Now settled in France as asylum seekers.

    Edit: just remembered another family member who significantly overstayed his student visa - I think that's technically an illegal immigrant. To be honest he was just a bit disorganized/depressed after bombing in his exams - he's back in home country and unlikely to return I would guess.
    Same story with a friend's aunt-in-law. She tried to claim asylum, didn't really have a case, got rejected.
  • TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    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
    People don't like large numbers of people taking the piss.

    They just want the boats stopped and an end to the criminality and the exploitation of loopholes. It's about confidence in control and fairness.

    The subhuman/far-right argument is a non-sequitur, usually used by those who don't really want to do anything about it and would prefer to fight a strawman.
    I have to ask a question. People want the boats stopped and the piss-taking stopped. A significant driver for Syrians, Iranians, Afghans etc being on the boats is that we offer them no legal route to claim asylum. So are people willing to accept them coming *legally* via a reopened route?

    I suspect the answer is no. Which means that when you say people want the boats stopped, they want the asylum seekers to stop coming completely. Which puts us as some kind of pariah state refusing to follow the international treaties we are party to.
    No, I'm not. Those international treaties worked in an era when there were as many people in Europe as subsaharan Africa (currently 1 European for 1.55 SSAs; due to reach 1:3 by 2050 and 1:6 by 2100), travel across borders was much more difficult, and you couldn't look on your smartphone to see how fantastic the life you were missing out on was. I'm entirely willing to support refugees in the closest country to the one they're fleeing, which as an added bonus means we can support far more of them - for the cost of bringing 20,000 Afghan refugees to the UK, we could have taken care of 325,000 in Pakistan. But the idea that being conscripted in Eritrea or converting to Christianity in Iran gives you a golden ticket to move to a first world country and never leave is simply unworkable - let alone the idea that you can get that golden ticket by the state you arrive in being unable to prove that you're not an Eritreian conscript or an Iranian Christian. The sooner we change that idea, the less cruelty we will inflict on people overall.
    The vast majority of refugees are in the country closest to the one they're fleeing. The highest number of refugees in a country are in Türkiye, with 3.7 million, coming mostly from Syria. Second highest is Colombia, with 2.5 million (from Venezuela). Shouldn't the rest of the world help these countries by spreading the load a bit?
    No. We could spend five billion pounds resettling 200,000 Syrian migrants in the UK and we would barely make a dent in the original number of refugees while creating a vast problem with assimilation. Conversely, we could spend £2.6bn directly to support those refugees in a much more efficient and effective way, which holds out the hope that at some point those refugees can go home and rebuild their lives.

    Frankly, I find it creepy that so many people are only pro-refugee when they get to bring them home and coo over them like some sort of pet. Aww, look at him: he's learning English and volunteering in the community.
    The answer to the refugee problem is to ensure that peoples' homelands are attractive places to live; just as the answer to Islamic terrorism is to persuade its proponents that Western liberal democracy is attractive and superior to violent religious fundamentalism.

    These are not short term fixes. But we continue to try to find short term fixes for these problems and are amazed when they don't work.
    We should make people's homelands attractive places to live, because its the right thing to do, but it will increase the number of people trying to get here not reduce it.

    The wealthier people are, the more they can afford to invest in their future by taking opportunities to move to the developed world.
    We want to make their world the developed world. How many economic migrants or asylum seekers do we get from South Korea?
    Emigration consistently increases as poor nations become better off until it peaks at ~$20k GDP/capita by PPP but remains higher even for wealthiest nations than it does in poorest.

    image

    Proportionately far, far more people migrate from South Korea than from Vietnam.
    So it's back to worrying about the number of French investment bankers are coming over here and taking our jobs, is it?
    No, not worrying, migration is a good thing and should be welcomed.

    Saying we should want people to develop because we want to cut migration is wrong, but in principles and practice. We should welcome migration, and work with it, and accept that increasing development increases migration but that's not a bad thing.

    You could cut migration by cutting aid and leaving people to suffer in their own part of the world unable to reach us. I would oppose that as deeply immoral though.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Hancock doing the equivalent of bowling a no ball and giving Sunak a free hit.
  • Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Yes - when you are lied to for long enough you believe the lies. So people wrongly believe that asylum seekers must claim in the first safe country. That we take our fair share. That the boat people are illegal and instead should come legally. That asylum seekers live a life of riley.
    Before accusing people of wrongly thinking that we take our "fair share", can you define what you mean by that, why it is a meaningful metric, and how you think it should be calculated?
    We take significantly less than other countries, yet somehow believe we take so many that we can't take any more. That lying crook Johnson kept telling everyone how advanced our Ukraine refugee programme was even as we refused to take anyone without completing a form which we refused to give them access to.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    It's scandalous that an elected MP can do this. I'd be spitting feathers if I was a constituent of his (or spitting more feathers than usual). Absolute contempt for his electorate (see also Bozza on his jolly scribbling holiday in the Windies).
  • Isn't Hancock lady friend in PR....Seems like being badly advised from his appearance on that Diary of a CEO podcast, to trying to glad hand Sunak to going on I'm a Celeb.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,466

    Now then...

    As even half a Jimmy Savile greeting, that is probably still off limits....
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,300

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Yes - when you are lied to for long enough you believe the lies. So people wrongly believe that asylum seekers must claim in the first safe country. That we take our fair share. That the boat people are illegal and instead should come legally. That asylum seekers live a life of riley.
    Before accusing people of wrongly thinking that we take our "fair share", can you define what you mean by that, why it is a meaningful metric, and how you think it should be calculated?
    We take significantly less than other countries, yet somehow believe we take so many that we can't take any more. That lying crook Johnson kept telling everyone how advanced our Ukraine refugee programme was even as we refused to take anyone without completing a form which we refused to give them access to.
    Its the conflation of lack of housing, poor access to GP's, full schools etc with the 'problem; being the immigrants, which is of course bollocks, but easily digestible bollocks, something Hancock might be hoping for.
  • malcolmg said:

    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.
    Narrow the gap quite likely (barring any more SBAFUs) close it would be surprising. I suspect he’ll get the Tories to low/mid thirties with Labour low/mid forties.
    Tories mid-30's/Labour low 40's is very much still game on for the next election.

    Bear in mind just how dire Labour's finances are. They will be fixed for an election by the Unions - but their pound of flesh will then become part of the election campaign itself.
    Will the Tories carry on accepting hundreds of £k from those connected with Putin?
    Do bears crap in the woods
    Hat Mancock will have to soon
  • carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    One of the Brexit opportunities is that we get to keep all migrants who cross the channel because we no longer have to abide by the pesky Dublin convention which allowed us to send them back to the EU country from which they came
    We took back control

    https://twitter.com/nazirafzal/status/1587383060227624963

    Money, borders, laws, and waters...

    A PM gone for rule-breaking, a PM sacked by markets, UK hands tied by treaty, Protocol fallout, fisheries in bad shape, Dover crossings.

    All four need management and cooperation. Delusion of 'control' made all four worse.

    This is the lesson.
    https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1587389425687855104/photo/1

    How many were we actually sending back to EU countries before? I would hazard a guess at near zero.
    Recently, hundreds: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9031/CBP-9031.pdf So, not zero, but not a huge number either.
    Were we offered a continuation of Dublin during the withdrawal negotiations, and declined it, or were we not offered it?
    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9031/

    "The Government did not want to replicate the provisions of the Dublin Regulation.

    It proposed two draft agreements with the EU which related to certain specific aspects of the Dublin Regulation:

    an agreement on the transfer of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children for family reunion purposes
    a readmission agreement for accepting returns of irregularly residing UK/EU citizens and third country nationals.
    The EU did not publish any comparable draft agreements."
  • I’ve just been called an ‘invader’.

    How long did it take for that rhetoric to spread?


    https://twitter.com/dr2nisreenalwan/status/1587182741338181636?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ
  • Ghedebrav said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    It's scandalous that an elected MP can do this. I'd be spitting feathers if I was a constituent of his (or spitting more feathers than usual). Absolute contempt for his electorate (see also Bozza on his jolly scribbling holiday in the Windies).
    Didn't Dorries do the same?
  • This week @ScotParl will attend the Nordic Council for the first time. It’s a welcome opportunity to strengthen ties with the Nordic countries whose parliaments are similar in size and structure to ours.

    Find out more👇
    ow.ly/Z9YB50LpKtF


    https://twitter.com/poscotparl/status/1587123503811084288?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    I think it would be fair to say the replies aren’t entirely sympathetic….
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    The public have been misled as to what happens to these people arriving over the channel. Those who are not genuine refugees generally get deported. This system was working more effectively in past years, but has been underfunded recently.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854
    Something of a change to see German officials irked by others' refusal to allow arms exports. "German politicians have called for an end to arms deals w/ Switzerland as a political dispute deepens over Bern’s refusal to allow arms to be shipped to Ukraine"
    https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1587177188691951617
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,799
    edited November 2022
    Sub fielder doing the business again.....
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Ghedebrav said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    It's scandalous that an elected MP can do this. I'd be spitting feathers if I was a constituent of his (or spitting more feathers than usual). Absolute contempt for his electorate (see also Bozza on his jolly scribbling holiday in the Windies).
    It is. Its saying to your boss 'having a few weeks off to be on the telly, get someone to cover me and make sure im paid in full, fella'
    Ridiculous
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,466
    Ghedebrav said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    It's scandalous that an elected MP can do this. I'd be spitting feathers if I was a constituent of his (or spitting more feathers than usual). Absolute contempt for his electorate (see also Bozza on his jolly scribbling holiday in the Windies).
    Yebbut, he's gonna have to eat a LOT of kangeroo anus as they vote him onto every trial. So it's not all bad.

    Unless you are a kangeroo. Being eaten by Matt Hancock....eugh.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,536

    I’ve just been called an ‘invader’.

    How long did it take for that rhetoric to spread?


    https://twitter.com/dr2nisreenalwan/status/1587182741338181636?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    It's a confused tweet, but they seem to be calling themselves an invader.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061

    Ghedebrav said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    It's scandalous that an elected MP can do this. I'd be spitting feathers if I was a constituent of his (or spitting more feathers than usual). Absolute contempt for his electorate (see also Bozza on his jolly scribbling holiday in the Windies).
    Yebbut, he's gonna have to eat a LOT of kangeroo anus as they vote him onto every trial. So it's not all bad.

    Unless you are a kangeroo. Being eaten by Matt Hancock....eugh.
    Within 3 days he'll be sobbing to a Gina Coladangelo doll he has crafted from a coconut and some twigs
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,300

    Sub fielder doing the business again.....

    It was Frances that won it... Classic this morning.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,578

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Yes - when you are lied to for long enough you believe the lies. So people wrongly believe that asylum seekers must claim in the first safe country. That we take our fair share. That the boat people are illegal and instead should come legally. That asylum seekers live a life of riley.
    Before accusing people of wrongly thinking that we take our "fair share", can you define what you mean by that, why it is a meaningful metric, and how you think it should be calculated?
    That's not the right question. It doesn't matter if it is meaningful, or has an absolute definition. The important thing is whether people *believe* that we take our "fair share" or "more than our fair share" and whether politicians use that language as a justification for their actions.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,946
    .

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    Like his app?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,453
    edited November 2022
    Hancock brings the number of independent MPs to 14. 6 Lab, 5 Con, 2 SNP, 1 PC.

    https://members.parliament.uk/members/Commons?SearchText=&PartyId=8&Gender=Any&ForParliament=0&ShowAdvanced=False
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918
    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    One of the Brexit opportunities is that we get to keep all migrants who cross the channel because we no longer have to abide by the pesky Dublin convention which allowed us to send them back to the EU country from which they came
    We took back control

    https://twitter.com/nazirafzal/status/1587383060227624963

    Money, borders, laws, and waters...

    A PM gone for rule-breaking, a PM sacked by markets, UK hands tied by treaty, Protocol fallout, fisheries in bad shape, Dover crossings.

    All four need management and cooperation. Delusion of 'control' made all four worse.

    This is the lesson.
    https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1587389425687855104/photo/1

    How many were we actually sending back to EU countries before? I would hazard a guess at near zero.
    Recently, hundreds: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9031/CBP-9031.pdf So, not zero, but not a huge number either.
    Were we offered a continuation of Dublin during the withdrawal negotiations, and declined it, or were we not offered it?
    The UK says the EU didn't want to discuss it.
  • Sub fielder doing the business again.....

    It was Frances that won it... Classic this morning.
    No counting chickens....Still NZ firmly favourites ;-)
  • Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    How does he do his constituency work from there? Same as Johnson did from the Carribean?
    Dorries is covering for him
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,453

    That drop has lost England the game. NZ already ahead on runs and England finished very poorly. Game over, England out.

    Thankfully your prediction was a bit off this time.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,536

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    One of the Brexit opportunities is that we get to keep all migrants who cross the channel because we no longer have to abide by the pesky Dublin convention which allowed us to send them back to the EU country from which they came
    We took back control

    https://twitter.com/nazirafzal/status/1587383060227624963

    Money, borders, laws, and waters...

    A PM gone for rule-breaking, a PM sacked by markets, UK hands tied by treaty, Protocol fallout, fisheries in bad shape, Dover crossings.

    All four need management and cooperation. Delusion of 'control' made all four worse.

    This is the lesson.
    https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1587389425687855104/photo/1

    How many were we actually sending back to EU countries before? I would hazard a guess at near zero.
    Recently, hundreds: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9031/CBP-9031.pdf So, not zero, but not a huge number either.
    Were we offered a continuation of Dublin during the withdrawal negotiations, and declined it, or were we not offered it?
    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9031/

    "The Government did not want to replicate the provisions of the Dublin Regulation.

    It proposed two draft agreements with the EU which related to certain specific aspects of the Dublin Regulation:

    an agreement on the transfer of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children for family reunion purposes
    a readmission agreement for accepting returns of irregularly residing UK/EU citizens and third country nationals.
    The EU did not publish any comparable draft agreements."
    Thanks. Interesting stuff.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,473

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Yes - when you are lied to for long enough you believe the lies. So people wrongly believe that asylum seekers must claim in the first safe country. That we take our fair share. That the boat people are illegal and instead should come legally. That asylum seekers live a life of riley.
    Before accusing people of wrongly thinking that we take our "fair share", can you define what you mean by that, why it is a meaningful metric, and how you think it should be calculated?
    We take significantly less than other countries, yet somehow believe we take so many that we can't take any more. That lying crook Johnson kept telling everyone how advanced our Ukraine refugee programme was even as we refused to take anyone without completing a form which we refused to give them access to.
    We take significantly less than some other countries and significantly more than some others.

    How can you objectively decide what is a "fair share" and why does this matter? If another country suddenly takes a lot more, does it immediately make the other countries' policies unfair?

    Apart from anything else, the idea of a "fair share" is predicated on the idea that asylum seekers are purely a burden, which I don't think you would want to accept.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854
    About those Pelosi smears.

    From the FBI summary of the Mirandized interview of the assailant:
    https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1587155462184656896
    How did DePape get into the house? "DEPAPE stated that he broke into the house through a glass door, which was a difficult task that required the use of a hammer."...
    Motive: "DEPAPE stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage...DEPAPE articulated he viewed Nancy as the 'leader of the pack' of lies told by the Democratic Party...DEPAPE also later explained that by breaking Nancy’s kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress.."...

  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 6,807
    edited November 2022
    Driver said:

    .

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    Like his app?
    The Matt Hancock App will some day change the world. People like to talk about Facebook and Twitter but they have yet to understand the true technological, revolutionary might of the Matt Hancock App. In years to come we will wonder how such a game changing piece of software bubbled below the surface for so long.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Andy_JS said:

    Hancock brings the number of independent MPs to 14. 6 Lab, 5 Con, 2 SNP, 1 PC.

    https://members.parliament.uk/members/Commons?SearchText=&PartyId=8&Gender=Any&ForParliament=0&ShowAdvanced=False

    2% of MPs are not fit to take a party whip. Quality Street
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,799
    edited November 2022
    Still on for NZ....
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,473

    Driver said:

    .

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    Like his app?
    The Matt Hancock App will some day change the world. People like to talk about Facebook and Twitter but they have yet to understand the true technological, revolutionary might of the Matt Hancock App. In years to come we will wonder how such a game changing piece of software bubbled below the surface for so long.
    He must be annoyed that Elon Musk didn’t snap it up.
  • This week @ScotParl will attend the Nordic Council for the first time. It’s a welcome opportunity to strengthen ties with the Nordic countries whose parliaments are similar in size and structure to ours.

    Find out more👇
    ow.ly/Z9YB50LpKtF


    https://twitter.com/poscotparl/status/1587123503811084288?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    I think it would be fair to say the replies aren’t entirely sympathetic….
    I am amazed that serial EssEnnPee-badder and Ex Scots Guards, Falklands Vet, Glasgow Rangers, Based in Norway is unsympathetic. What is it with Rangers fans and Scandinavia? That recent double humping by Malmo has left its mark evidently.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918

    Andy_JS said:

    Hancock brings the number of independent MPs to 14. 6 Lab, 5 Con, 2 SNP, 1 PC.

    https://members.parliament.uk/members/Commons?SearchText=&PartyId=8&Gender=Any&ForParliament=0&ShowAdvanced=False

    2% of MPs are not fit to take a party whip. Quality Street
    25% of Plaid Cymru MPs! 4% of SNP. 3% of Labour. 1.4% of Conservative. LibDems biggest party with no suspensions.
  • Pretty comprehensive 20 run victory in the end, well done England.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,946
    Huge win.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854

    Still on for NZ....

    Sterling effort; well done.
  • I think NZ deliberately lost that in order to try and get a weaker team into the semi-finals ;-)
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,854

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Racism is nothing to do with fair play. It's visceral. I agree with you about fair play and the British are the best queuers in the world! Most are prepared to help Ukrainian's because they are blond and blue eyed but not Afghans or Syrians who suffered and are suffering at least as much.

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious
  • TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Off Topic

    Question for the economic gurus here

    If BP use their larger profits to buy back shares in their own company, does that mean the money used is now sheltered from tax?

    Does it also mean the share price of their own company rises, thus increasing the value of their company?

    ?

    Not exactly.

    Tax gets extremely complicated, any tax due should still be due, but there's always potential loopholes which is why we need tax simplification making it harder to avoid tax.

    Share buybacks increase the value of the shares that remain typically, but don't generally increase the value of the company. Market Cap of a firm is value of shares multiplied by number of shares. Share buybacks increase share price, but reduce number of shares outstanding, so the increase in share price would have to more than offset the reduction in shares outstanding.

    TL;DR - Maybe. Maybe not. Should be not, but can't rule it out.
    Plus it is legitimate for investors to question what their growth/investment strategy is if the best use of surplus cash is to spend it enhancing eps rather than growing the business.
    Possibly, but if your investment is maxed out then there are legitimate reasons to engage in share buybacks, especially if you have surplus cash. Its really not much different to issuing dividends in rewarding shareholders which is what all firms are there for at the end of the day.

    Firms share values are ultimately related to a risk-adjusted TVM of expected future dividends per share. If there's fewer shares outstanding, the TVM of expected future dividends per share increases.

    If you think about it, in theory if a firm has the cash to buy back half its outstanding shares without affecting future cash available for dividends, then the future dividends per share doubles.
    DDMs are the poor man's analytic tool, though.

    Because if you are in steady state ex-growth then it might make sense but people value companies based upon expected growth over and above the cost of capital.

    Why not buy back 100% of the shares and have done with it.
    Expected growth means future dividends are expected to be higher, it still all comes back ultimately to what the shareholders can expect to get in the future.

    You can't buy back 100% of the shares, there must always be one share outstanding at the very least. But many firms can and do go private and remove publicly traded shares, so there's no reason you can't do that in theory.

    Most firms can't afford to. Publicly traded shares normally are a needed form of raising capital, at the price of diluting the share of ownership other shareholders have.
    Dividends are a distraction. While BP is not a high growth company investors assign higher value to higher growth prospects. Dividends can also be manipulated by management. What was the dividend payout ratio, and PEx of Google.

    Generally, although I appreciate you have many years of investment analysis under your belt, investors are wary of share buybacks and DDM valuations.
    There is a world of difference between dividends and expected future dividends.

    Past dividends do nothing to aid future dividends happening, which is why growth is valued. Growth improves future dividends more than past dividends do.
  • Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it

    https://twitter.com/neilmackay/status/1587347181249478658?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ
  • Isn't Hancock lady friend in PR....Seems like being badly advised from his appearance on that Diary of a CEO podcast, to trying to glad hand Sunak to going on I'm a Celeb.

    He seems to be intent on the type of path followed by Neil Hamilton rather Michael Portillo. It won't end well.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,300
    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Racism is nothing to do with fair play. It's visceral. I agree with you about fair play and the British are the best queuers in the world! Most are prepared to help Ukrainian's because they are blond and blue eyed but not Afghans or Syrians who suffered and are suffering at least as much.

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious
    Bit harsh on PB members... No doubt it is easier for ethnic whites to sympathise more with Ukranians than Syrians etc, but its also cultural, not just race.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited November 2022
    Fair to say @MattHancock 's local Conservative Association is unimpressed. Andy Drummond, deputy chairman (political) of West Suffolk Conservative Association, told @PA: "I’m looking forward to him eating a kangaroo’s penis. Quote me. You can quote me that.”

    https://twitter.com/DavidHughesPA/status/1587403568692207617
  • Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    How does he do his constituency work from there? Same as Johnson did from the Carribean?
    Dorries is covering for him
    Further gives the lie to the claim that being a backbench MP is a full-time job. It isn't.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    edited November 2022
    Lolzzzzzz

    Fair to say @MattHancock's local Conservative Association is unimpressed. Andy Drummond, deputy chairman (political) of West Suffolk Conservative Association, told @PA: "I’m looking forward to him eating a kangaroo’s penis. Quote me. You can quote me that.”
    https://twitter.com/DavidHughesPA/status/1587403568692207617?t=QvlHnTMljrCAG2yod_fUSA&s=19
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,958
    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.
    As we accelerate to the end of ICE, there will be a massive crunch on battery manufacturing. There is going to be a shortage, unless the increases in production are further ramped up.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375

    Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it

    https://twitter.com/neilmackay/status/1587347181249478658?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    Makes you wonder why so many refugees prefer the UK to France
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854
    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
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Nigelb said:

    About those Pelosi smears.

    From the FBI summary of the Mirandized interview of the assailant:
    https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1587155462184656896
    How did DePape get into the house? "DEPAPE stated that he broke into the house through a glass door, which was a difficult task that required the use of a hammer."...
    Motive: "DEPAPE stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage...DEPAPE articulated he viewed Nancy as the 'leader of the pack' of lies told by the Democratic Party...DEPAPE also later explained that by breaking Nancy’s kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress.."...

    The deep state has got to him
  • Roger said:

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Racism is nothing to do with fair play. It's visceral. I agree with you about fair play and the British are the best queuers in the world! Most are prepared to help Ukrainian's because they are blond and blue eyed but not Afghans or Syrians who suffered and are suffering at least as much.

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious
    Bit harsh on PB members... No doubt it is easier for ethnic whites to sympathise more with Ukranians than Syrians etc, but its also cultural, not just race.
    What are the specific cultural ties between the UK and Ukraine?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854
    A gloomy Tory MP - who is a member of the ERG and good friend of the Home secretary - says No 10 has hung out Suella Braverman to dry over 'emailgate'.
    He tells me: "We have been f***ed. No 10 wanted to say 'we have put our arm around her but can't save her'.

    https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1587122675864027136

    That's another Johnsonian legacy cliche that needs banning - "put our arms around..."
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918

    Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it

    https://twitter.com/neilmackay/status/1587347181249478658?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    Makes you wonder why so many refugees prefer the UK to France
    Some do. Most prefer France.

    https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html "In the year ending September 2021, Germany received the highest number of asylum applicants (127,730) in the EU+, followed by France (96,510). When compared with the EU+, the UK received the 4th largest number of applicants (44, 190 – including main applicants and dependents)."
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,946

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Racism is nothing to do with fair play. It's visceral. I agree with you about fair play and the British are the best queuers in the world! Most are prepared to help Ukrainian's because they are blond and blue eyed but not Afghans or Syrians who suffered and are suffering at least as much.

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious
    Bit harsh on PB members... No doubt it is easier for ethnic whites to sympathise more with Ukranians than Syrians etc, but its also cultural, not just race.
    What are the specific cultural ties between the UK and Ukraine?
    It's about showing that you're on the right side against Putin, to an extent, isn't it?
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Great moments of our time......

    Nothing has changed!
    Duke of Yorks sweaty interview.
    Matt Hancocks PR team telling him Im a celeb is career gold
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Racism is nothing to do with fair play. It's visceral. I agree with you about fair play and the British are the best queuers in the world! Most are prepared to help Ukrainian's because they are blond and blue eyed but not Afghans or Syrians who suffered and are suffering at least as much.

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious
    Bit harsh on PB members... No doubt it is easier for ethnic whites to sympathise more with Ukranians than Syrians etc, but its also cultural, not just race.
    What are the specific cultural ties between the UK and Ukraine?
    The names of our countries both begin "uk".
  • glwglw Posts: 9,899
    edited November 2022
    Roger said:

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious

    You come out with rubbish like this, because if fits your ignorant anecdotal view of the UK, and ignore surveys which show it really isn't true.



    https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/19/europeans-credit-eu-with-promoting-peace-and-prosperity-but-say-brussels-is-out-of-touch-with-its-citizens/pg_2019-03-19_views-of-the-eu_0-14/
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854
    Along with "the department has worked tirelessly".
    Which manages to seem both meaningless and untrue at the same time.
  • Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it

    https://twitter.com/neilmackay/status/1587347181249478658?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    A lot was already broken before Brexit. Indeed, communities / services / industries being broken was a key driver for Brexit in a lot of places.
  • I think NZ deliberately lost that in order to try and get a weaker team into the semi-finals ;-)

    Its not going to work though as Australia will be Ireland then England v Sri Lanka gets washed out and England gets eliminated coming short by a point . . .
  • WillGWillG Posts: 2,366
    Russian militias raping grandmothers in Ukraine.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63446508

    Russia is a criminal nation and a criminal culture. The barbarity runs deep. It needs to be broken up and it's constituent parts can start anew.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Nigelb said:

    Along with "the department has worked tirelessly".
    Which manages to seem both meaningless and untrue at the same time.

    They made so little effort they are all very fresh
  • Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it

    https://twitter.com/neilmackay/status/1587347181249478658?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    So says a pathetic Anglophobe, reposted by another Anglophobe loser, who is a pitiable joke on this site, who so hates his own country that he lives in another one, and has no friends so spends his whole time doing nothing else than posting hate filled shite online
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,737
    Ukraine claimed Russian troops losses…

    During the summer artillery fest, the numbers averaged around 200 per day. There was then a sharp increase from the last week of August, with the 7-day average peaking at 450 on 11 Sep, as the liberation of the Izyum axis reached its crescendo, before steadily dropping back to summer levels.

    Then starting the last week of Sept, we saw another new peak starting, with 7D average reaching 475 as Ukraine took major ground in Kherson and Lyman and surrounds.

    Things then settled to a higher new daily average of 350.

    Over the last 4-5 days we’ve seen a new peak commencing, of the type which has historically preceded a major territorial gain. Moving average still rising and at 566 today. Will be interesting to see if these means we’re going to see a major shift in the battle lines in north Luhansk/Kherson, or if this is just desperate human wave tactics from Russia against the deeply dug lines around the Donetsk / Bahkmut.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,300

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Racism is nothing to do with fair play. It's visceral. I agree with you about fair play and the British are the best queuers in the world! Most are prepared to help Ukrainian's because they are blond and blue eyed but not Afghans or Syrians who suffered and are suffering at least as much.

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious
    Bit harsh on PB members... No doubt it is easier for ethnic whites to sympathise more with Ukranians than Syrians etc, but its also cultural, not just race.
    What are the specific cultural ties between the UK and Ukraine?
    The names of our countries both begin "uk".
    Religion, both European nations, drinking alcohol for three. Certainly more in common that Syrians - generally not Christian, don't drink alcohol, middle eastern nation.
  • Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    How does he do his constituency work from there? Same as Johnson did from the Carribean?
    Dorries is covering for him
    Further gives the lie to the claim that being a backbench MP is a full-time job. It isn't.
    It is a full time job. There are a lot of workshy unproductive shirkers who take the money and refuse to do the job. Well apart from the bit where they pass judgement and policies aimed at Other People they consider to be workshy unproductive shirkers
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854

    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.
    As we accelerate to the end of ICE, there will be a massive crunch on battery manufacturing. There is going to be a shortage, unless the increases in production are further ramped up.
    It's not going to work like that, though.
    Things will move at the pace of growth in supply. I don't think that's going to make more than a marginal difference to anything in the UK.
  • Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it

    https://twitter.com/neilmackay/status/1587347181249478658?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    A lot was already broken before Brexit. Indeed, communities / services / industries being broken was a key driver for Brexit in a lot of places.
    And Brexit was shite, but on the whole, Britain is not *the* best, but is still one of the best countries to live in the world by a huge number of measures.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,466

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Racism is nothing to do with fair play. It's visceral. I agree with you about fair play and the British are the best queuers in the world! Most are prepared to help Ukrainian's because they are blond and blue eyed but not Afghans or Syrians who suffered and are suffering at least as much.

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious
    Bit harsh on PB members... No doubt it is easier for ethnic whites to sympathise more with Ukranians than Syrians etc, but its also cultural, not just race.
    What are the specific cultural ties between the UK and Ukraine?
    U 'n K, innit.....
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,767

    Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it

    https://twitter.com/neilmackay/status/1587347181249478658?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    Makes you wonder why so many refugees prefer the UK to France
    a) They probably don't. We take far less than several other countries
    b) Language
    c) Contacts in the UK

    Not rocket science.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,854
    .

    Driver said:

    .

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE:

    I'M A CELEB MP:

    Former health secretary Matt Hancock joins I’m A Celebrity as bombshell extra campmate

    - breaker with @RodMcPheeTheSun

    http://thesun.co.uk/tv/20284864/matt-hancock-im-a-celebrity-line-up-australia/

    Very, very, very bad idea.
    It’s not all bad. He’s clearly given up any idea of returning to front line politics.
    This is Matt Hancock. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks it will catapult him to the front rank of leadership contenders.
    Like his app?
    The Matt Hancock App will some day change the world. People like to talk about Facebook and Twitter but they have yet to understand the true technological, revolutionary might of the Matt Hancock App. In years to come we will wonder how such a game changing piece of software bubbled below the surface for so long.
    He must be annoyed that Elon Musk didn’t snap it up.
    Surprising he didn't buy the rights to "Mancock", though.
  • Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it

    https://twitter.com/neilmackay/status/1587347181249478658?s=46&t=Ylgqqlho9rXQMgaCzRYIOQ

    So says a pathetic Anglophobe, reposted by another Anglophobe loser, who is a pitiable joke on this site, who so hates his own country that he lives in another one, and has no friends so spends his whole time doing nothing else than posting hate filled shite online
    I love you too Nige ❤️

    Bisous xxx
  • Roger said:

    Roger said:

    None of this looks good for the government. The racists are asking themselves If this lot can't even keep the foreigners out what are they good at? And though there's a feeling (certainly on PB ) that hate of 'the other' goes down well with Tory voters there are more than a few who are repulsed by it.

    The Nasty Party flag is fluttering like we haven't seen for years and that doesn't usually spell a good result for the Tories

    I don't believe that every person who is concerned about economic migrants abusing the system (for example coming from Albania) is a racist. At heart the UK is a country of fair play - just try queue jumping at the post office or pub and see what happens. Most people are willing to help genuine refugees, but they no longer believe that the 40,000 arriving over the channel from France are genuine. That might be wrong, but that is the impression that they have.
    Racism is nothing to do with fair play. It's visceral. I agree with you about fair play and the British are the best queuers in the world! Most are prepared to help Ukrainian's because they are blond and blue eyed but not Afghans or Syrians who suffered and are suffering at least as much.

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious
    Bit harsh on PB members... No doubt it is easier for ethnic whites to sympathise more with Ukranians than Syrians etc, but its also cultural, not just race.
    What are the specific cultural ties between the UK and Ukraine?
    The names of our countries both begin "uk".
    Religion, both European nations, drinking alcohol for three. Certainly more in common that Syrians - generally not Christian, don't drink alcohol, middle eastern nation.
    The President of Ukraine is the voice of Paddington Bear.
  • glw said:

    Roger said:

    Farage's poster told the the story about our view on immigrants and asylum seekers more succinctly than any text. Fortunately not everyone thinks like Farage though reading PB it isn't obvious

    You come out with rubbish like this, because if fits your ignorant anecdotal view of the UK, and ignore surveys which show it really isn't true.



    https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/19/europeans-credit-eu-with-promoting-peace-and-prosperity-but-say-brussels-is-out-of-touch-with-its-citizens/pg_2019-03-19_views-of-the-eu_0-14/
    Thanks for this, very enlightening. Shows that the self-haters need to be a little less critical of their fellow countrymen.
This discussion has been closed.