This is a very easy problem to solve. If you turn up at the polling station without ID, they take a Polaroid photo of you and you sign the back of it.
After the election, there is a spot check of Polaroid signers. (10% or so should do it.)
I don't reckon many people will wish to get their photo taken (and to sign it) committing the crime of personation.
What problem are these reforms trying to solve? Are they claiming widespread voter fraud? Sounds familiar.
They are trying to solve the issue of personation.
Now, we don't know how big an issue it is. It might be almost unknown. Or it might simply be that people rarely get caught.
My suggestion is (a) cheap, (b) easy to implement, (c) deters personation, (d) allows the amount of personation to be determined, and (e) doesn't discourage voters without ID.
Why do we need to change a system that has produced widely accepted fair election results for years?
The implication is that something is broken. What is it? It’s proto-Trumpian. Wise not to go there.
Wise not to go there? Isn't that turning a blind eye to something that even the electoral commission says is a perceived and actual issue?
The report says there is no widespread fraud. They are dealing with perceptions. These perceptions are now commonly generated, exaggerated, and manipulated for partisan ends. We see that in the US.
Sometimes in life the cure is worse than the problem. That I fear is what we will see with these proposals. They will deny more valid voters than stop actual fraud.
Personally I would favour a bank holiday and compulsory turn-up, but that is a whole other story.
So localised fraud is OK, it's only when it is widespread you will start thinking about doing something about it?
They say in the report it is both an actual and perceived weakness of the current system. Of course it is hard to get firm numbers on it, but they do report how in NI there has not been a single claim of personation since the measures were introduced.
They also reported that there was no reduction in participation due to these measures in NI. That is always massively overblown as a potential problem.
Of course local fraud is not ok, but as the report says it has been "detected and punished". Good!
Good, the detected cases are punished. It doesn't say that all cases are detected, does it?
Of courses, but it also said there is no evidence there is a widespread problem. This is good news! Cases are detected and punished and it's not a widespread problem.
The two bits in bold are not the same thing, did you hope nobody would notice?
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
This Budweiser ban at the WC. I reckon it is actually a blessing in disguise, i mean who honestly wants to pay £12 for a Budweiser of all beers....
How much is a pint of Bud ZERO?!?!
Seven pounds I believe.
Buying a pint of Bud Zero is like having a really bad wank where you don't even ejaculate, you just get a slight ache in the groin
The only point of Budweiser is the alcohol. Nobody buys it for the delightful complexity of flavour. Bud zero is like knowingly taking a placebo.
And it's fun to get enjoyably indignant at FIFA and the Qataris engaged in trashing what remains of each other's reputation, but I don't suppose this will have any impact: presumably anyone who thought that 'having a nice time' might be part of a prospective trip to this farce had already reconsidered their options long ago. Only those for whom grim determination to turn up at a football match and see it live are left. And there are plenty of those. In some ways, the shittier the experience gets, for the really hardcore, the more attractive it gets: the 'I was there' becomes rarer. I suppose therefore we should offer cautious congratulations to the Qataris.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
I think the Iranian protests may have gone, as Leon suggests, beyond the point that brutal repression might control them.
Does Iran become another Syria, or will the regime fall ?
Do not underestimate how brutal regimes can be, even those who do not believe they have God on their side.
I don't, which is why I posed the question I did. The point is that this has gone beyond protests. It's probably not a big step to civil war.
Who has the guns? The police, the army and the air force. Whose side are they on? Schoolgirls aren't going to topple the regime, even now they've been joined by students and middle class professionals. I wish them well, but fear the worst.
Mr. Romford, there were, in the pilot, literally dozens of acceptable forms of ID, including driving licences and passports, so most people would have them already.
The portrayal of this as being something that 'the young' inherently do not have and will struggle to acquire is nonsense. Most will have a valid type of ID already and acquiring one if not will be free of charge. This is neither difficult nor costly.
Again:
WHY DO WE NEED VOTER ID?
To suppress non-Conservative younger voters. Do keep up!
And to suppress non-Conservative older and middle-aged voters. There was some discussion after Boris's red wall breakthrough as to whether voter ID would shoot Conservatives in the foot if it cost them their new, less affluent voters.
For the last seven years of his life my late father had his driving licence revoked for poor eyesight and didn't travel abroad so his passport expired, oh and he didn't use the bus. Answers on a postcard...
Voter Authority Certificate?
Well he didn't need one because they took his word he was the name on the polling card.
This is Dick Dastardly voter suppression, but probably not as well thought through as Wacky Races chicanery.
What do you mean he didn't need one? The requirement isn't there yet. In any case, he can either use this, or his expired photographic ID.
It's a stupid and unnecessary resolution to a problem that only existed in the minds of ERG gammon.
And the electoral commission, apparently.
You missed out "independent".
What's that got to do with it? They are the regulator in charge of elections, and I would expect their opinion to carry at least some weight.
Agents tasked by HMG to resolve an issue identified by HMG.
The report was commissioned by HMG? As far as I can tell they started this review themselves after what happened in Tower Hamlets.
The Electoral Commission is to review whether voters should produce identification at polling stations amid continued concerns about electoral fraud. It said it was disappointed the government had not conducted its own review.
This is a very easy problem to solve. If you turn up at the polling station without ID, they take a Polaroid photo of you and you sign the back of it.
After the election, there is a spot check of Polaroid signers. (10% or so should do it.)
I don't reckon many people will wish to get their photo taken (and to sign it) committing the crime of personation.
What problem are these reforms trying to solve? Are they claiming widespread voter fraud? Sounds familiar.
They are trying to solve the issue of personation.
Now, we don't know how big an issue it is. It might be almost unknown. Or it might simply be that people rarely get caught.
My suggestion is (a) cheap, (b) easy to implement, (c) deters personation, (d) allows the amount of personation to be determined, and (e) doesn't discourage voters without ID.
Why do we need to change a system that has produced widely accepted fair election results for years?
The implication is that something is broken. What is it? It’s proto-Trumpian. Wise not to go there.
Wise not to go there? Isn't that turning a blind eye to something that even the electoral commission says is a perceived and actual issue?
The report says there is no widespread fraud. They are dealing with perceptions. These perceptions are now commonly generated, exaggerated, and manipulated for partisan ends. We see that in the US.
Sometimes in life the cure is worse than the problem. That I fear is what we will see with these proposals. They will deny more valid voters than stop actual fraud.
Personally I would favour a bank holiday and compulsory turn-up, but that is a whole other story.
So localised fraud is OK, it's only when it is widespread you will start thinking about doing something about it?
They say in the report it is both an actual and perceived weakness of the current system. Of course it is hard to get firm numbers on it, but they do report how in NI there has not been a single claim of personation since the measures were introduced.
They also reported that there was no reduction in participation due to these measures in NI. That is always massively overblown as a potential problem.
Of course local fraud is not ok, but as the report says it has been "detected and punished". Good!
Good, the detected cases are punished. It doesn't say that all cases are detected, does it?
Of courses, but it also said there is no evidence there is a widespread problem. This is good news! Cases are detected and punished and it's not a widespread problem.
The two bits in bold are not the same thing, did you hope nobody would notice?
Silly me, forming opinions based on evidence. So old fashioned.
I can't remember if this is the current proposal/state of affairs, but the pilot for voter ID did enable anyone who didn't have one of he dozens of suitable types to get one for free, upon request from their local council. If that's the case, then there's no problem at all.
Basic behaviour change theory will tell you that the more steps you insert into a process, the fewer people will complete that process. The more bureaucracy, the fewer people voting, and all this to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
And I thought the Tories were all about reducing red tape…
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
"Finally, we should move to a system where voters are required to produce identification at polling stations. We gathered substantial evidence during our review that the lack of a requirement for ID is both an actual and a perceived weakness in the system. "
The only evidence of actual personation in polling stations I can find in the whole report is the extremely vague:
"Police forces have reported cases of alleged personation in polling stations in recent years" (bottom of page 21)
The "substantial evidence gathered of actual weakness in the system", seems to just mean they have "gathered" that there is a possibility that people can get away with personation at polling stations, rather than any evidence that this happens more than very rarely.
Tories questioning election validity and placing hurdles to voting are going down a Trumpian path. Not good.
"Trumpian path".
lol.
Checking the voter is actually the voter =/= marching on the Capitol in crazy hats to overthrow an election.
Get a bit of perspective here. Pushing for a free pass to those who would commit voter fraud does not put you on the side of the angels.
I'm just advocating a classic conservative approach. Our historic elections have been fair. If it ain't broke don't fix it. If there has been a problem, its turnout of younger voters. What is the government doing to address that?
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
What fetishisation.
There was/is no conflict between European migration and ex-European migration. And European migration was not “mostly unskilled” anyway, at least in comparison with domestic skill sets.
You don’t really appear to know what you are talking about.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
I meant that landlordism is the most direct example of a rentier economy.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
It's not the typical Brit's experience of migration because these things are kept veiled. I honestly don't know how widespread it is.
Migration may have benefited the British economy; it's less clear that it's benefited the British worker. I agree with your last paragraph of course.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Eh?
The UK fertility rate is about 1.55 and results in 690,000 births per year.
If the UK fertility rate dropped by 0.2, it would mean there were 578,000 births in the year. To make up for a drop of 0.2 in the fertility rate would mean an increase in annual immigration of 112,000.
Sorry I should have specified every decade.
Also, you haven't factored in that new births are 25-35 years younger than the average migrants
Agreed: a British new birth adds cost of education and typically takes mothers out of the workforce. They are therefore much worse for the dependency ratio than bringing in someone at 25 years of age. (Plus, you might get lucky and they return home before they get old.)
The cost of education makes the individual into a much more productive worker than most of the workers we would filter out with a good immigration system. I agree those immigrants with good degrees are better and we should keep letting those ones in.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
I meant that landlordism is the most direct example of a rentier economy.
The connection between landlordism and migration is limited, despite PB frothers again reaching for “unlimited migration” as the reason for all ills.
I can't remember if this is the current proposal/state of affairs, but the pilot for voter ID did enable anyone who didn't have one of he dozens of suitable types to get one for free, upon request from their local council. If that's the case, then there's no problem at all.
Basic behaviour change theory will tell you that the more steps you insert into a process, the fewer people will complete that process. The more bureaucracy, the fewer people voting, and all this to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
And I thought the Tories were all about reducing red tape…
The Tories are in favour of reducing red tape for businesses. When it comes to individuals they are as at lest as bad as Labour.
"Finally, we should move to a system where voters are required to produce identification at polling stations. We gathered substantial evidence during our review that the lack of a requirement for ID is both an actual and a perceived weakness in the system. "
The only evidence of actual personation in polling stations I can find in the whole report is the extremely vague:
"Police forces have reported cases of alleged personation in polling stations in recent years" (bottom of page 21)
The "substantial evidence gathered of actual weakness in the system", seems to just mean they have "gathered" that there is a possibility that people can get away with personation at polling stations, rather than any evidence that this happens more than very rarely.
It's mentioned explicitly in the second paragraph of the foreword. Cases have been detected and punished, but it is not widespread. That doesn't mean it is not happening.
I'm very much in the on the one hand camp on this one.
I don't on principle like the idea of people needing identity cards just to be able to exist (and I think this can be taken to include participation in our democratic process) but then again I need three forms of ID to change my address with my bank and electoral fraud is a thing so it isn't the biggest outrage to be asked to prove who I am.
PB will remember clearly the time I went to vote, only to be told that I had already voted (line through my name, etc) which I attributed to cock up rather than conspiracy, and if the former an ID card wouldn't have prevented the fat finger, but would have prevented it if it had indeed been fraud.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Eh?
The UK fertility rate is about 1.55 and results in 690,000 births per year.
If the UK fertility rate dropped by 0.2, it would mean there were 578,000 births in the year. To make up for a drop of 0.2 in the fertility rate would mean an increase in annual immigration of 112,000.
Sorry I should have specified every decade.
Also, you haven't factored in that new births are 25-35 years younger than the average migrants
Agreed: a British new birth adds cost of education and typically takes mothers out of the workforce. They are therefore much worse for the dependency ratio than bringing in someone at 25 years of age. (Plus, you might get lucky and they return home before they get old.)
The cost of education makes the individual into a much more productive worker than most of the workers we would filter out with a good immigration system. I agree those immigrants with good degrees are better and we should keep letting those ones in.
The average EU immigrant was more skilled than the average native worker. So by your logic we already had a good immigration system.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
I typed too quickly and clarified my argument. This is what intellectually honest people do.
What intellectually dishonest people do is to make up shit about what the other person is saying. I have never blamed legal immigrants for immigrating - they are just responding to the incentives policy under the rules set for them. I blame bad policy.
I completely agree about the bias against investment. What you fail to acknowledge is that masses of cheap labour creates that bias. It is a major reason why the industrial revolution happened here and not in China. Why invest in more productive automation when it's cheaper just to add more labour and the rest of society will pick up the tab?
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
Not when it added to demand for housing and public services from EU free movement, especially from Eastern Europe.
Now we have a points system for migrants from the EU on the same terms as non EU migrants
Tories questioning election validity and placing hurdles to voting are going down a Trumpian path. Not good.
Im always amazed why people are so anti voter id. You need id to collect a parcel from the post office, or to go in most pubs on a Saturday night in a town centre, why not for voting.
In that case why not a single National ID card system? Hands up all those posters who castigated me a few days ago for suggesting the Driving Licence IS a national identity card.
The BBC has broadcast folksongs that glorify attacks on Jews and call for bloodshed, the JC can reveal.
A BBC presenter can be seen in the studio, nodding and filming the bloodthirsty performance on his phone, which was aired on the BBC Xtra series to mark “Nakba Day” in May.
Sounds like the Middle Eastern version of Tim Westwood old show.
There is a small but noticeable subgenre of Corbynites/tankies/Marxist-lefties who are.... on the side of the Islamic regime in Tehran, and against the protestors. That is to say, they are AGAINST the brave young people fighting a nasty, brutal, quasi-Fascist theocracy
The French Revolution has, indeed, unfolded in ways no one could have predicted
All authoritarians and their pathetic lackeys are capable of sympathising with all other authoritarians and their pathetic lackeys. What unites them is not policy, but the sort of person they are.
Just as all liberals can understand all other liberals, however much they disagree about policy.
And BTW Burke did some pretty decent predictions about the unfolding of the French Revolution. (Jesse Norman's book on Burke is recommended).
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
It's not the typical Brit's experience of migration because these things are kept veiled. I honestly don't know how widespread it is.
Migration may have benefited the British economy; it's less clear that it's benefited the British worker. I agree with your last paragraph of course.
1. Your first line hints at conspiracy theory.
2. British workers tended to move up the career ladder as migrants entered below them. British workers also benefited from more productive employers and better tax takes from government. However I will concede that globalisation generally, of which migration is one component, has tended to benefit the very best off.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
Not when it added to demand for housing and public services from EU free movement, especially from Eastern Europe.
Now we have a points system for migrants from the EU on the same terms as non EU migrants
You're a stats guy. Do you have evidence of the pressure on demand for housing from EU free movement, especially from Eastern Europe?
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
Not when it added to demand for housing and public services from EU free movement, especially from Eastern Europe.
Now we have a points system for migrants from the EU on the same terms as non EU migrants
We still have immigration. Maybe even at the same level as before (I can’t keep up).
If you break down the demand side for housing, migration is of course in there, but not the main factor.
One serious mistake made by successive governments was not to address the demands for infrastructure imposed by migration.
I think the Iranian protests may have gone, as Leon suggests, beyond the point that brutal repression might control them.
Does Iran become another Syria, or will the regime fall ?
Do not underestimate how brutal regimes can be, even those who do not believe they have God on their side.
I don't, which is why I posed the question I did. The point is that this has gone beyond protests. It's probably not a big step to civil war.
Who has the guns? The police, the army and the air force. Whose side are they on? Schoolgirls aren't going to topple the regime, even now they've been joined by students and middle class professionals. I wish them well, but fear the worst.
Needs at least a portion of the police and armed forces to turn on the government. As happened in Syria.
Sadly it feels more like civil war than a clean revolution. Too many loyalists
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Eh?
The UK fertility rate is about 1.55 and results in 690,000 births per year.
If the UK fertility rate dropped by 0.2, it would mean there were 578,000 births in the year. To make up for a drop of 0.2 in the fertility rate would mean an increase in annual immigration of 112,000.
Sorry I should have specified every decade.
Also, you haven't factored in that new births are 25-35 years younger than the average migrants
Agreed: a British new birth adds cost of education and typically takes mothers out of the workforce. They are therefore much worse for the dependency ratio than bringing in someone at 25 years of age. (Plus, you might get lucky and they return home before they get old.)
The cost of education makes the individual into a much more productive worker than most of the workers we would filter out with a good immigration system.
An employee I saw in Tesco's was reducing prices by 70% and he had a machine to do the arithmetic for him. He was happily yellow-stickering away, but then he had to reduce some items by 90%. He was completely flummoxed because the machine wouldn't do that for him and he had no idea that to reduce something by 90% all you have to do is move the decimal point. Presumably he'd had at least 10 years of maths at school. "Much more productive", you say?
How many 20 year olds in Britain do you think remember that (x+y)(x-y) = x^2 - y^2 ?
45% of MPs think the probability of getting two heads if you flip a fair coin twice is 0.5. (Source.)
Tories questioning election validity and placing hurdles to voting are going down a Trumpian path. Not good.
Im always amazed why people are so anti voter id. You need id to collect a parcel from the post office, or to go in most pubs on a Saturday night in a town centre, why not for voting.
In that case why not a single National ID card system? Hands up all those posters who castigated me a few days ago for suggesting the Driving Licence IS a national identity card.
I was one of those who did the castigating. I don't like the idea of an ID card just to be able to walk down the street. But to do something explicit (pick up a parcel from the post office, prove you are who you say you are when visiting an office block, voting) I am less concerned, although the huge caveat is that voting is an inalienable right for Brits and to have to prove you are a Brit is problematic. But then it's back to the "don't you know who I am" scenario.
Reflecting on Hunt's autumn statement it was needed and pulled no punches
The economic impact of covid, war in Ukraine, and brexit made it inevitable and it is difficult to see anything other than Starmer as next PM
However, I am relieved we have the Sunak/ Hunt combination leading the country at present as they seem responsible enough to put the well being of the economy before party politics and the ERG
It must be hoped that an election defeat in 2024 will see some if not most of the ERG dinosaurs voted from office , and a one nation conservative party rise from the defeat
As far as brexit is concerned a closer relationship with the EU is desirable but for those who pine for full membership I just do not see it happening for years, and it certainly seems that Starmer has accepted that it is not a realistic proposition
I do not support the triple lock but then it was initiated by Cameron and Clegg and seems the mindset of all the parties so it is unlikely to be changed anytime soon
PS My hunch is that Sunak and Hunt will not be loved by right, if they do lead the Tories to defeat, they will be discredited (Truss will be a distant memory) and there will be a movement to return to true Tory values and to hold the nerve this time.
Yes Sunak and Hunt are as one nation as the Tories will get for the next decade. If they lose expect the Tories to shift to the right under Braverman or Badenoch or maybe an outsider like Health Secretary Steve Barclay.
Just as Labour shifted to the left under Foot after defeat in 1979 and Ed Miliband and Corbyn after defeat in 2010 and the Tories shifted to the right under Hague and IDS post 1997 defeat.
Though how Labour handles the economy will determine how quickly the Tories revive in opposition or not
The big risk we have to deal with parties claiming fraud where there is none and changing the rules in reaction to favour their constituency.
We do not need to import Trumpism into the UK.
The grotesque thing about US politics is less about "Trumpism" than it is about the egregious gerrymandering, that has been going on for decades before his time.
Thank god there is nothing similar going on under our own Electoral Commission.
"Finally, we should move to a system where voters are required to produce identification at polling stations. We gathered substantial evidence during our review that the lack of a requirement for ID is both an actual and a perceived weakness in the system. "
The only evidence of actual personation in polling stations I can find in the whole report is the extremely vague:
"Police forces have reported cases of alleged personation in polling stations in recent years" (bottom of page 21)
The "substantial evidence gathered of actual weakness in the system", seems to just mean they have "gathered" that there is a possibility that people can get away with personation at polling stations, rather than any evidence that this happens more than very rarely.
It's mentioned explicitly in the second paragraph of the foreword. Cases have been detected and punished, but it is not widespread. That doesn't mean it is not happening.
The second paragraph of the foreword does *not* specify personation in polling stations.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
I typed too quickly and clarified my argument. This is what intellectually honest people do.
What intellectually dishonest people do is to make up shit about what the other person is saying. I have never blamed legal immigrants for immigrating - they are just responding to the incentives policy under the rules set for them. I blame bad policy.
I completely agree about the bias against investment. What you fail to acknowledge is that masses of cheap labour creates that bias. It is a major reason why the industrial revolution happened here and not in China. Why invest in more productive automation when it's cheaper just to add more labour and the rest of society will pick up the tab?
Intellectually honest posters should stop peddling false theories.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
I think the Iranian protests may have gone, as Leon suggests, beyond the point that brutal repression might control them.
Does Iran become another Syria, or will the regime fall ?
Do not underestimate how brutal regimes can be, even those who do not believe they have God on their side.
I don't, which is why I posed the question I did. The point is that this has gone beyond protests. It's probably not a big step to civil war.
Who has the guns? The police, the army and the air force. Whose side are they on? Schoolgirls aren't going to topple the regime, even now they've been joined by students and middle class professionals. I wish them well, but fear the worst.
If you check Twitter, this has gone way beyond schoolgirls, students and some bouji folk in Tehran
It crosses classes...
Oil workers in Iran walk out. Hugely brave. Unbelievably significant. #IranRevolution #Mahsa_Amini #IranProtests2022 #OpIran #NationalStrikes
... and ethnicities, and is right across the country; it is massive
Our beloved 10 years old child, Kian Pirfalak fuenral! Do you believe Islamic regime killed a 10 years old child! Ayatollah are you a devil 👿? No you are even worse! Devil would not kill a 10 years innocent child! #MahsaAmini #مهسا_امینی #IranReveloution
Tories questioning election validity and placing hurdles to voting are going down a Trumpian path. Not good.
Im always amazed why people are so anti voter id. You need id to collect a parcel from the post office, or to go in most pubs on a Saturday night in a town centre, why not for voting.
How old are you if you need ID to go into a pub?!
Its only partly to do with age, its also in case of any fighting etc so they have details of who is there. Pubs work together so if someone causes trouble in one pub, the details are communicated to other pubs.
You need ID simply to enter a boozer? Crikey, where do you live, the Bigg Market?
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
We can all tell you've lost the argument given you are now misrepresenting the other side and won't engage in the specifics.
Tories questioning election validity and placing hurdles to voting are going down a Trumpian path. Not good.
Im always amazed why people are so anti voter id. You need id to collect a parcel from the post office, or to go in most pubs on a Saturday night in a town centre, why not for voting.
In that case why not a single National ID card system? Hands up all those posters who castigated me a few days ago for suggesting the Driving Licence IS a national identity card.
I was one of those who did the castigating. I don't like the idea of an ID card just to be able to walk down the street. But to do something explicit (pick up a parcel from the post office, prove you are who you say you are when visiting an office block, voting) I am less concerned, although the huge caveat is that voting is an inalienable right for Brits and to have to prove you are a Brit is problematic. But then it's back to the "don't you know who I am" scenario.
Have they changed the rules at the Post Office? At least until fairly recently you couldn't use a driving licence to pick up a parcel. You needed that stupid red card. Which was a problem for me on one occasion as they hadn't left me a card.
I remember a farcical scenario in the sorting office where, having queued up, and having shown them my driving licence (which shows my address), and having seen my parcel in the hands of the postmaster, they wouldn't just give me the parcel and insisted on redelivering it a day or two later.
The BBC has broadcast folksongs that glorify attacks on Jews and call for bloodshed, the JC can reveal.
A BBC presenter can be seen in the studio, nodding and filming the bloodthirsty performance on his phone, which was aired on the BBC Xtra series to mark “Nakba Day” in May.
Sounds like the Middle Eastern version of Tim Westwood old show.
There is a small but noticeable subgenre of Corbynites/tankies/Marxist-lefties who are.... on the side of the Islamic regime in Tehran, and against the protestors. That is to say, they are AGAINST the brave young people fighting a nasty, brutal, quasi-Fascist theocracy
The French Revolution has, indeed, unfolded in ways no one could have predicted
All authoritarians and their pathetic lackeys are capable of sympathising with all other authoritarians and their pathetic lackeys. What unites them is not policy, but the sort of person they are.
Just as all liberals can understand all other liberals, however much they disagree about policy.
And BTW Burke did some pretty decent predictions about the unfolding of the French Revolution. (Jesse Norman's book on Burke is recommended).
Not in this case. The idiot lefties support the Iranian regime because it is perceived as anti-American and anti-Israel and anti-UK and generally anti-west, and they HATE above all else, the US, Israel, the UK, the West
Which leads to the insane contortion of them cheering on a regime which shoots and kills schoolgirls who dare to take off the veil. Wankers
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
I’m saying there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. That’s in no way controversial.
I can't remember if this is the current proposal/state of affairs, but the pilot for voter ID did enable anyone who didn't have one of he dozens of suitable types to get one for free, upon request from their local council. If that's the case, then there's no problem at all.
Basic behaviour change theory will tell you that the more steps you insert into a process, the fewer people will complete that process. The more bureaucracy, the fewer people voting, and all this to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
And I thought the Tories were all about reducing red tape…
So why do you think they're doing it? You can suppose "Well it would only be for the reason they say, so obviously they are stooopid because their premise is wrong", or you can look a bit deeper.
In any case, do you not think they're advised by anybody who is familiar with basic behaviour change theory? (Or practice would be a better word.)
Incidentally when I went to vote in the 2019 GE a clerk asked me for my polling card. I said I didn't have it with me and I mentioned that it unambiguously says on it that you don't have to bring it to the polling station to vote. She looked at me as if I were a terrorist, pulled a face as if she were sucking on a lemon, and said "Well it makes our lives a lot easier if you bring it." Clearly looking up my entry on a short list was too much work for the lazy cow. She'd have been good in one of those war films asking for "Your papers!"
And there's a massive great "basic behavioural theory" point here, for anyone who cares to notice it. Stanley Milgram knew.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
Using median means the banker doesn't change the equation. Median means there are 50% below, and 50% above.
Your point regarding lower age brackets is fair - but as it's based on people in work, you're comparing 18-24 year old Brits in work with 18-24 year old immigrants in work. So, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference.
FWIW, there are a lot of EU immigrants in low skilled jobs: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/ reckons that 14% of EU born are in that category, with another 30% in Medium-Low Skilled.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
I typed too quickly and clarified my argument. This is what intellectually honest people do.
What intellectually dishonest people do is to make up shit about what the other person is saying. I have never blamed legal immigrants for immigrating - they are just responding to the incentives policy under the rules set for them. I blame bad policy.
I completely agree about the bias against investment. What you fail to acknowledge is that masses of cheap labour creates that bias. It is a major reason why the industrial revolution happened here and not in China. Why invest in more productive automation when it's cheaper just to add more labour and the rest of society will pick up the tab?
Intellectually honest posters should stop peddling false theories.
“Masses” of “cheap” labour indeed.
They are not false theories. There are hundreds of thousands of low wage workers coming every year. The fact that "skilled" workers only need to be earning 26k a year to qualify shows how weak our immigration system is. And that's before you get the push for seasonal workers from the corporate lobby.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
We can all tell you've lost the argument given you are now misrepresenting the other side and won't engage in the specifics.
Sandpit literally just decided to dismiss evidence he finds inconvenient. You appear to be agreeing with him.
Mr. Romford, there were, in the pilot, literally dozens of acceptable forms of ID, including driving licences and passports, so most people would have them already.
The portrayal of this as being something that 'the young' inherently do not have and will struggle to acquire is nonsense. Most will have a valid type of ID already and acquiring one if not will be free of charge. This is neither difficult nor costly.
Again:
WHY DO WE NEED VOTER ID?
To suppress non-Conservative younger voters. Do keep up!
And to suppress non-Conservative older and middle-aged voters. There was some discussion after Boris's red wall breakthrough as to whether voter ID would shoot Conservatives in the foot if it cost them their new, less affluent voters.
For the last seven years of his life my late father had his driving licence revoked for poor eyesight and didn't travel abroad so his passport expired, oh and he didn't use the bus. Answers on a postcard...
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
Which is exactly what you've done throughout this argument. You claim there are people on PB "blaming everything on migrants"
The Oyster card 60+ or u60 issue is a complete and utter red herring. Maybe it makes a good tweet?
The 60+ card requires extra ID to get in the first place, because it shows entitlement to unlimited travel, subject to certain restrictions, for £10 per year. (That's the accurate way of putting it. It's not free.)
It looks the same but isn't. So a poor choice to attack the policy really, and so avoids the question of why its needed anyway.
This is a very easy problem to solve. If you turn up at the polling station without ID, they take a Polaroid photo of you and you sign the back of it.
After the election, there is a spot check of Polaroid signers. (10% or so should do it.)
I don't reckon many people will wish to get their photo taken (and to sign it) committing the crime of personation.
What problem are these reforms trying to solve? Are they claiming widespread voter fraud? Sounds familiar.
They are trying to solve the issue of personation.
Now, we don't know how big an issue it is. It might be almost unknown. Or it might simply be that people rarely get caught.
My suggestion is (a) cheap, (b) easy to implement, (c) deters personation, (d) allows the amount of personation to be determined, and (e) doesn't discourage voters without ID.
Why do we need to change a system that has produced widely accepted fair election results for years?
The implication is that something is broken. What is it? It’s proto-Trumpian. Wise not to go there.
Wise not to go there? Isn't that turning a blind eye to something that even the electoral commission says is a perceived and actual issue?
The report says there is no widespread fraud. They are dealing with perceptions. These perceptions are now commonly generated, exaggerated, and manipulated for partisan ends. We see that in the US.
Sometimes in life the cure is worse than the problem. That I fear is what we will see with these proposals. They will deny more valid voters than stop actual fraud.
Personally I would favour a bank holiday and compulsory turn-up, but that is a whole other story.
So localised fraud is OK, it's only when it is widespread you will start thinking about doing something about it?
They say in the report it is both an actual and perceived weakness of the current system. Of course it is hard to get firm numbers on it, but they do report how in NI there has not been a single claim of personation since the measures were introduced.
They also reported that there was no reduction in participation due to these measures in NI. That is always massively overblown as a potential problem.
If PB Tories are going to hold up Northern Ireland as a model to follow, can we please join the Customs Union soon?
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Eh?
The UK fertility rate is about 1.55 and results in 690,000 births per year.
If the UK fertility rate dropped by 0.2, it would mean there were 578,000 births in the year. To make up for a drop of 0.2 in the fertility rate would mean an increase in annual immigration of 112,000.
Sorry I should have specified every decade.
Also, you haven't factored in that new births are 25-35 years younger than the average migrants
Agreed: a British new birth adds cost of education and typically takes mothers out of the workforce. They are therefore much worse for the dependency ratio than bringing in someone at 25 years of age. (Plus, you might get lucky and they return home before they get old.)
The cost of education makes the individual into a much more productive worker than most of the workers we would filter out with a good immigration system.
An employee I saw in Tesco's was reducing prices by 70% and he had a machine to do the arithmetic for him. He was happily yellow-stickering away, but then he had to reduce some items by 90%. He was completely flummoxed because the machine wouldn't do that for him and he had no idea that to reduce something by 90% all you have to do is move the decimal point. Presumably he'd had at least 10 years of maths at school. "Much more productive", you say?
How many 20 year olds in Britain do you think remember that (x+y)(x-y) = x^2 - y^2 ?
45% of MPs think the probability of getting two heads if you flip a fair coin twice is 0.5. (Source.)
Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. Of course we can improve our education system substantially. But even in the absence of that, a British education is superior than what is had by the vast majority of people coming in from Pakistan, Bulgaria, Somalia etc.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
I’m saying there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. That’s in no way controversial.
It’s controversial because it allows you to spin off into fact-free claims.
That’s fine, but don’t expect anyone to take your claims seriously on this subject.
The big risk we have to deal with parties claiming fraud where there is none and changing the rules in reaction to favour their constituency.
We do not need to import Trumpism into the UK.
Or for those who prefer to look the other way in the belief that it favours their side. WTF Trumo has to do with it is beyond me. You seem to be obessed by him having no doubt erased the name Corbyn from your memory bank even though he is still an MP, still left-wing Labour in all but name and still carries all of his baggage but your left eye sees nothing...
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
It's not the typical Brit's experience of migration because these things are kept veiled. I honestly don't know how widespread it is.
Migration may have benefited the British economy; it's less clear that it's benefited the British worker. I agree with your last paragraph of course.
1. Your first line hints at conspiracy theory.
2. British workers tended to move up the career ladder as migrants entered below them. British workers also benefited from more productive employers and better tax takes from government. However I will concede that globalisation generally, of which migration is one component, has tended to benefit the very best off.
The second one here is a complete nonsense of an argument. The existence of a lower worker below you isn't what gets you a better job.
This is a very easy problem to solve. If you turn up at the polling station without ID, they take a Polaroid photo of you and you sign the back of it.
After the election, there is a spot check of Polaroid signers. (10% or so should do it.)
I don't reckon many people will wish to get their photo taken (and to sign it) committing the crime of personation.
What problem are these reforms trying to solve? Are they claiming widespread voter fraud? Sounds familiar.
They are trying to solve the issue of personation.
Now, we don't know how big an issue it is. It might be almost unknown. Or it might simply be that people rarely get caught.
My suggestion is (a) cheap, (b) easy to implement, (c) deters personation, (d) allows the amount of personation to be determined, and (e) doesn't discourage voters without ID.
Why do we need to change a system that has produced widely accepted fair election results for years?
The implication is that something is broken. What is it? It’s proto-Trumpian. Wise not to go there.
Wise not to go there? Isn't that turning a blind eye to something that even the electoral commission says is a perceived and actual issue?
The report says there is no widespread fraud. They are dealing with perceptions. These perceptions are now commonly generated, exaggerated, and manipulated for partisan ends. We see that in the US.
Sometimes in life the cure is worse than the problem. That I fear is what we will see with these proposals. They will deny more valid voters than stop actual fraud.
Personally I would favour a bank holiday and compulsory turn-up, but that is a whole other story.
So localised fraud is OK, it's only when it is widespread you will start thinking about doing something about it?
They say in the report it is both an actual and perceived weakness of the current system. Of course it is hard to get firm numbers on it, but they do report how in NI there has not been a single claim of personation since the measures were introduced.
They also reported that there was no reduction in participation due to these measures in NI. That is always massively overblown as a potential problem.
Of course local fraud is not ok, but as the report says it has been "detected and punished". Good!
Good, the detected cases are punished. It doesn't say that all cases are detected, does it?
Of courses, but it also said there is no evidence there is a widespread problem. This is good news! Cases are detected and punished and it's not a widespread problem.
The two bits in bold are not the same thing, did you hope nobody would notice?
Silly me, forming opinions based on evidence. So old fashioned.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as you know.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
Which is exactly what you've done throughout this argument. You claim there are people on PB "blaming everything on migrants"
Nobody is doing that. Literally, no one
I object to the rhetoric about “masses” of immigrants doing “shitty” “low-skill” jobs, and the circle jerk of a small (and dwindling) number of PBers who think migration is the root cause behind all British economic ills.
I can't remember if this is the current proposal/state of affairs, but the pilot for voter ID did enable anyone who didn't have one of he dozens of suitable types to get one for free, upon request from their local council. If that's the case, then there's no problem at all.
Basic behaviour change theory will tell you that the more steps you insert into a process, the fewer people will complete that process. The more bureaucracy, the fewer people voting, and all this to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
And I thought the Tories were all about reducing red tape…
So why do you think they're doing it? You can suppose "Well it would only be for the reason they say, so obviously they are stooopid because their premise is wrong", or you can look a bit deeper.
In any case, do you not think they're advised by anybody who is familiar with basic behaviour change theory? (Or practice would be a better word.)
Incidentally when I went to vote in the 2019 GE a clerk asked me for my polling card. I said I didn't have it with me and I mentioned that it unambiguously says on it that you don't have to bring it to the polling station to vote. She looked at me as if I were a terrorist, pulled a face as if she were sucking on a lemon, and said "Well it makes our lives a lot easier if you bring it." Clearly looking up my entry on a short list was too much work for the lazy cow. She'd have been good in one of those war films asking for "Your papers!"
And there's a massive great "basic behavioural theory" point here, for anyone who cares to notice it. Stanley Milgram knew.
Asking ID from people who don't bring their polling cards might be reasonable.
I don't agree with either, but one is an ID for a specific purpose, voting, the other is a general ID just because. That's not the same, and someone could logically take both positions.
It's like when people claim someone cannot logically back Sindy and Remain, when they certainly can.
It's a supposed gotcha which doesn't work. The position is wrong, from my pov, but it's not logically absurd.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
It's not the typical Brit's experience of migration because these things are kept veiled. I honestly don't know how widespread it is.
Migration may have benefited the British economy; it's less clear that it's benefited the British worker. I agree with your last paragraph of course.
1. Your first line hints at conspiracy theory.
2. British workers tended to move up the career ladder as migrants entered below them. British workers also benefited from more productive employers and better tax takes from government. However I will concede that globalisation generally, of which migration is one component, has tended to benefit the very best off.
To clarify, I don't mean it's a conspiracy. I mean it's kept private, you don't see it: you might come across an immigrant worker doing his job, but you don't see his living conditions.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
It's not the typical Brit's experience of migration because these things are kept veiled. I honestly don't know how widespread it is.
Migration may have benefited the British economy; it's less clear that it's benefited the British worker. I agree with your last paragraph of course.
1. Your first line hints at conspiracy theory.
2. British workers tended to move up the career ladder as migrants entered below them. British workers also benefited from more productive employers and better tax takes from government. However I will concede that globalisation generally, of which migration is one component, has tended to benefit the very best off.
The second one here is a complete nonsense of an argument. The existence of a lower worker below you isn't what gets you a better job.
It’s not an argument I’ve made up. It’s borne out in various studies of the impact of immigration on the native labour market.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
The median arguments entirely ignore the fact that it isn't the median for the immigrants that would be filtered out by a good skilled immigration system. Also, being slightly above the native level isn't meaningful when the median native is a pretty sizable cost to the taxpayer. The only people that are net contributing financially are those earning over about 40k, so we should be filtering out as many people as possible below that limit, unless they have a fantastic education.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
Which is exactly what you've done throughout this argument. You claim there are people on PB "blaming everything on migrants"
Nobody is doing that. Literally, no one
I object to the rhetoric about “masses” of immigrants doing “shitty” “low-skill” jobs, and the circle jerk of a small (and dwindling) number of PBers who think migration is the root cause behind all British economic ills.
So that means you are allowed to lie? No, you're not
Also, you've done it again. Another straw man: nobody on PB thinks migration is "the root cause behind all British economic ills", and no one has said that
If there is a fevered circle jerk, it is in your tiny head, imagining Nazis everywhere, probably because it makes you righteously excited. Get a grip
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
Using median means the banker doesn't change the equation. Median means there are 50% below, and 50% above.
Your point regarding lower age brackets is fair - but as it's based on people in work, you're comparing 18-24 year old Brits in work with 18-24 year old immigrants in work. So, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference.
FWIW, there are a lot of EU immigrants in low skilled jobs: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/ reckons that 14% of EU born are in that category, with another 30% in Medium-Low Skilled.
Would you agree, that a £25k minimum salary for an immigrant, would quickly raise the wages of the average unskilled Brit?
Because that’s what the anecdotal evidence of the past couple of years tends to suggest.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
It's not the typical Brit's experience of migration because these things are kept veiled. I honestly don't know how widespread it is.
Migration may have benefited the British economy; it's less clear that it's benefited the British worker. I agree with your last paragraph of course.
1. Your first line hints at conspiracy theory.
2. British workers tended to move up the career ladder as migrants entered below them. British workers also benefited from more productive employers and better tax takes from government. However I will concede that globalisation generally, of which migration is one component, has tended to benefit the very best off.
To clarify, I don't mean it's a conspiracy. I mean it's kept private, you don't see it: you might come across an immigrant worker doing his job, but you don't see his living conditions.
Fine. I think you could have worded it better.
Incidentally, in my first abode in Britain there were five of us in a two bedroom house. The situation lasted so long as it took us to get capital together to move on and up.
This is a very easy problem to solve. If you turn up at the polling station without ID, they take a Polaroid photo of you and you sign the back of it.
After the election, there is a spot check of Polaroid signers. (10% or so should do it.)
I don't reckon many people will wish to get their photo taken (and to sign it) committing the crime of personation.
What problem are these reforms trying to solve? Are they claiming widespread voter fraud? Sounds familiar.
They are trying to solve the issue of personation.
Now, we don't know how big an issue it is. It might be almost unknown. Or it might simply be that people rarely get caught.
My suggestion is (a) cheap, (b) easy to implement, (c) deters personation, (d) allows the amount of personation to be determined, and (e) doesn't discourage voters without ID.
Why do we need to change a system that has produced widely accepted fair election results for years?
The implication is that something is broken. What is it? It’s proto-Trumpian. Wise not to go there.
Wise not to go there? Isn't that turning a blind eye to something that even the electoral commission says is a perceived and actual issue?
The report says there is no widespread fraud. They are dealing with perceptions. These perceptions are now commonly generated, exaggerated, and manipulated for partisan ends. We see that in the US.
Sometimes in life the cure is worse than the problem. That I fear is what we will see with these proposals. They will deny more valid voters than stop actual fraud.
Personally I would favour a bank holiday and compulsory turn-up, but that is a whole other story.
So localised fraud is OK, it's only when it is widespread you will start thinking about doing something about it?
They say in the report it is both an actual and perceived weakness of the current system. Of course it is hard to get firm numbers on it, but they do report how in NI there has not been a single claim of personation since the measures were introduced.
They also reported that there was no reduction in participation due to these measures in NI. That is always massively overblown as a potential problem.
Of course local fraud is not ok, but as the report says it has been "detected and punished". Good!
Good, the detected cases are punished. It doesn't say that all cases are detected, does it?
Of courses, but it also said there is no evidence there is a widespread problem. This is good news! Cases are detected and punished and it's not a widespread problem.
The two bits in bold are not the same thing, did you hope nobody would notice?
Silly me, forming opinions based on evidence. So old fashioned.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as you know.
But some actual evidence might help convince the many people who suspect this is just voter suppression. So worth trying to find some?
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
British demography *is* better than European peers, though, because immigration.
Only partially. A big part of it is the native birth rate is higher. But the maths speaks for itself. You only need to do some small number crunching to realise you need net immigration in the seven figures to make up for a 0.2 point decline in the fertility rate.
Thankfully @rcs1000 is here to show you up for the gibberish merchant you are.
Stop blaming migrants.
It is a deflection from the core issues behind poor British growth, which in essence - across public and private sectors - is a bias toward rentierism and a bias against investment.
Why do you conflate blaming migration as an economic phenomenon with blaming the migrants themselves?
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
Because we hear too much of “ten to a room” shanties on PB, as if that is in any way typical of the British experience with migration.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
It's not the typical Brit's experience of migration because these things are kept veiled. I honestly don't know how widespread it is.
Migration may have benefited the British economy; it's less clear that it's benefited the British worker. I agree with your last paragraph of course.
1. Your first line hints at conspiracy theory.
2. British workers tended to move up the career ladder as migrants entered below them. British workers also benefited from more productive employers and better tax takes from government. However I will concede that globalisation generally, of which migration is one component, has tended to benefit the very best off.
The second one here is a complete nonsense of an argument. The existence of a lower worker below you isn't what gets you a better job.
It’s not an argument I’ve made up. It’s borne out in various studies of the impact of immigration on the native labour market.
Studies by pro-immigration groups that simply document British people tend to be managing lower skilled immigrants without ever establishing a causal relatipnship.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
Which is exactly what you've done throughout this argument. You claim there are people on PB "blaming everything on migrants"
Nobody is doing that. Literally, no one
I object to the rhetoric about “masses” of immigrants doing “shitty” “low-skill” jobs, and the circle jerk of a small (and dwindling) number of PBers who think migration is the root cause behind all British economic ills.
So that means you are allowed to lie? No, you're not
Also, you've done it again. Another straw man: nobody on PB thinks migration is "the root cause behind all British economic ills", and no one has said that
If there is fevered circle jerk, it is in your tiny head, imagining Nazis everywhere, probably because it makes you righteously excited. Get a grip
To my knowledge, you are the only PB with Nazi fantasies, at least you seemed to suggest so with a set of recent holiday snaps.
This is a very easy problem to solve. If you turn up at the polling station without ID, they take a Polaroid photo of you and you sign the back of it.
After the election, there is a spot check of Polaroid signers. (10% or so should do it.)
I don't reckon many people will wish to get their photo taken (and to sign it) committing the crime of personation.
What problem are these reforms trying to solve? Are they claiming widespread voter fraud? Sounds familiar.
They are trying to solve the issue of personation.
Now, we don't know how big an issue it is. It might be almost unknown. Or it might simply be that people rarely get caught.
My suggestion is (a) cheap, (b) easy to implement, (c) deters personation, (d) allows the amount of personation to be determined, and (e) doesn't discourage voters without ID.
Why do we need to change a system that has produced widely accepted fair election results for years?
The implication is that something is broken. What is it? It’s proto-Trumpian. Wise not to go there.
Wise not to go there? Isn't that turning a blind eye to something that even the electoral commission says is a perceived and actual issue?
The report says there is no widespread fraud. They are dealing with perceptions. These perceptions are now commonly generated, exaggerated, and manipulated for partisan ends. We see that in the US.
Sometimes in life the cure is worse than the problem. That I fear is what we will see with these proposals. They will deny more valid voters than stop actual fraud.
Personally I would favour a bank holiday and compulsory turn-up, but that is a whole other story.
So localised fraud is OK, it's only when it is widespread you will start thinking about doing something about it?
They say in the report it is both an actual and perceived weakness of the current system. Of course it is hard to get firm numbers on it, but they do report how in NI there has not been a single claim of personation since the measures were introduced.
They also reported that there was no reduction in participation due to these measures in NI. That is always massively overblown as a potential problem.
If PB Tories are going to hold up Northern Ireland as a model to follow, can we please join the Customs Union soon?
And give the minor party the right to bring down the government whenever they please?
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
I’m saying there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. That’s in no way controversial.
It’s controversial because it allows you to spin off into fact-free claims.
That’s fine, but don’t expect anyone to take your claims seriously on this subject.
I’m saying that immigration should be based on salary and qualifications, rather than country of origin.
If I was a wokeist - which I’m not - I’d say that disagreeing with my opinion is racist.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
Which is exactly what you've done throughout this argument. You claim there are people on PB "blaming everything on migrants"
Nobody is doing that. Literally, no one
I object to the rhetoric about “masses” of immigrants doing “shitty” “low-skill” jobs, and the circle jerk of a small (and dwindling) number of PBers who think migration is the root cause behind all British economic ills.
Yet another misrepresentation. None of us have said migration is the root cause behind all of the ills. Just one of the causes that a lot of the political elite refuse to acknowledge and haven't properly addressed for 25 years.
I can't remember if this is the current proposal/state of affairs, but the pilot for voter ID did enable anyone who didn't have one of he dozens of suitable types to get one for free, upon request from their local council. If that's the case, then there's no problem at all.
Basic behaviour change theory will tell you that the more steps you insert into a process, the fewer people will complete that process. The more bureaucracy, the fewer people voting, and all this to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
And I thought the Tories were all about reducing red tape…
So why do you think they're doing it? You can suppose "Well it would only be for the reason they say, so obviously they are stooopid because their premise is wrong", or you can look a bit deeper.
In any case, do you not think they're advised by anybody who is familiar with basic behaviour change theory? (Or practice would be a better word.)
Incidentally when I went to vote in the 2019 GE a clerk asked me for my polling card. I said I didn't have it with me and I mentioned that it unambiguously says on it that you don't have to bring it to the polling station to vote. She looked at me as if I were a terrorist, pulled a face as if she were sucking on a lemon, and said "Well it makes our lives a lot easier if you bring it." Clearly looking up my entry on a short list was too much work for the lazy cow. She'd have been good in one of those war films asking for "Your papers!"
And there's a massive great "basic behavioural theory" point here, for anyone who cares to notice it. Stanley Milgram knew.
Asking ID from people who don't bring their polling cards might be reasonable.
If she'd asked to see some ID I would have shown it to her.
Another point not directly related to this experience is that it takes training to check ID. My ex-wife was told at least twice by checkers of her signature and ID that her signature didn't look sufficiently similar to the signature on her ID and could she please make the loop on that letter in her name go down a bit further.
Sometimes I think many of the posters on here are oblivious to the sheer level of stupidity that there is in much of the population.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
Which is exactly what you've done throughout this argument. You claim there are people on PB "blaming everything on migrants"
Nobody is doing that. Literally, no one
I object to the rhetoric about “masses” of immigrants doing “shitty” “low-skill” jobs, and the circle jerk of a small (and dwindling) number of PBers who think migration is the root cause behind all British economic ills.
Yet another misrepresentation. None of us have said migration is the root cause behind all of the ills. Just one of the causes that a lot of the political elite refuse to acknowledge and haven't properly addressed for 25 years.
The discussion was about economic ills, and you brought up migration as at least a significant cause.
You then provided a list of reasons which were gently debunked by the moderator.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
I’m saying there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. That’s in no way controversial.
It’s controversial because it allows you to spin off into fact-free claims.
That’s fine, but don’t expect anyone to take your claims seriously on this subject.
I’m saying that immigration should be based on salary and qualifications, rather than country of origin.
If I was a wokeist - which I’m not - I’d say that disagreeing with my opinion is racist.
If that is your base argument, I’d suggest sticking to it, rather than moving on to the stuff about “masses” of “low skill” EU immigrants in “shitty” jobs causing economic problems.
Tories questioning election validity and placing hurdles to voting are going down a Trumpian path. Not good.
Im always amazed why people are so anti voter id. You need id to collect a parcel from the post office, or to go in most pubs on a Saturday night in a town centre, why not for voting.
They seem to think its a dastardly plot against the young who might vote Labour. I assume the young never need to pick up parcels.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
I’m saying there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. That’s in no way controversial.
It’s controversial because it allows you to spin off into fact-free claims.
That’s fine, but don’t expect anyone to take your claims seriously on this subject.
I’m saying that immigration should be based on salary and qualifications, rather than country of origin.
If I was a wokeist - which I’m not - I’d say that disagreeing with my opinion is racist.
If that is your base argument, I’d suggest sticking to it, rather than moving on to the stuff about “masses” of “low skill” EU immigrants in “shitty” jobs causing economic problems.
But there are masses of low skill immigrants. The net effect of which does worsen economic problems.
This is a very easy problem to solve. If you turn up at the polling station without ID, they take a Polaroid photo of you and you sign the back of it.
After the election, there is a spot check of Polaroid signers. (10% or so should do it.)
I don't reckon many people will wish to get their photo taken (and to sign it) committing the crime of personation.
What problem are these reforms trying to solve? Are they claiming widespread voter fraud? Sounds familiar.
They are trying to solve the issue of personation.
Now, we don't know how big an issue it is. It might be almost unknown. Or it might simply be that people rarely get caught.
My suggestion is (a) cheap, (b) easy to implement, (c) deters personation, (d) allows the amount of personation to be determined, and (e) doesn't discourage voters without ID.
Why do we need to change a system that has produced widely accepted fair election results for years?
The implication is that something is broken. What is it? It’s proto-Trumpian. Wise not to go there.
Wise not to go there? Isn't that turning a blind eye to something that even the electoral commission says is a perceived and actual issue?
The report says there is no widespread fraud. They are dealing with perceptions. These perceptions are now commonly generated, exaggerated, and manipulated for partisan ends. We see that in the US.
Sometimes in life the cure is worse than the problem. That I fear is what we will see with these proposals. They will deny more valid voters than stop actual fraud.
Personally I would favour a bank holiday and compulsory turn-up, but that is a whole other story.
So localised fraud is OK, it's only when it is widespread you will start thinking about doing something about it?
They say in the report it is both an actual and perceived weakness of the current system. Of course it is hard to get firm numbers on it, but they do report how in NI there has not been a single claim of personation since the measures were introduced.
They also reported that there was no reduction in participation due to these measures in NI. That is always massively overblown as a potential problem.
Of course local fraud is not ok, but as the report says it has been "detected and punished". Good!
In truth we don't know the scale of the problem because we don't look for it.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
I’m saying there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. That’s in no way controversial.
It’s controversial because it allows you to spin off into fact-free claims.
That’s fine, but don’t expect anyone to take your claims seriously on this subject.
I’m saying that immigration should be based on salary and qualifications, rather than country of origin.
If I was a wokeist - which I’m not - I’d say that disagreeing with my opinion is racist.
If that is your base argument, I’d suggest sticking to it, rather than moving on to the stuff about “masses” of “low skill” EU immigrants in “shitty” jobs causing economic problems.
But there are masses of low skill immigrants. The net effect of which does worsen economic problems.
First, we are talking about the EU. I want to insist on that because this argument is not about, say, unlimited immigration from the third world.
Where is your evidence that masses of low skill EU migrants worsened economic problems? There isn’t any. The reverse, in fact.
You can’t bitch about an ageing demographic on one hand, and immigration on the other.
Well you can, but you’re effectively abandoning any growth strategy whatsoever.
The last refuge of Brexiters like @Sandpit is that “it was migration to blame”, while he literally posts from a territory developed, staffed and managed by expats.
And please don’t give me “low skill”. My first British job was opening envelopes in a mail room. My last job was running a tech start-up with $250m revenue.
Yes, you absolutely can, because, unless immigration is on a ridiculous scale (i.e. multiples of current mass immigration levels), it barely dents the age profile of the organization. Certainly compared with fairly tiny changes in the fertility rate.
And yes the skill level is incredibly relevant if you want to impact growth in per capita income. Using cherry picked anecdotes and pretending they are at all representative is sheer intellectual dishonesty. My grandmother smoked and lived until she was 93. Does that mean smoking doesn't affect life expectancy?
I'm not sure that's true: the developed countries with the best dependency ratios and healthiest looking population pyramids (Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK) have the highest levels of immigration.
Conversely, those countries with the worst dependency ratios and the scariest looks population pyramids (Japan and Italy) have the lowest levels of immigration.
The level, and the skill, of the immigration, needs to be with the consent of the people - not something that the people think is imposed on them against their wishes.
That’s a not unimportant point. But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
I don’t have a problem with European migration - I do have a problem with the fetishisation of mostly unskilled immigration from EU countries, over mostly skilled immigration from other countries in the world.
IIRC, median incomes for EU immigrants in any given age bracket were slightly above native born levels, so I'm not sure it's fair to say it was "mostly unskilled".
Ooh, that’s a good way to screw with statistics - the mostly unskilled 18-21 year old immigrants, for example, earning way more than all the natives of that age racking up debt at university.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
When the facts don’t fit, make it up! Copyright @Sandpit.
Which is exactly what you've done throughout this argument. You claim there are people on PB "blaming everything on migrants"
Nobody is doing that. Literally, no one
I object to the rhetoric about “masses” of immigrants doing “shitty” “low-skill” jobs, and the circle jerk of a small (and dwindling) number of PBers who think migration is the root cause behind all British economic ills.
Yet another misrepresentation. None of us have said migration is the root cause behind all of the ills. Just one of the causes that a lot of the political elite refuse to acknowledge and haven't properly addressed for 25 years.
The discussion was about economic ills, and you brought up migration as at least a significant cause.
You then provided a list of reasons which were gently debunked by the moderator.
Yes, a significant cause. Not responsible for all ills.
And my reasons have not been debunked by the moderator. We had an intellectually honest back and forth, during which I corrected a single comment where I hadn't specified the timeframe. Something that didn't change the overall point that you need a huge amount of immigration to make up for even a small change in the fertility rate.
Comments
As for rentierism, do you not think there is a connection? In the most direct example of landlordism, renting properties to migrants has enabled a lot of people to live well without doing anything productive.
But you spoil it with your general economically illiterate diatribes against European migration.
And it's fun to get enjoyably indignant at FIFA and the Qataris engaged in trashing what remains of each other's reputation, but I don't suppose this will have any impact: presumably anyone who thought that 'having a nice time' might be part of a prospective trip to this farce had already reconsidered their options long ago. Only those for whom grim determination to turn up at a football match and see it live are left. And there are plenty of those. In some ways, the shittier the experience gets, for the really hardcore, the more attractive it gets: the 'I was there' becomes rarer. I suppose therefore we should offer cautious congratulations to the Qataris.
The Electoral Commission is to review whether voters should produce identification at polling stations amid continued concerns about electoral fraud. It said it was disappointed the government had not conducted its own review.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/jul/10/electoral-commission-voter-id-review
Yes, not commissioned by HMG.
And I thought the Tories were all about reducing red tape…
lol.
Checking the voter is actually the voter =/= marching on the Capitol in crazy hats to overthrow an election.
Get a bit of perspective here. Pushing for a free pass to those who would commit voter fraud does not put you on the side of the angels.
Why is renting to migrants “the most direct example of landlordism”? You’ve just made that up.
Migration, and especially European migration, hugely benefited the British economy. The pity of it is that it may have masked underlying weaknesses that successive governments failed to address.
The only evidence of actual personation in polling stations I can find in the whole report is the extremely vague:
"Police forces have reported cases of alleged personation in polling stations in recent years"
(bottom of page 21)
The "substantial evidence gathered of actual weakness in the system", seems to just mean they have "gathered" that there is a possibility that people can get away with personation at polling stations, rather than any evidence that this happens more than very rarely.
There was/is no conflict between European migration and ex-European migration.
And European migration was not “mostly unskilled” anyway, at least in comparison with domestic skill sets.
You don’t really appear to know what you are talking about.
Migration may have benefited the British economy; it's less clear that it's benefited the British worker.
I agree with your last paragraph of course.
I don't on principle like the idea of people needing identity cards just to be able to exist (and I think this can be taken to include participation in our democratic process) but then again I need three forms of ID to change my address with my bank and electoral fraud is a thing so it isn't the biggest outrage to be asked to prove who I am.
PB will remember clearly the time I went to vote, only to be told that I had already voted (line through my name, etc) which I attributed to cock up rather than conspiracy, and if the former an ID card wouldn't have prevented the fat finger, but would have prevented it if it had indeed been fraud.
Your welcome.
What intellectually dishonest people do is to make up shit about what the other person is saying. I have never blamed legal immigrants for immigrating - they are just responding to the incentives policy under the rules set for them. I blame bad policy.
I completely agree about the bias against investment. What you fail to acknowledge is that masses of cheap labour creates that bias. It is a major reason why the industrial revolution happened here and not in China. Why invest in more productive automation when it's cheaper just to add more labour and the rest of society will pick up the tab?
Now we have a points system for migrants from the EU on the same terms as non EU migrants
Just as all liberals can understand all other liberals, however much they disagree about policy.
And BTW Burke did some pretty decent predictions about the unfolding of the French Revolution. (Jesse Norman's book on Burke is recommended).
2. British workers tended to move up the career ladder as migrants entered below them. British workers also benefited from more productive employers and better tax takes from government. However I will concede that globalisation generally, of which migration is one component, has tended to benefit the very best off.
If you break down the demand side for housing, migration is of course in there, but not the main factor.
One serious mistake made by successive governments was not to address the demands for infrastructure imposed by migration.
Sadly it feels more like civil war than a clean revolution. Too many loyalists
How many 20 year olds in Britain do you think remember that (x+y)(x-y) = x^2 - y^2 ?
45% of MPs think the probability of getting two heads if you flip a fair coin twice is 0.5. (Source.)
Just as Labour shifted to the left under Foot after defeat in 1979 and Ed Miliband and Corbyn after defeat in 2010 and the Tories shifted to the right under Hague and IDS post 1997 defeat.
Though how Labour handles the economy will determine how quickly the Tories revive in opposition or not
Thank god there is nothing similar going on under our own Electoral Commission.
“Masses” of “cheap” labour indeed.
Also, taking averages that include bankers, don’t deal with the fact that there were literally millions of immigrants working minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, logistics, and the sort of sh!tty ‘self-employed’ jobs doing deliveries, that paid almost nothing in practice.
Elton John Marmite.
Is he really that divisive???
Copyright @Sandpit.
It crosses classes...
Oil workers in Iran walk out. Hugely brave. Unbelievably significant. #IranRevolution #Mahsa_Amini #IranProtests2022 #OpIran #NationalStrikes
https://twitter.com/omid9/status/1592540008635928577?s=20&t=YJh08tME_wL91wGiSA9DVA
... and ethnicities, and is right across the country; it is massive
Our beloved 10 years old child, Kian Pirfalak fuenral! Do you believe Islamic regime killed a 10 years old child! Ayatollah are you a devil 👿? No you are even worse! Devil would not kill a 10 years innocent child! #MahsaAmini #مهسا_امینی #IranReveloution
https://twitter.com/IranRev2022/status/1593595571092201472?s=20&t=YJh08tME_wL91wGiSA9DVA
First Labour lead on this measure since June 2013.
7 in 10 expect economy to worsen in the next 12 months.
More here: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/public-see-rachel-reeves-more-capable-chancellor-jeremy-hunt https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1593589139231965184/photo/1
I remember a farcical scenario in the sorting office where, having queued up, and having shown them my driving licence (which shows my address), and having seen my parcel in the hands of the postmaster, they wouldn't just give me the parcel and insisted on redelivering it a day or two later.
Which leads to the insane contortion of them cheering on a regime which shoots and kills schoolgirls who dare to take off the veil. Wankers
In any case, do you not think they're advised by anybody who is familiar with basic behaviour change theory? (Or practice would be a better word.)
Millions who are entitled to register to vote are missing from electoral registers already. The policy that caused a big jump was the poll tax. There may have been other big jumps since then.
Incidentally when I went to vote in the 2019 GE a clerk asked me for my polling card. I said I didn't have it with me and I mentioned that it unambiguously says on it that you don't have to bring it to the polling station to vote. She looked at me as if I were a terrorist, pulled a face as if she were sucking on a lemon, and said "Well it makes our lives a lot easier if you bring it." Clearly looking up my entry on a short list was too much work for the lazy cow. She'd have been good in one of those war films asking for "Your papers!"
And there's a massive great "basic behavioural theory" point here, for anyone who cares to notice it. Stanley Milgram knew.
Your point regarding lower age brackets is fair - but as it's based on people in work, you're comparing 18-24 year old Brits in work with 18-24 year old immigrants in work. So, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference.
FWIW, there are a lot of EU immigrants in low skilled jobs: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/ reckons that 14% of EU born are in that category, with another 30% in Medium-Low Skilled.
Remind me who lost the argument?
No to National ID cards, ugh.
PB Tories:
Yes to Voting ID cards, hurrah.
Only from the PB Tories.
Only on PB.
Nobody is doing that. Literally, no one
Lab 50% (+1)
Con 28% (-2)
LibDem 8% (nc)
Green 4% (nc)
SNP 4% (nc)
1,633 questioned on afternoon of 17 Nov. Changes with 9-10 Nov.
Data - http://www.technetracker.co.uk https://twitter.com/techneUK/status/1593571945274134528/photo/1
That’s fine, but don’t expect anyone to take your claims seriously on this subject.
Labour: 459
Tories: 101
Libs: meh
It's like when people claim someone cannot logically back Sindy and Remain, when they certainly can.
It's a supposed gotcha which doesn't work. The position is wrong, from my pov, but it's not logically absurd.
It’s borne out in various studies of the impact of immigration on the native labour market.
Also, you've done it again. Another straw man: nobody on PB thinks migration is "the root cause behind all British economic ills", and no one has said that
If there is a fevered circle jerk, it is in your tiny head, imagining Nazis everywhere, probably because it makes you righteously excited. Get a grip
Because that’s what the anecdotal evidence of the past couple of years tends to suggest.
Incidentally, in my first abode in Britain there were five of us in a two bedroom house. The situation lasted so long as it took us to get capital together to move on and up.
If I was a wokeist - which I’m not - I’d say that disagreeing with my opinion is racist.
Another point not directly related to this experience is that it takes training to check ID. My ex-wife was told at least twice by checkers of her signature and ID that her signature didn't look sufficiently similar to the signature on her ID and could she please make the loop on that letter in her name go down a bit further.
Sometimes I think many of the posters on here are oblivious to the sheer level of stupidity that there is in much of the population.
You then provided a list of reasons which were gently debunked by the moderator.
If you agree to host the WC, try to see what that entails... Idiots.
Earlier scenes of locals storming an IRGC paramilitary Basij base.
#IranRevolution2022
#مهاباد
https://twitter.com/Mojahedineng/status/1593602424270245888?s=20&t=3-5kTN6rblto00KfQhnI4w
At some point the soldiers and coppers might get scared, switch sides, drop their uniforms... that is the tipping point in revolutions
https://twitter.com/biztocnews/status/1593595400409194498
That means visitors too respecting local customs
It's wrong, just wrong.
No more to say.
I want to insist on that because this argument is not about, say, unlimited immigration from the third world.
Where is your evidence that masses of low skill EU migrants worsened economic problems? There isn’t any. The reverse, in fact.
And my reasons have not been debunked by the moderator. We had an intellectually honest back and forth, during which I corrected a single comment where I hadn't specified the timeframe. Something that didn't change the overall point that you need a huge amount of immigration to make up for even a small change in the fertility rate.