Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
Starmer could engineer some favourable economic winds and the support of business by going back into the single market though so that must be tempting. He just has to ensure he doesn't enrage the blood and soil leavers too much before the election.
Yes, it's very clear that Starmer is lying about what be intends to do post election.
Why not as he lied about what he was going to do pre-election, jettisoning all the promises he made to the Labour Party members not to mention all his actions under Corbyn to get his current job?
The man is a serial liar.
It's just Keir being Keir. People should lighten up and enjoy it!
I don't think they appreciate his deadpan brand of comedy.
Surely just angling to be SecState in Trump's administration.
The thinking is that more primary candidates works in Trump’s favour, and fewer candidates works better for an outsider such as DeSantis.
So yep, people wanting big jobs in a Trump administration, could do well to put their names in the hat early.
I'm not really sure why anyone would want a big job in a Trump administration - it never ends well, does it?
There's a reasonable change he blows up before the Republican convention, so it's not irrational throwing your hat in the ring.
And a not Trump candidate has a chance against Biden.
Either you opt for irrelevancy or you run.
Though why anyone sane would still be in the party is a better question.
Oh I get that. My point is I do not think Haley is angling for a job in a Trump administration.
Assuming she cannot win the nomination, the ideal for her is that she does creditably, Trump wins and blows up in the GE or DeSantis wins and Trump still runs, screwing DS.
Surely just angling to be SecState in Trump's administration.
The thinking is that more primary candidates works in Trump’s favour, and fewer candidates works better for an outsider such as DeSantis.
So yep, people wanting big jobs in a Trump administration, could do well to put their names in the hat early.
I'm not really sure why anyone would want a big job in a Trump administration - it never ends well, does it?
There's a reasonable change he blows up before the Republican convention, so it's not irrational throwing your hat in the ring.
And a not Trump candidate has a chance against Biden.
Either you opt for irrelevancy or you run.
Though why anyone sane would still be in the party is a better question.
I'm surprised that a moderate Republican hasn't been making fluttering eyelash gestures towards the Democrats. Maybe there aren't any, but it feels like an obvious play.
Mollify the Democrat base just enough to get nominated and be able to bring some moderate Republicans and right-inclined Independents with you.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
I'm not sure I'd call it connivance, I think it's just that the French don't really have much of an incentive to stop people leaving, just as we wouldn't in the same situation.
“The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”
...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.
The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
“so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“
The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.
The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.
Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.
I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.
JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.
Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.
What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.
Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
Maybe not a split over brexit.
To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?
Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.
Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...
Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.
Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
Not true HY.
The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.
Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.
Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan. Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.
A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.
In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.
Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.
I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”
Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.
And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?
Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.
Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
All the anti Brexit Tory MPs were effectively deselected in 2019.
Indeed Starmer would likely have more trouble with Corbynite rebels on his backbenches as PM than the Conservative Leader of the Opposition would have with Tory rebels on his backbenches who want a softer Brexit deal
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
2-5 are remote indeed. If any apart from 4 were going to happen they'd almost certainly have done so already. And he has a 27k majority, so that's not independent of 6 or 7.
Indeed. What is 'Loses seat in election' even doing in that list?
'4) Asteroid strike wipes out life on earth' is slightly more likely.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
2-5 are remote indeed. If any apart from 4 were going to happen they'd almost certainly have done so already. And he has a 27k majority, so that's not independent of 6 or 7.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
"Seven times in ten spins," said Berry. "Well, I think that'll do. We'll just run up the board on the even chances...."
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.
Not good.
If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.
Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
Why then was Phillip not the "King"
Because the husband of the Queen Regnant has historically never been so, (save for William and Mary who reigned jointly in their own right). So Victoria’s husband was Prince Albert but George III’s wife was Queen Charlotte. It’s not fair or logical but this is a monarchy we’re talking about. It’s not about fairness or logic.
Well it is about fairness and misogyny, because it's due to male primogeniture, and the assumption that a wife would obey her husband and so a Queen could not rule in her own right when married.
So it was important for Philip II of Spain that he be titled King of England and made co-regnant with Mary I, and this was a major reason why Elizabeth I did not marry.
Consequently, it was important that Albert and Philip were a Prince and Duke respectively to make it clear that their wives were in charge.
Now that male primogeniture has been abolished for the British crown, and so Charlotte is above her younger brother Louis in the line of succession, it would perhaps be possible for the next Queen Regnant to have a King Consort. Particularly since this might well not happen until the 22nd century. It would seem to be a logical progression.
Now that male primogeniture has been abolished it's time to visit another anomaly.
Common opinion is that, for example, the House of Tudor or Stuart, ceases because we ran out of Tudors or Stuarts and thus a new house name is required.
Wrong of course. George I was a Stuart through the female line (Elizabeth of Bohemia). James I/VI was a Tudor through his mother.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
2-5 are remote indeed. If any apart from 4 were going to happen they'd almost certainly have done so already. And he has a 27k majority, so that's not independent of 6 or 7.
Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.
Not good.
If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.
Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
Why then was Phillip not the "King"
Because the husband of the Queen Regnant has historically never been so, (save for William and Mary who reigned jointly in their own right). So Victoria’s husband was Prince Albert but George III’s wife was Queen Charlotte. It’s not fair or logical but this is a monarchy we’re talking about. It’s not about fairness or logic.
Well it is about fairness and misogyny, because it's due to male primogeniture, and the assumption that a wife would obey her husband and so a Queen could not rule in her own right when married.
So it was important for Philip II of Spain that he be titled King of England and made co-regnant with Mary I, and this was a major reason why Elizabeth I did not marry.
Consequently, it was important that Albert and Philip were a Prince and Duke respectively to make it clear that their wives were in charge.
Now that male primogeniture has been abolished for the British crown, and so Charlotte is above her younger brother Louis in the line of succession, it would perhaps be possible for the next Queen Regnant to have a King Consort. Particularly since this might well not happen until the 22nd century. It would seem to be a logical progression.
Now that male primogeniture has been abolished it's time to visit another anomaly.
Common opinion is that, for example, the House of Tudor or Stuart, ceases because we ran out of Tudors or Stuarts and thus a new house name is required.
Wrong of course. George I was a Stuart through the female line (Elizabeth of Bohemia). James I/VI was a Tudor through his mother.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
"Seven times in ten spins," said Berry. "Well, I think that'll do. We'll just run up the board on the even chances...."
There was no holding him.
Indeed. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so should win next time. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so it's time for a lose. Come what come may, the bookie is a step ahead of you.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
"Seven times in ten spins," said Berry. "Well, I think that'll do. We'll just run up the board on the even chances...."
There was no holding him.
Indeed. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so should win next time. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so it's time for a lose. Come what come may, the bookie is a step ahead of you.
....I admit there are hundreds who do it--hundreds of intelligent, educated, thoughtful men and women. Well, you can pray for the lot. They're trying to read something which isn't written. They're studying a blank page. They're splitting their brains over a matter on which an idiot's advice would be as valuable. I knew a brilliant commercial lawyer who used to sit down at the table and solemnly write down every number that turned up for one hour. For the next sixty minutes he planked still more solemnly on the ones that had turned up least often. Conceive such a frame of mind. That wonderful brain had failed to grasp the one simple glaring point of which his case consisted--that Roulette is lawless. He failed to appreciate that he was up against Fortune herself. He couldn't realise that because '7' had turned up seven times running at a quarter past nine, that was no earthly reason why '7' shouldn't turn up eight times running at a quarter past ten. Heaven knows what fun he got out of it.
Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!
Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?
I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.
It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
The bad part of the Seventies was 1971 to 1975. Rampant inflation, strikes, terrorism, and (on the face of it) victories for communism in South East Asia and Africa.
All those candlelit dinners - thanks to the power cuts. Very romantic.
Candlelit homework for me.
Salad for tea until my brother pointed out that we had a gas cooker that worked fine without electricity is my abiding memory. Laughed about that for years.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
Fair point. Which is why I don't bet.
I do - and I have £100 with @isam @ 3/1 on Starmer PM after the GE.
Is he here under another name, I wonder? That would be great if so.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
"Seven times in ten spins," said Berry. "Well, I think that'll do. We'll just run up the board on the even chances...."
There was no holding him.
Indeed. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so should win next time. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so it's time for a lose. Come what come may, the bookie is a step ahead of you.
Arsenal's past form is slightly more correlated with its likely future results than is the average dice and its last X rolls.
Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
Starmer could engineer some favourable economic winds and the support of business by going back into the single market though so that must be tempting. He just has to ensure he doesn't enrage the blood and soil leavers too much before the election.
Yes, it's very clear that Starmer is lying about what be intends to do post election.
Why not as he lied about what he was going to do pre-election, jettisoning all the promises he made to the Labour Party members not to mention all his actions under Corbyn to get his current job?
The man is a serial liar.
It's just Keir being Keir. People should lighten up and enjoy it!
I don't think they appreciate his deadpan brand of comedy.
Far too under-stated for the mainstream. Only true connoisseurs of the art can pick it up.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
And if that is the case we treat them as such. A little while back WHY DON'T THEY FLY was thrown at me - its because they need a visa to get on a plane and we won't grant one. If they want to apply for asylum let them apply - a properly resourced system would reject them very quickly.
This is the real issue - money. Despite claims that we have taken back control of our border we have done no such thing as that requires cash our government refuses to spend. So we suffer the boats as a direct consequence.
Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!
Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?
I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.
It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
The bad part of the Seventies was 1971 to 1975. Rampant inflation, strikes, terrorism, and (on the face of it) victories for communism in South East Asia and Africa.
All those candlelit dinners - thanks to the power cuts. Very romantic.
Candlelit homework for me.
Salad for tea until my brother pointed out that we had a gas cooker that worked fine without electricity is my abiding memory. Laughed about that for years.
A few years back in the big power cuts due to a storm, a number of people discovered that heating oil doesn't do any good without the electricity to run the pump and light the burner.
A chap I knew had a diesel generator he'd converted to run on heating oil, plus a battery UPS. His setup meant he was the only person for a few miles with heating. And light. And a freezer/fridge still working.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Your version of the asylum system amounts to de facto global free movement of people. All you have to do is pick a country and make a claim
My version is the rapid processing of claims and the rapid removal of failed claimants. Your version is no system to process these people and them getting stuck here for years in a process that doesn't work.
Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!
Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?
I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.
It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
The decor. All those revolting browns.
The electrical kit. So many shorts you'd think you were on a beach in Bermuda.
The cars. Build quality was just embarrassing.
True, our politicians weren't as bad, and although the economy was in a mess it wasn't as great a mess as it is now. But in other ways...
It was the time to be young
What did you get up to? I know people say if you remember the sixties you weren't there... I reckon we might start to see a flowering of creativity among my kids' generation. They have no incentive to live the conventional 9 to 5 life, it doesn't pay anymore, it's not worth chasing, so they might as well enjoy themselves and fulfill their creative urges.
60's I was just a boy , 70's I started work and had a great time, lots of good times , etc. Football was great , enjoyed the odd beverage and I met my wife.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
"Seven times in ten spins," said Berry. "Well, I think that'll do. We'll just run up the board on the even chances...."
There was no holding him.
Indeed. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so should win next time. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so it's time for a lose. Come what come may, the bookie is a step ahead of you.
....I admit there are hundreds who do it--hundreds of intelligent, educated, thoughtful men and women. Well, you can pray for the lot. They're trying to read something which isn't written. They're studying a blank page. They're splitting their brains over a matter on which an idiot's advice would be as valuable. I knew a brilliant commercial lawyer who used to sit down at the table and solemnly write down every number that turned up for one hour. For the next sixty minutes he planked still more solemnly on the ones that had turned up least often. Conceive such a frame of mind. That wonderful brain had failed to grasp the one simple glaring point of which his case consisted--that Roulette is lawless. He failed to appreciate that he was up against Fortune herself. He couldn't realise that because '7' had turned up seven times running at a quarter past nine, that was no earthly reason why '7' shouldn't turn up eight times running at a quarter past ten. Heaven knows what fun he got out of it.
This is true. However with sports there is some value in 'reversion to the mean' if applied appropriately. Also - and this is one I particularly like to spot and use - the past can get overrated against randomness on individual events.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.
Not good.
If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.
Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
Why then was Phillip not the "King"
Because the husband of the Queen Regnant has historically never been so, (save for William and Mary who reigned jointly in their own right). So Victoria’s husband was Prince Albert but George III’s wife was Queen Charlotte. It’s not fair or logical but this is a monarchy we’re talking about. It’s not about fairness or logic.
Well it is about fairness and misogyny, because it's due to male primogeniture, and the assumption that a wife would obey her husband and so a Queen could not rule in her own right when married.
So it was important for Philip II of Spain that he be titled King of England and made co-regnant with Mary I, and this was a major reason why Elizabeth I did not marry.
Consequently, it was important that Albert and Philip were a Prince and Duke respectively to make it clear that their wives were in charge.
Now that male primogeniture has been abolished for the British crown, and so Charlotte is above her younger brother Louis in the line of succession, it would perhaps be possible for the next Queen Regnant to have a King Consort. Particularly since this might well not happen until the 22nd century. It would seem to be a logical progression.
Now that male primogeniture has been abolished it's time to visit another anomaly.
Common opinion is that, for example, the House of Tudor or Stuart, ceases because we ran out of Tudors or Stuarts and thus a new house name is required.
Wrong of course. George I was a Stuart through the female line (Elizabeth of Bohemia). James I/VI was a Tudor through his mother.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
"Seven times in ten spins," said Berry. "Well, I think that'll do. We'll just run up the board on the even chances...."
There was no holding him.
Indeed. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so should win next time. Arsenal have had X wins in a row so it's time for a lose. Come what come may, the bookie is a step ahead of you.
....I admit there are hundreds who do it--hundreds of intelligent, educated, thoughtful men and women. Well, you can pray for the lot. They're trying to read something which isn't written. They're studying a blank page. They're splitting their brains over a matter on which an idiot's advice would be as valuable. I knew a brilliant commercial lawyer who used to sit down at the table and solemnly write down every number that turned up for one hour. For the next sixty minutes he planked still more solemnly on the ones that had turned up least often. Conceive such a frame of mind. That wonderful brain had failed to grasp the one simple glaring point of which his case consisted--that Roulette is lawless. He failed to appreciate that he was up against Fortune herself. He couldn't realise that because '7' had turned up seven times running at a quarter past nine, that was no earthly reason why '7' shouldn't turn up eight times running at a quarter past ten. Heaven knows what fun he got out of it.
This is true. However with sports there is some value in 'reversion to the mean' if applied appropriately. Also - and this is one I particularly like to spot and use - the past can get overrated against randomness on individual events.
With sports you are not looking at just probabilities, but form.
Some pro gamblers I used to know made out like bandits, one year.
The major bookies pout up some odds - an Olympic champion at Nordic Biathlon was returning to competition. So they (the big bookies) put her down as favourite in her first competition. They hadn't factored in that she was coming back from a massively broken leg and no training....
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Your version of the asylum system amounts to de facto global free movement of people. All you have to do is pick a country and make a claim
My version is the rapid processing of claims and the rapid removal of failed claimants. Your version is no system to process these people and them getting stuck here for years in a process that doesn't work.
It is such a simple solution -- almost 'Boris-like' in its simplicity. I wonder why it has not been implemented
My suspicion is that
(i) it is not easy to process a good fraction of the claims rapidly; some yes, but many need some time;
(ii) it is not easy to rapidly remove someone who does not want to go and for which there is no country wiling to accept them.
Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
Starmer could engineer some favourable economic winds and the support of business by going back into the single market though so that must be tempting. He just has to ensure he doesn't enrage the blood and soil leavers too much before the election.
Yes, it's very clear that Starmer is lying about what be intends to do post election.
Why not as he lied about what he was going to do pre-election, jettisoning all the promises he made to the Labour Party members not to mention all his actions under Corbyn to get his current job?
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Your version of the asylum system amounts to de facto global free movement of people. All you have to do is pick a country and make a claim
My version is the rapid processing of claims and the rapid removal of failed claimants. Your version is no system to process these people and them getting stuck here for years in a process that doesn't work.
It is such a simple solution -- almost 'Boris-like' in its simplicity. I wonder why it has not been implemented
My suspicion is that
(i) it is not easy to process a good fraction of the claims rapidly; some yes, but many need some time;
(ii) it is not easy to rapidly remove someone who does not want to go and for which there is no country wiling to accept them.
(iii) Some immigration lawyers have sought delay to cases, where they can.
A slow, inefficient system actually works for them and their clients.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Your version of the asylum system amounts to de facto global free movement of people. All you have to do is pick a country and make a claim
My version is the rapid processing of claims and the rapid removal of failed claimants. Your version is no system to process these people and them getting stuck here for years in a process that doesn't work.
It is such a simple solution -- almost 'Boris-like' in its simplicity. I wonder why it has not been implemented
My suspicion is that
(i) it is not easy to process a good fraction of the claims rapidly; some yes, but many need some time;
(ii) it is not easy to rapidly remove someone who does not want to go and for which there is no country wiling to accept them.
I'm talking about Albanians. With no legal route to get here they are using small boats. Give them a legal route and they can fly. Detain them at Stansted, process their paperwork (passport & visa), return them on the flight back if they are bogus. Albania wants them back, it has said so.
Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!
Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?
I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.
It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
The bad part of the Seventies was 1971 to 1975. Rampant inflation, strikes, terrorism, and (on the face of it) victories for communism in South East Asia and Africa.
All those candlelit dinners - thanks to the power cuts. Very romantic.
Candlelit homework for me.
Salad for tea until my brother pointed out that we had a gas cooker that worked fine without electricity is my abiding memory. Laughed about that for years.
A few years back in the big power cuts due to a storm, a number of people discovered that heating oil doesn't do any good without the electricity to run the pump and light the burner.
A chap I knew had a diesel generator he'd converted to run on heating oil, plus a battery UPS. His setup meant he was the only person for a few miles with heating. And light. And a freezer/fridge still working.
Gas cookers won’t work in a power cut either. They have a powered safety valve, that keeps the gas switched off, by regulation. Perhaps an old Aga would still work.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
Fair point. Which is why I don't bet.
I do - and I have £100 with @isam @ 3/1 on Starmer PM after the GE.
Is he here under another name, I wonder? That would be great if so.
Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!
Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?
I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.
It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
The bad part of the Seventies was 1971 to 1975. Rampant inflation, strikes, terrorism, and (on the face of it) victories for communism in South East Asia and Africa.
All those candlelit dinners - thanks to the power cuts. Very romantic.
Candlelit homework for me.
Salad for tea until my brother pointed out that we had a gas cooker that worked fine without electricity is my abiding memory. Laughed about that for years.
A few years back in the big power cuts due to a storm, a number of people discovered that heating oil doesn't do any good without the electricity to run the pump and light the burner.
A chap I knew had a diesel generator he'd converted to run on heating oil, plus a battery UPS. His setup meant he was the only person for a few miles with heating. And light. And a freezer/fridge still working.
Gas cookers won’t work in a power cut either. They have a powered safety valve, that keeps the gas switched off, by regulation. Perhaps an old Aga would still work.
Back in the 70s there were plenty of stoves without such safeties.
Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!
Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?
I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.
It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
The bad part of the Seventies was 1971 to 1975. Rampant inflation, strikes, terrorism, and (on the face of it) victories for communism in South East Asia and Africa.
All those candlelit dinners - thanks to the power cuts. Very romantic.
Candlelit homework for me.
Salad for tea until my brother pointed out that we had a gas cooker that worked fine without electricity is my abiding memory. Laughed about that for years.
A few years back in the big power cuts due to a storm, a number of people discovered that heating oil doesn't do any good without the electricity to run the pump and light the burner.
A chap I knew had a diesel generator he'd converted to run on heating oil, plus a battery UPS. His setup meant he was the only person for a few miles with heating. And light. And a freezer/fridge still working.
Gas cookers won’t work in a power cut either. They have a powered safety valve, that keeps the gas switched off, by regulation. Perhaps an old Aga would still work.
Yes - there are numbers of people who install generators or battery packs capable of powering an appropriate subset of their circuits.
Not hard - just needs to be done correctly.
On house batteries, I think the word is "islanding", the risk being that if it is not correctly disconnected from the mains network there is an electrocution risk for repair staff from anyone's connected power source.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
From Charles Saatchi to Lyton Crosby, the tories have historically had access to better marketting talent than Labour, and deployed the most up to date techniques. There have been bots for the last couple of elections, but they have been on the crap side. This last couple of years however, conversational AI has crossed the chasm into something that can be deployed by someone without a PhD in machine learning. What will they be doing? Two things spring to mind.
One is hyper-targetted ads. an AI that reads an individuals social media, and then crafts an advert specifically for them.
The other is smarter bots to plant ideas, similar to today but with better writing. I think we can expect a flood of them, both in the next UK election and the next US one.
What this does to political discourse will be 'interesting' to say the least. Especially as the parties with the most contempt for the public will have the least compunction to manipulate and deceive.
What do you guys think - how will the parties use ChatGPT etc?
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Your version of the asylum system amounts to de facto global free movement of people. All you have to do is pick a country and make a claim
My version is the rapid processing of claims and the rapid removal of failed claimants. Your version is no system to process these people and them getting stuck here for years in a process that doesn't work.
It is such a simple solution -- almost 'Boris-like' in its simplicity. I wonder why it has not been implemented
My suspicion is that
(i) it is not easy to process a good fraction of the claims rapidly; some yes, but many need some time;
(ii) it is not easy to rapidly remove someone who does not want to go and for which there is no country wiling to accept them.
I'm talking about Albanians. With no legal route to get here they are using small boats. Give them a legal route and they can fly. Detain them at Stansted, process their paperwork (passport & visa), return them on the flight back if they are bogus. Albania wants them back, it has said so.
If you create a legal route, how many Albanians do you expect to come?
Obviously, you have made it easier, so the number of Albanians who come will increase.
What criteria do you propose to use to "return them on the flight back"?
Once that is known, those fulfilling your "return criteria" will continue to use boats.
I just don't think there is a rapid and simple solution to this.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
Fair point. Which is why I don't bet.
I do - and I have £100 with @isam @ 3/1 on Starmer PM after the GE.
Is he here under another name, I wonder? That would be great if so.
Obviously Rishi is damp eyed beta cuck who couldn't lap a valve to save his life but I do think he has quite a cunning team around him. Look how they handled that pilot nonsense when Zelly was here. They leak one thing (Typhoon Tranche 1 to Ukraine) but the official statement is so anodyne and vague (training of an unspecified number of crew on an unspecified aircraft at an unspecified time) as to be meaningless. Speculation in the yawning void between the leak and the announcement amplifies the intended message (we are giving combat aircraft to Ukraine) even though that message has no foundation in reality.
That technique will work well in a GE campaign and while it won't save Rishi it might save a few seats and trim Starmer's majority.
I expect similar bollocks when he goes to DC next month regarding submarines. The leak will be the UK is building 8 SSN for Australia while the official announcement will be an ambiguous semi-commitment to a study on a common design of submarine toilet seats.
Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.
Not good.
If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.
Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
Why then was Phillip not the "King"
Because the husband of the Queen Regnant has historically never been so, (save for William and Mary who reigned jointly in their own right). So Victoria’s husband was Prince Albert but George III’s wife was Queen Charlotte. It’s not fair or logical but this is a monarchy we’re talking about. It’s not about fairness or logic.
Well it is about fairness and misogyny, because it's due to male primogeniture, and the assumption that a wife would obey her husband and so a Queen could not rule in her own right when married.
So it was important for Philip II of Spain that he be titled King of England and made co-regnant with Mary I, and this was a major reason why Elizabeth I did not marry.
Consequently, it was important that Albert and Philip were a Prince and Duke respectively to make it clear that their wives were in charge.
Now that male primogeniture has been abolished for the British crown, and so Charlotte is above her younger brother Louis in the line of succession, it would perhaps be possible for the next Queen Regnant to have a King Consort. Particularly since this might well not happen until the 22nd century. It would seem to be a logical progression.
Now that male primogeniture has been abolished it's time to visit another anomaly.
Common opinion is that, for example, the House of Tudor or Stuart, ceases because we ran out of Tudors or Stuarts and thus a new house name is required.
Wrong of course. George I was a Stuart through the female line (Elizabeth of Bohemia). James I/VI was a Tudor through his mother.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
That will cost most people on pb.com a packet.
What about all the cleaners, nannies, gardeners and builders employed by the affluent?
VIde Baroness Scotland.
In January 2009 Scotland employed Lolo Tapui, an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. Tapui had been using a forged passport for the period up to and including December 2008. Tapui was later jailed for eight months for fraud, possessing a false identity stamp, and overstaying her UK visa. At her trial Tapui admitted to having been paid £95,000 by the Daily Mail. She was later deported to her native Tonga.
Scotland, who was Attorney General at the time, had earlier been subjected to a penalty of £5,000 for employing Tapui. She had not kept copies of relevant documents to check Tapui's immigration status and could therefore not establish a statutory defence. The rules were established when Scotland was a Home Office minister. The investigation by the UK Border Agency found that Scotland did not "knowingly" employ an illegal work
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
That will cost most people on pb.com a packet.
What about all the cleaners, nannies gardeners and builders employed by the affluent?
VIde Baroness Scotland.
In January 2009 Scotland employed Lolo Tapui, an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. Tapui had been using a forged passport for the period up to and including December 2008. Tapui was later jailed for eight months for fraud, possessing a false identity stamp, and overstaying her UK visa. At her trial Tapui admitted to having been paid £95,000 by the Daily Mail. She was later deported to her native Tonga.
Scotland, who was Attorney General at the time, had earlier been subjected to a penalty of £5,000 for employing Tapui. She had not kept copies of relevant documents to check Tapui's immigration status and could therefore not establish a statutory defence. The rules were established when Scotland was a Home Office minister. The investigation by the UK Border Agency found that Scotland did not "knowingly" employ an illegal work ,/em>
A relative runs a domestic building company. He was early in the modern style of doing domestic building work - proper plans, tools, taxes, legal paperwork etc. Rather than a handful of cash and bullshit. this was back in the late 1990s/early 2000s
He went as far as explaining to politicians that in some areas of the country it was impossible to run a legit building company. The scumbags were too cheap.
A suggestion to a very senior civil servant that they correlate planning permission, work and large cash withdrawals by the homeowner met with a reaction. Something on the lines of shut up. If you know what is good for you.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Of course not! Asylum seekers cannot work. And do not receive any cash welfare payments. But so many people think the opposite is true - lied to and kept ignorant by Tory politicians and a right wing media who think that demonising the vulnerable wins them elections.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
Asylum seekers and illegal working are separate things. The whole point of applying for asylum is to become legitimate, and they are in accommodation and reporting to the Home Office. If caught working illegally it damages their application. They can work legally after a year of applying, if not judged to have deliberately stalled their application.
There may well be people sneaking in to work illegally (though I suspect most are over stayers, or arrived on non working visas) but they are unlikely to be seeking asylum.
Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!
Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?
I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.
It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
The bad part of the Seventies was 1971 to 1975. Rampant inflation, strikes, terrorism, and (on the face of it) victories for communism in South East Asia and Africa.
All those candlelit dinners - thanks to the power cuts. Very romantic.
Candlelit homework for me.
Salad for tea until my brother pointed out that we had a gas cooker that worked fine without electricity is my abiding memory. Laughed about that for years.
A few years back in the big power cuts due to a storm, a number of people discovered that heating oil doesn't do any good without the electricity to run the pump and light the burner.
A chap I knew had a diesel generator he'd converted to run on heating oil, plus a battery UPS. His setup meant he was the only person for a few miles with heating. And light. And a freezer/fridge still working.
Gas cookers won’t work in a power cut either. They have a powered safety valve, that keeps the gas switched off, by regulation. Perhaps an old Aga would still work.
Back in the 70s there were plenty of stoves without such safeties.
We had a two ring hob you could connect to the gas supply usually used for the gas poker which lit the coal fire. No danger of asphyxiation, as the house was so draughty.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
Asylum seekers and illegal working are separate things. The whole point of applying for asylum is to become legitimate, and they are in accommodation and reporting to the Home Office. If caught working illegally it damages their application. They can work legally after a year of applying, if not judged to have deliberately stalled their application.
There may well be people sneaking in to work illegally (though I suspect most are over stayers, or arrived on non working visas) but they are unlikely to be seeking asylum.
It would mean that we could actually concentrate on actual asylum seekers, since the various categories of economic migrants would be seeking a more leg methedology.
It would stop the people smuggling, to a large degree.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
That will cost most people on pb.com a packet.
What about all the cleaners, nannies, gardeners and builders employed by the affluent?
VIde Baroness Scotland.
In January 2009 Scotland employed Lolo Tapui, an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. Tapui had been using a forged passport for the period up to and including December 2008. Tapui was later jailed for eight months for fraud, possessing a false identity stamp, and overstaying her UK visa. At her trial Tapui admitted to having been paid £95,000 by the Daily Mail. She was later deported to her native Tonga.
Scotland, who was Attorney General at the time, had earlier been subjected to a penalty of £5,000 for employing Tapui. She had not kept copies of relevant documents to check Tapui's immigration status and could therefore not establish a statutory defence. The rules were established when Scotland was a Home Office minister. The investigation by the UK Border Agency found that Scotland did not "knowingly" employ an illegal work
Apart from the obvious… goodbye story …why did the Mail pay her? And in doing so, did they not compound a felony?I
From Charles Saatchi to Lyton Crosby, the tories have historically had access to better marketting talent than Labour, and deployed the most up to date techniques. There have been bots for the last couple of elections, but they have been on the crap side. This last couple of years however, conversational AI has crossed the chasm into something that can be deployed by someone without a PhD in machine learning. What will they be doing? Two things spring to mind.
One is hyper-targetted ads. an AI that reads an individuals social media, and then crafts an advert specifically for them.
The other is smarter bots to plant ideas, similar to today but with better writing. I think we can expect a flood of them, both in the next UK election and the next US one.
What this does to political discourse will be 'interesting' to say the least. Especially as the parties with the most contempt for the public will have the least compunction to manipulate and deceive.
What do you guys think - how will the parties use ChatGPT etc?
There's less room for social targeting shenanigans this time around (all the major platforms have significantly tightened up on how targeting works, plus changes to cross-app tracking on iOS and cookies in general have blunted a lot of the sharer retargeting techniques), and hyper-targeting has always been far shitter and less accurate than breathless Economist articles might suggest anyway. By far the biggest difference-maker will still be spend, followed by message discipline and associated creative.
Also tbh I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of talented people are not touching this Tory campaign; reasonable likelihood it might not look great on the CV, as well as just general disillusionment at CCHQ.
In the organic/viral sphere though - who knows? There's a lot more capacity for AI shenans and falsehoods, as well as organised shit-stirring from abroad. So to your second idea, I think there's something more there.
From Charles Saatchi to Lyton Crosby, the tories have historically had access to better marketting talent than Labour, and deployed the most up to date techniques. There have been bots for the last couple of elections, but they have been on the crap side. This last couple of years however, conversational AI has crossed the chasm into something that can be deployed by someone without a PhD in machine learning. What will they be doing? Two things spring to mind.
One is hyper-targetted ads. an AI that reads an individuals social media, and then crafts an advert specifically for them.
The other is smarter bots to plant ideas, similar to today but with better writing. I think we can expect a flood of them, both in the next UK election and the next US one.
What this does to political discourse will be 'interesting' to say the least. Especially as the parties with the most contempt for the public will have the least compunction to manipulate and deceive.
What do you guys think - how will the parties use ChatGPT etc?
There's less room for social targeting shenanigans this time around (all the major platforms have significantly tightened up on how targeting works, plus changes to cross-app tracking on iOS and cookies in general have blunted a lot of the sharer retargeting techniques), and hyper-targeting has always been far shitter and less accurate than breathless Economist articles might suggest anyway. By far the biggest difference-maker will still be spend, followed by message discipline and associated creative.
Also tbh I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of talented people are not touching this Tory campaign; reasonable likelihood it might not look great on the CV, as well as just general disillusionment at CCHQ.
In the organic/viral sphere though - who knows? There's a lot more capacity for AI shenans and falsehoods, as well as organised shit-stirring from abroad. So to your second idea, I think there's something more there.
The actual work would be done by companies contracted by the party HQs, not by anyone directly employed by the parties.
From Charles Saatchi to Lyton Crosby, the tories have historically had access to better marketting talent than Labour, and deployed the most up to date techniques. There have been bots for the last couple of elections, but they have been on the crap side. This last couple of years however, conversational AI has crossed the chasm into something that can be deployed by someone without a PhD in machine learning. What will they be doing? Two things spring to mind.
One is hyper-targetted ads. an AI that reads an individuals social media, and then crafts an advert specifically for them.
The other is smarter bots to plant ideas, similar to today but with better writing. I think we can expect a flood of them, both in the next UK election and the next US one.
What this does to political discourse will be 'interesting' to say the least. Especially as the parties with the most contempt for the public will have the least compunction to manipulate and deceive.
What do you guys think - how will the parties use ChatGPT etc?
There's less room for social targeting shenanigans this time around (all the major platforms have significantly tightened up on how targeting works, plus changes to cross-app tracking on iOS and cookies in general have blunted a lot of the sharer retargeting techniques), and hyper-targeting has always been far shitter and less accurate than breathless Economist articles might suggest anyway. By far the biggest difference-maker will still be spend, followed by message discipline and associated creative.
Also tbh I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of talented people are not touching this Tory campaign; reasonable likelihood it might not look great on the CV, as well as just general disillusionment at CCHQ.
In the organic/viral sphere though - who knows? There's a lot more capacity for AI shenans and falsehoods, as well as organised shit-stirring from abroad. So to your second idea, I think there's something more there.
The actual work would be done by companies contracted by the party HQs, not by anyone directly employed by the parties.
1) Omnibus/health 2) Personal scandal 3) Stalinist purge 4) Loses seat in election 5) Voluntarily hands over 6) Doesn't command 325 seats from Lab (+ other parties) - for which there could be loads of sub-reasons 7) Only does so on condition he retires and another leads
All unlikely - in the same way that at the time of the Hartlepool election it was unlikely Boris would not be PM after the next GE. Cumulatively they are more than trivial.
80% or a little lower is about right.
3) is not possible why he commands the Labour party and it 20% ahead in the polls. 4) is not going to happen - see polls. 5) Could do
6) Labour is largest party after the next election - 95%+ - They will form the next government 7) Even the most arrogant other party leader wouldn't try to demand that they could only work with a different Labour leader.
The Tories need a black swan and I think we've had our quota of those for this decade already.
Must be >95% chance of Starmer being PM after the next GE.
I think so.
"We have had a run of black swans so we are due for a gap without any more" is one of the many great and enduring gambler's fallacies.
Fair point. Which is why I don't bet.
I do - and I have £100 with @isam @ 3/1 on Starmer PM after the GE.
Is he here under another name, I wonder? That would be great if so.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
That will cost most people on pb.com a packet.
What about all the cleaners, nannies, gardeners and builders employed by the affluent?
VIde Baroness Scotland.
In January 2009 Scotland employed Lolo Tapui, an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. Tapui had been using a forged passport for the period up to and including December 2008. Tapui was later jailed for eight months for fraud, possessing a false identity stamp, and overstaying her UK visa. At her trial Tapui admitted to having been paid £95,000 by the Daily Mail. She was later deported to her native Tonga.
Scotland, who was Attorney General at the time, had earlier been subjected to a penalty of £5,000 for employing Tapui. She had not kept copies of relevant documents to check Tapui's immigration status and could therefore not establish a statutory defence. The rules were established when Scotland was a Home Office minister. The investigation by the UK Border Agency found that Scotland did not "knowingly" employ an illegal work
Apart from the obvious… goodbye story …why did the Mail pay her? And in doing so, did they not compound a felony?I
Nailing a Home Office minister for an immigration screwup is good copy.... I'm sure that the Mail's lawyers sorted the legality of the payments.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
That will cost most people on pb.com a packet.
What about all the cleaners, nannies, gardeners and builders employed by the affluent?
VIde Baroness Scotland.
In January 2009 Scotland employed Lolo Tapui, an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. Tapui had been using a forged passport for the period up to and including December 2008. Tapui was later jailed for eight months for fraud, possessing a false identity stamp, and overstaying her UK visa. At her trial Tapui admitted to having been paid £95,000 by the Daily Mail. She was later deported to her native Tonga.
Scotland, who was Attorney General at the time, had earlier been subjected to a penalty of £5,000 for employing Tapui. She had not kept copies of relevant documents to check Tapui's immigration status and could therefore not establish a statutory defence. The rules were established when Scotland was a Home Office minister. The investigation by the UK Border Agency found that Scotland did not "knowingly" employ an illegal work
Apart from the obvious… goodbye story …why did the Mail pay her? And in doing so, did they not compound a felony?I
I was more struck by the fact that the Mail are more generous than @Malmesbury (95k versus 50k)
Quote Tweet MattinWoolwich @MattWWoolwich · 11 Feb UK is screwed. Can’t erect a garden shed, put a cafe on your farm, stick tables outside your bar, build a house, expand a life sciences lab, or erect a solar panel, without a clipboard-toting shadow industry (local govt, CPRE, MPs, busybodies) trying to stop you. twitter.com/tomwilliamsism… 2:43 pm · 12 Feb 2023"
Put a roof on a disused building - planning inspectors plus police roll up.
Funny story but...
a) I don't know anybody who has reported a crime and had no response, never mind repeatedly;
b) Planning laws are laws too. Don't like them? Vote for someone* who wants to change them.
(*Every farmer I know votes for the Tories religiously, the same Tories who run the government and control their local councils. They get what they vote for. No sympathy from me.)
That's just a variant of the attitude being critiqued here:
@NifMuhammad Seeing people say stuff like “how did those people vote?” In regards to a town in Ohio being poisoned & lied to is unsurprising, still ghoulish. political theater shit has rotted people’s brains past the point of repair. If nothing else, there are children among those people.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
That will cost most people on pb.com a packet.
What about all the cleaners, nannies, gardeners and builders employed by the affluent?
VIde Baroness Scotland.
In January 2009 Scotland employed Lolo Tapui, an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. Tapui had been using a forged passport for the period up to and including December 2008. Tapui was later jailed for eight months for fraud, possessing a false identity stamp, and overstaying her UK visa. At her trial Tapui admitted to having been paid £95,000 by the Daily Mail. She was later deported to her native Tonga.
Scotland, who was Attorney General at the time, had earlier been subjected to a penalty of £5,000 for employing Tapui. She had not kept copies of relevant documents to check Tapui's immigration status and could therefore not establish a statutory defence. The rules were established when Scotland was a Home Office minister. The investigation by the UK Border Agency found that Scotland did not "knowingly" employ an illegal work
Apart from the obvious… goodbye story …why did the Mail pay her? And in doing so, did they not compound a felony?I
Same reason the Mail paid Prince Harry’s, umm, ex-girlfriend. It sells newspapers, and it lets the person in the weaker position get ahead of the story, especially any attempt to quieten them.
PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4. One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
Did he?
The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.
So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.
That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
I don't think immigration can save the Tories. Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.
Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.
Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.
Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.
There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
You are assuming that the French government will enthusiastically implement any agreement. They won't. Historically, they haven't - at least for the long term.
This is because the local French hate the immigrants. Hate. Any policy that stops them getting to the UK creates anger. Hence the police standing around as the pile in to boats in front of them.
If Paris tries to *enforce* such an agreement, then
a) This mean using force against the immigrants. Which upsets the more liberal French. b) This means the immigrants pileup at the camps in France. Which upsets the locals.
Action was taken before, when immigrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel interrupted operations. Which would have been seen, at national level as an unacceptable interference with state infrastructure.
Why should the French government (local or national) stop the immigrants?
Because they don't want vast camps in Pas de Calais. So we work together on stopping them arriving there at all. For starters we work with source nations like Albania. All the Albanians are coming via France and small boats because there is no legal route they can use. Same with Afghanistan. And there are various other examples - whither Braverman getting stumped at the select committee by a Tory backbencher.
Slow the flow into France and the French work with us. As they have said they want to do. As they have done in the past.
Slow the flow into France how?
The not-very-publicised EU policy of funding militias to keep them in North Africa was withdrawn 12 months (?) ago.
A significant number are Albanians. Who cannot seek asylum in the UK via a legal route. Open one up and there is no need to enter france and get on a small boat.
Under what status are they claiming asylum though? I didn't think Albania was that unsafe a country? They are, for the most part, economic migrants, with no genuine refugee claim.
As someone who has a lot of sympathy for genuine refugees (to the extent of buying a property to house them) and having been to Albania too I have the sense that there is a lot of exploiting of rules going on among this group. There are issues with organised crime in Albania but it isn't a war zone, it is a reasonably free country and there is no genocide going on there. But I also don't see why we shouldn't welcome them here to work legally, as long as they have no organised crime links. The current setup seems the worst of all worlds - especially in terms of strengthening the hand of criminal gangs, while reducing public confidence in the asylum process.
This is bang on - get them able to work legally, help with English, training courses fine. But people I think ought to accept that there is a distinct issue with Albanians abusing the system for economic gain.
Frankly I admire those who are trying to make a better life for themselves, I just don't accept the way this is happening, with the conivance of the French too.
Its a radical proposal. We need workers and have whole industries going up the swanny due to lack of people. And there is tide of able-bodied people looking for work coming to our shores.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
None of which has anything to do with asylum.
Anyone who can tell me why the following won't work -
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine 2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
Asylum seekers and illegal working are separate things. The whole point of applying for asylum is to become legitimate, and they are in accommodation and reporting to the Home Office. If caught working illegally it damages their application. They can work legally after a year of applying, if not judged to have deliberately stalled their application.
There may well be people sneaking in to work illegally (though I suspect most are over stayers, or arrived on non working visas) but they are unlikely to be seeking asylum.
It's very easy to lose your Home Office support in the current asylum system, and so it's quite possible that a lot of asylum seekers will end up working illegally due to destitution.
Comments
Mollify the Democrat base just enough to get nominated and be able to bring some moderate Republicans and right-inclined Independents with you.
Indeed Starmer would likely have more trouble with Corbynite rebels on his backbenches as PM than the Conservative Leader of the Opposition would have with Tory rebels on his
backbenches who want a softer Brexit deal
'4) Asteroid strike wipes out life on earth' is slightly more likely.
"Seven times in ten spins," said Berry. "Well, I think that'll do.
We'll just run up the board on the even chances...."
There was no holding him.
Common opinion is that, for example, the House of Tudor or Stuart, ceases because we ran out of Tudors or Stuarts and thus a new house name is required.
Wrong of course. George I was a Stuart through the female line (Elizabeth of Bohemia). James I/VI was a Tudor through his mother.
A new system is required.
When will the next GE take place?
Any of autumn 2023, spring or autumn 2024 or, at a stretch, January 2025 are possible, I guess.
Autumn 2024 seems most probably to me.
With a small side portion of very early 2025.
....I admit there are hundreds who do it--hundreds
of intelligent, educated, thoughtful men and women. Well, you can pray
for the lot. They're trying to read something which isn't written.
They're studying a blank page. They're splitting their brains over a
matter on which an idiot's advice would be as valuable. I knew a
brilliant commercial lawyer who used to sit down at the table and
solemnly write down every number that turned up for one hour. For the
next sixty minutes he planked still more solemnly on the ones that had
turned up least often. Conceive such a frame of mind. That wonderful
brain had failed to grasp the one simple glaring point of which his
case consisted--that Roulette is lawless. He failed to appreciate that
he was up against Fortune herself. He couldn't realise that because
'7' had turned up seven times running at a quarter past nine, that was
no earthly reason why '7' shouldn't turn up eight times running at a
quarter past ten. Heaven knows what fun he got out of it.
Is he here under another name, I wonder? That would be great if so.
Autumn ‘23 would require some big black swan, likely involving the Ukraine war or an unknown unknown.
Watch energy prices, for the most likely indicator of when the government thinks it might be a good time to go.
This is the real issue - money. Despite claims that we have taken back control of our border we have done no such thing as that requires cash our government refuses to spend. So we suffer the boats as a direct consequence.
A chap I knew had a diesel generator he'd converted to run on heating oil, plus a battery UPS. His setup meant he was the only person for a few miles with heating. And light. And a freezer/fridge still working.
There are still a pile of people who want no migration. As they are "taking our jobs". If that was true I would have sympathy. But it isn't true. So its back to "do you know what its like cleaning up your own mother's piss" from The Thick of It. People want someone else to do it.
God Save the King!!!!
Some pro gamblers I used to know made out like bandits, one year.
The major bookies pout up some odds - an Olympic champion at Nordic Biathlon was returning to competition. So they (the big bookies) put her down as favourite in her first competition. They hadn't factored in that she was coming back from a massively broken leg and no training....
My suspicion is that
(i) it is not easy to process a good fraction of the claims rapidly; some yes, but many need some time;
(ii) it is not easy to rapidly remove someone who does not want to go and for which there is no country wiling to accept them.
https://twitter.com/ppppolls/status/1625486696862355460?s=20&t=3_jUOpSy1S_aUkvzGyFsNA
A slow, inefficient system actually works for them and their clients.
Not hard - just needs to be done correctly.
On house batteries, I think the word is "islanding", the risk being that if it is not correctly disconnected from the mains network there is an electrocution risk for repair staff from anyone's connected power source.
1) Anyone who employees illegals - 100K fine
2) 50k to the undocumented person who gives evidence leading to a conviction. Plus indefinite leave to remain.
A fair chunk of the "black" economy would evaporate before lunch.
Prices in certain nail bars and wages for Deliveroo riders would go up, but hey....
This is going to be the first ChatGPT election.
From Charles Saatchi to Lyton Crosby, the tories have historically had access to better marketting talent than Labour, and deployed the most up to date techniques. There have been bots for the last couple of elections, but they have been on the crap side. This last couple of years however, conversational AI has crossed the chasm into something that can be deployed by someone without a PhD in machine learning. What will they be doing? Two things spring to mind.
One is hyper-targetted ads. an AI that reads an individuals social media, and then crafts an advert specifically for them.
The other is smarter bots to plant ideas, similar to today but with better writing. I think we can expect a flood of them, both in the next UK election and the next US one.
What this does to political discourse will be 'interesting' to say the least. Especially as the parties with the most contempt for the public will have the least compunction to manipulate and deceive.
What do you guys think - how will the parties use ChatGPT etc?
Obviously, you have made it easier, so the number of Albanians who come will increase.
What criteria do you propose to use to "return them on the flight back"?
Once that is known, those fulfilling your "return criteria" will continue to use boats.
I just don't think there is a rapid and simple solution to this.
That technique will work well in a GE campaign and while it won't save Rishi it might save a few seats and trim Starmer's majority.
I expect similar bollocks when he goes to DC next month regarding submarines. The leak will be the UK is building 8 SSN for Australia while the official announcement will be an ambiguous semi-commitment to a study on a common design of submarine toilet seats.
What about all the cleaners, nannies, gardeners and builders employed by the affluent?
VIde Baroness Scotland.
In January 2009 Scotland employed Lolo Tapui, an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. Tapui had been using a forged passport for the period up to and including December 2008. Tapui was later jailed for eight months for fraud, possessing a false identity stamp, and overstaying her UK visa. At her trial Tapui admitted to having been paid £95,000 by the Daily Mail. She was later deported to her native Tonga.
Scotland, who was Attorney General at the time, had earlier been subjected to a penalty of £5,000 for employing Tapui. She had not kept copies of relevant documents to check Tapui's immigration status and could therefore not establish a statutory defence. The rules were established when Scotland was a Home Office minister. The investigation by the UK Border Agency found that Scotland did not "knowingly" employ an illegal work
He went as far as explaining to politicians that in some areas of the country it was impossible to run a legit building company. The scumbags were too cheap.
A suggestion to a very senior civil servant that they correlate planning permission, work and large cash withdrawals by the homeowner met with a reaction. Something on the lines of shut up. If you know what is good for you.
There may well be people sneaking in to work illegally (though I suspect most are over stayers, or arrived on non working visas) but they are unlikely to be seeking asylum.
No danger of asphyxiation, as the house was so draughty.
It would stop the people smuggling, to a large degree.
Also tbh I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of talented people are not touching this Tory campaign; reasonable likelihood it might not look great on the CV, as well as just general disillusionment at CCHQ.
In the organic/viral sphere though - who knows? There's a lot more capacity for AI shenans and falsehoods, as well as organised shit-stirring from abroad. So to your second idea, I think there's something more there.
decided to contest the Republican primaries
£95K would have made her quite well off in Tonga.
https://twitter.com/NifMuhammad/status/1624537352294092801
@NifMuhammad
Seeing people say stuff like “how did those people vote?” In regards to a town in Ohio being poisoned & lied to is unsurprising, still ghoulish. political theater shit has rotted people’s brains past the point of repair. If nothing else, there are children among those people.