Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Newham gives a better quality of life, hell even the paris banlieus do
I was talking to my wife's cousin about this the other day - he made the opposite argument (about Sri Lanka versus the UK) - the quality of life in Sri Lanka is going up compared to the UK, because digital technology means that the differences in lifestyle are going down. Meanwhile things like food and weather are so much better there. I found it quite convincing, unfortunately unlike him I don't have a Sri Lankan passport. I think people overestimate how attractive this country is TBH, although of course there are many people who want to come here many who do are here because of conflicts and violence. Poor countries are actually often very nice places to live, even if you're not especially well off. Most people are quite attached to the people and places they know.
Is sri lanka not one of the countries forecast for extensive climate change emmigration in the next 3 decades....oh yes it is
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Another reason to abolish the coronation, it's going to be hijacked.
The Church of England plans to use the King’s coronation ceremony as a “unique opportunity” to convert people to Christianity and has released prayers asking God to “pour abundant gifts” on the new monarch.
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Most Revs Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell, have described the coronation as a “unique missional opportunity” to showcase “rich Christian symbols and values” to a global audience, hoping that it will help people to “encounter Jesus”.
The church has also released an information pack with details for 28 days of prayer between Easter day on April 9 and coronation day on May 6 so the nation can engage in “spiritual preparation alongside the King”.
Good to see that the C of E tradition for housing otherworldly eccentrics still flourishes.
I’m interested (as an atheist) as to how the Head Shed of a religion using a religious ceremony, in his number one venue, for recruitment is “hijacking”.
Isn’t that his job?
I'm more interested in how he thinks the coronation might convert anyone at all.
It really is a very odd idea.
Yes - "I was against the concept of thr monarchy, but the sheer magnificence of the ceremony won me over" - hard to imagine that's going to be a massive group.
It isn't trying to convert republicans to monarchists, the focus is more on converting agnostic monarchists to Christian monarchists from the Church of England's point of view (and Welby is on the evangelical wing of the Church of England after all).
Given about 2/3 of the UK population are monarchists still but only 47% of the UK population are now Christians that is nearly 20% of the UK population for the Church of England to target and only a minority of them will be from other faiths or confirmed atheists
6% say they are actually practising.
Less than 1% attend Church on a typical week.
47% ticked a box.
5% attend a Christian church every week, whether Anglican, Roman Catholic or non Anglican evangelical. Roman Catholics have the highest attendance rate and Pentecostals the highest attendance growth.
Though more go once you include those who go only for Christmas, Easter or Mothering Sunday, weddings, baptisms and funerals
That appears to be nearly 10 years out of date, and importantly pre-covid, where a lot of the habitual attendees just stopped going.
And weddings, baptisms and christenings? Really?
Everyone should, by law, still have to be married in the Church of England Church as in the good old days before 1837.
And they should all have to hire an organist, who gets £500 for turning up and £750 more for playing the fucking awful bullshit they usually choose as music.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
If getting the current system to work promptly and efficiently is "less plausible", then why do you have any faith that the Rwanda option will be executed well enough? If a succession of Conservative Home Secretaries are unable to enforce the existing rules, allowing a massive backlog to develop, why do you want to give them more powers? Enforce the existing rules, save money, allow those with valid asylum claims to get out of the system and into jobs where they can contribute to the country, and deport those without valid claims.
Promptly deporting individuals who do not have a valid asylum claim will deter people without valid asylum claims.
Fair points, and the answer is that I don't. But as advice, " dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim" seems to equate to "just be better". You can't magic yourself competent. And however much we'd like to, it's hard to believe all home secretaries are genuinely idiots and everyone at the home office genuinely useless. More plausible to me is that we're asking them to do an impossible job. I have no faith in the Rwanda option. I doubt it will ever seriously happen. But at least they're not pretending the problem doesn't exist. If a future regime manages to deal with the backlog, promptly process applications and send back those who do not have a claim I will take this back.
Why can the Dutch process 95% of claims within 2 months? Are they magicians? Or do they have the political will and resources that our governments, mostly Tory, but even when new Labour still authoritarian within the Home Office, do not provide?
By all means fund it properly now specify what you are going to fund less than currently to make up the extra budget.
Well there's a billion or so already being spent every year keeping these folk in detention, and rather a lot promised to Rwanda for nothing very useful. A competently run Home Office along the lines suggested might actually cost us less.
That though is merely speculation, more efficient processing on the other hand may increase costs because more decide to come knowing they won't be waiting for years before they can work.
I am highly sceptical of "if we do this it might save us money" somehow everytime we end up spending more
And I'm highly sceptical of the utility of locking up a hundred thousand plus for years at a time for no good reason.
The current policies are both expensive and ineffective.
Where did I say currently what we have is good, just pointing out the call to properly fund comes with a cost.
Everyone on here is always demanding their pet cause be properly funded and no one ever goes and to fund it we can cut this or that
We have focussed obsessively on the short term cuts part of the equation for a long time so most of what can be cut there already has been, and beyond what is sustainable. Governments ignore the long term investements that can generate longer term and sustainable savings as they don't help their re-elections with the benefits coming 10-20 years down the line.
What you are left with is indeed few areas that are easy to cut quickly without causing damage and lots of areas where real investment will save money in the long term. People may not want to hear it but that is where we are.
Build more houses, train more doctors, fund the courts system, repair roads properly instead of covering over potholes, all these are simple examples where it should be obvious that spending more now is both the right thing to do, and cheaper over a lifetime.
You still need the money to spend it now
You cant raise taxes much further You can't borrow with no spending cuts as truss found
Its not I necessarily disagree with you but without the money to spend now its an idea going nowhere.
For now the only solution is
1) work out how much we can raise in tax as a maximum 2) work out how much it costs to fully fund everything 3) work out the priorities of what to full fund 4) cut the rest 5) as cost savings come through and not a moment before we can bring things back in dependent on priority
Covid showed that the govt budgets are a lot more flexible than people assumed. To be fair the Truss experiment equally showed that markets will be brutal if they do not believe or understand why budgets are being stretched.
I accept it would not be trivial to assure the markets that this is the right course for the economy but with detailed budgeting and good communication (both of which Truss completely shied away from) I don't think it is unrealistic either.
Since Labour want to spend on everything pretty much without limit I'm not sure the markets will agree. Of course they talk about raising taxes here and there as well and then spend the cash raised many times over...
I expect Labour will prioritise spending that they think makes them most likely to get re-elected rather than fix our structural problems. Short termism and penny rich pound poor is not just a Tory issue, it is a reflection of our poor politics and leadership across the board.
Yes
Its a pity the Noneoftheabove user name is already taken
Is there a re-sale market in pb user names?
Yes
I got mine from an overweight SWFC supporter called John in 2020 I think he was an SKS fan!
Another reason to abolish the coronation, it's going to be hijacked.
The Church of England plans to use the King’s coronation ceremony as a “unique opportunity” to convert people to Christianity and has released prayers asking God to “pour abundant gifts” on the new monarch.
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Most Revs Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell, have described the coronation as a “unique missional opportunity” to showcase “rich Christian symbols and values” to a global audience, hoping that it will help people to “encounter Jesus”.
The church has also released an information pack with details for 28 days of prayer between Easter day on April 9 and coronation day on May 6 so the nation can engage in “spiritual preparation alongside the King”.
Good to see that the C of E tradition for housing otherworldly eccentrics still flourishes.
I’m interested (as an atheist) as to how the Head Shed of a religion using a religious ceremony, in his number one venue, for recruitment is “hijacking”.
Isn’t that his job?
I'm more interested in how he thinks the coronation might convert anyone at all.
It really is a very odd idea.
Yes - "I was against the concept of thr monarchy, but the sheer magnificence of the ceremony won me over" - hard to imagine that's going to be a massive group.
It isn't trying to convert republicans to monarchists, the focus is more on converting agnostic monarchists to Christian monarchists from the Church of England's point of view (and Welby is on the evangelical wing of the Church of England after all).
Given about 2/3 of the UK population are monarchists still but only 47% of the UK population are now Christians that is nearly 20% of the UK population for the Church of England to target and only a minority of them will be from other faiths or confirmed atheists
6% say they are actually practising.
Less than 1% attend Church on a typical week.
47% ticked a box.
5% attend a Christian church every week, whether Anglican, Roman Catholic or non Anglican evangelical. Roman Catholics have the highest attendance rate and Pentecostals the highest attendance growth.
Though more go once you include those who go only for Christmas, Easter or Mothering Sunday, weddings, baptisms and funerals
The 916,000 (about 1.5% of the population) includes people going once a month, as well as those who never go in person.
These numbers are still a hell of a long way from 47%. The suggestion that the CofE could target the 2/3 of the population that are monarchists, as if they're somehow building on their current 47% is a real stretch.
They currently get about 1% of the population attending a CofE Church a week, and a few more occasionally, so would be better starting with the other 45-46% of the population who tick the box, but do nothing more.
Still, with an average age of 60+, and that's even with all the parents/kids who are told to attend if they want to go to the local school, I wouldn't be betting on any increases any time soon.
2.3 million also attended a Church of England Christmas service in 2019.
The 47% includes Roman Catholics and Baptists or Pentecostals. Agnostic monarchists who might become Christians are more likely to be Church of England than those
The 47% mostly includes people who aren't in any practical way religious at all.
And surely you realise that people who get married in Churches, or go to Christmas services, aren't the same as people who attend mass regularly?
The cost of getting married somewhere as nice as the average CofE Church makes the average CofE Church very attractive.
At Christmas it's like going to a free seasonal concert.
They still call themselves Christians.
However again they aren't the group to be targeted anyway, that is agnostic monarchists.
No people who get married in church and attend church weddings aren't the same as those who go to Church each Sunday, hence the fees from weddings and burials and extra collections from the larger congregations at Baptisms, Easter and Christmas provide valuable extra income for Parish churches
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Newham gives a better quality of life, hell even the paris banlieus do
I was talking to my wife's cousin about this the other day - he made the opposite argument (about Sri Lanka versus the UK) - the quality of life in Sri Lanka is going up compared to the UK, because digital technology means that the differences in lifestyle are going down. Meanwhile things like food and weather are so much better there. I found it quite convincing, unfortunately unlike him I don't have a Sri Lankan passport. I think people overestimate how attractive this country is TBH, although of course there are many people who want to come here many who do are here because of conflicts and violence. Poor countries are actually often very nice places to live, even if you're not especially well off. Most people are quite attached to the people and places they know.
Is sri lanka not one of the countries forecast for extensive climate change emmigration in the next 3 decades....oh yes it is
I'm surprised, as an island it should have a fairly temperate climate. The real problems will be in Northern India I would have thought. I'm hoping to retire there, this miserable cold wet island full of miserable cold people does not appeal.
Just one comment on the subject of the post: Those I have talked to here, including some who have relatives in Scotland, are absolutely amazed by the likelihood that one Humza Yousaf will be the leader of the SNP, and probably FM.
Scotland is NOT racist, certainly by US standards.
However, it IS sectarian, by US standards, ditto England & Wales.
I very much hope Scotland is not racist in an "institutional" way, like the Met Police, but there are plenty of racists in Scotland, some on the grounds of skin colour and many on their irrational hatred of a rather diverse group of people they call "the English". This Anglophobia is probably a large driver of the Scottish Nationalist movement.
That is unadultered piss, take a good look at yourself in the mirror, under that gammony exterior lies a Little Englander racist.
Lol. I expected a bit of frothing from our resident amoeba brain nationalist. Your Anglophobia spews out of 90% of your semi-literate posts you feeble brained fool. If you knew anything about me you would realise how stupid your bit of psychologically projected nonsense is.
You and @StuartDickson are the personification of the type of racist that is north of the border that hides behind a pretence of saying your support is for localised government. At least @StuartDickson is honest; he admits he is an Anglophobe racist, though you don't need to as it is so obvious.
I guess the anger management programme hasn't worked that well, or have you been bullied by your wife again about how bad your breath smells?
You are a sad git , I know your type well. Like other people I laugh at your pathetic stupidity and inferiority complex.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Seriously? Have you seen Andean mining towns? Newham is honestly an earthly paradise in comparison.
Yes but the surrounding countryside is spectacular.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
You only have to look at the large population movements of past centuries, when moving was considerably more difficult than it is now, to see that, yes, huge numbers of people would migrate.
Before my parents-in-law went to the US for a holiday recently they shared a drink with us the night before and my father-in-law joked that they were having an "American wake". This was the tradition in Ireland to hold what was effectively a wake for people before they migrated to America, because the chances are that no-one in Ireland would ever see them again after they left, so there's be no chance to hold a wake for them later when they actually died.
Now, in a world where migrating doesn't have to mean never seeing your family ever again, I am sure that even more people would be willing to move, compared to the many millions who migrated across the Atlantic in prior centuries.
Yes. But huge or HUGE is the question. I think huge.
I think we flatter ourselves into thinking the uk is a huge draw. Unless you are in a war torn country or suffering genuine famine it really isnt. Its a cold windy island with a reasonable standard of living for some but also many social problems. Look at the number of people on antidepressants for example.
I partly agree with this and partly agree not. The great urban capitals of Britain are also more culturally advanced than many places in the world, even including many European capitals that are more socio-economically progressive but less culturally liberal. It's the combined legacy of British pragmatism and a post-18th century tradition of political and religious tolerance, and American influences, I think.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
You only have to look at the large population movements of past centuries, when moving was considerably more difficult than it is now, to see that, yes, huge numbers of people would migrate.
Before my parents-in-law went to the US for a holiday recently they shared a drink with us the night before and my father-in-law joked that they were having an "American wake". This was the tradition in Ireland to hold what was effectively a wake for people before they migrated to America, because the chances are that no-one in Ireland would ever see them again after they left, so there's be no chance to hold a wake for them later when they actually died.
Now, in a world where migrating doesn't have to mean never seeing your family ever again, I am sure that even more people would be willing to move, compared to the many millions who migrated across the Atlantic in prior centuries.
Yes. But huge or HUGE is the question. I think huge.
I think we flatter ourselves into thinking the uk is a huge draw. Unless you are in a war torn country or suffering genuine famine it really isnt. Its a cold windy island with a reasonable standard of living for some but also many social problems. Look at the number of people on antidepressants for example.
Go spend an afternoon in a third world slum.
Maybe then you’ll get the point.
As an ex put it - having a breakdown is a first world thing. In Ghana, poor people just hang themselves.
Ive had many conversations with immigrants who have come over here who have said the uk is nowhere near as good a place as they thought it would be. Point is on a newham housing estate you will likely be dealing with drugs and violence problems as bad or worse than a 3rd world slum.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
And your leftie friend kinablu seems to imagine its not going to happen in reverse
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
OK, not the whole of the 3rd world. 20% of the third world. And we'd share them with some of Europe, America and Australia. Realistically, just for Britain, we're probably only looking at hundreds of millions. Still feels pretty challenging.
That just wouldnt happen. Its a hyperbolic argument and I really believe Kinabalu is right on this. Most people in the 3rd world are not desperate to come to the uk.
I’ll have to tell all the in-laws trying to get visas etc that they don’t exist.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Newham gives a better quality of life, hell even the paris banlieus do
I was talking to my wife's cousin about this the other day - he made the opposite argument (about Sri Lanka versus the UK) - the quality of life in Sri Lanka is going up compared to the UK, because digital technology means that the differences in lifestyle are going down. Meanwhile things like food and weather are so much better there. I found it quite convincing, unfortunately unlike him I don't have a Sri Lankan passport. I think people overestimate how attractive this country is TBH, although of course there are many people who want to come here many who do are here because of conflicts and violence. Poor countries are actually often very nice places to live, even if you're not especially well off. Most people are quite attached to the people and places they know.
Is sri lanka not one of the countries forecast for extensive climate change emmigration in the next 3 decades....oh yes it is
Also, isn't Sri Lanka utterly fucked economically after over-borrowing from the Chinese?
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Newham gives a better quality of life, hell even the paris banlieus do
I was talking to my wife's cousin about this the other day - he made the opposite argument (about Sri Lanka versus the UK) - the quality of life in Sri Lanka is going up compared to the UK, because digital technology means that the differences in lifestyle are going down. Meanwhile things like food and weather are so much better there. I found it quite convincing, unfortunately unlike him I don't have a Sri Lankan passport. I think people overestimate how attractive this country is TBH, although of course there are many people who want to come here many who do are here because of conflicts and violence. Poor countries are actually often very nice places to live, even if you're not especially well off. Most people are quite attached to the people and places they know.
Is sri lanka not one of the countries forecast for extensive climate change emmigration in the next 3 decades....oh yes it is
I'm surprised, as an island it should have a fairly temperate climate. The real problems will be in Northern India I would have thought. I'm hoping to retire there, this miserable cold wet island full of miserable cold people does not appeal.
Near future estimates of drought conditions in Sri Lanka are highly uncertain (2030). As for the years surrounding 2050 an increased frequency and intensity of droughts are estimated:[17] thus leading to reduced crop growth exasperated by increased temperatures and evaporation.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Seriously? Have you seen Andean mining towns? Newham is honestly an earthly paradise in comparison.
Yes but the surrounding countryside is spectacular.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Even then, apart from places like Ireland or southern Italy where people faced starvation, the vast majority of people didn't leave.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Newham gives a better quality of life, hell even the paris banlieus do
I was talking to my wife's cousin about this the other day - he made the opposite argument (about Sri Lanka versus the UK) - the quality of life in Sri Lanka is going up compared to the UK, because digital technology means that the differences in lifestyle are going down. Meanwhile things like food and weather are so much better there. I found it quite convincing, unfortunately unlike him I don't have a Sri Lankan passport. I think people overestimate how attractive this country is TBH, although of course there are many people who want to come here many who do are here because of conflicts and violence. Poor countries are actually often very nice places to live, even if you're not especially well off. Most people are quite attached to the people and places they know.
Is sri lanka not one of the countries forecast for extensive climate change emmigration in the next 3 decades....oh yes it is
Also, isn't Sri Lanka utterly fucked economically after over-borrowing from the Chinese?
But they got fantastic ESG scores, so everything’s alright.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
You only have to look at the large population movements of past centuries, when moving was considerably more difficult than it is now, to see that, yes, huge numbers of people would migrate.
Before my parents-in-law went to the US for a holiday recently they shared a drink with us the night before and my father-in-law joked that they were having an "American wake". This was the tradition in Ireland to hold what was effectively a wake for people before they migrated to America, because the chances are that no-one in Ireland would ever see them again after they left, so there's be no chance to hold a wake for them later when they actually died.
Now, in a world where migrating doesn't have to mean never seeing your family ever again, I am sure that even more people would be willing to move, compared to the many millions who migrated across the Atlantic in prior centuries.
Yes. But huge or HUGE is the question. I think huge.
I think we flatter ourselves into thinking the uk is a huge draw. Unless you are in a war torn country or suffering genuine famine it really isnt. Its a cold windy island with a reasonable standard of living for some but also many social problems. Look at the number of people on antidepressants for example.
Go spend an afternoon in a third world slum.
Maybe then you’ll get the point.
As an ex put it - having a breakdown is a first world thing. In Ghana, poor people just hang themselves.
Ive had many conversations with immigrants who have come over here who have said the uk is nowhere near as good a place as they thought it would be. Point is on a newham housing estate you will likely be dealing with drugs and violence problems as bad or worse than a 3rd world slum.
Bullshit. Crime in Newham is bad but it isn't the favelas of Sao Paulo.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Even then, apart from places like Ireland or southern Italy where people faced starvation, the vast majority of people didn't leave.
It was a lot harder to leave then than now....the world got smaller
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Even then, apart from places like Ireland or southern Italy where people faced starvation, the vast majority of people didn't leave.
IIRC something like 25% of the Irish population left in 10 years.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Seriously? Have you seen Andean mining towns? Newham is honestly an earthly paradise in comparison.
Yes but the surrounding countryside is spectacular.
I’m staggered how good that picture makes it look. The clouds of toxic shit are missing….
Yes but surely you would prefer living in cusco to newham. That mining town is no more representative of peru than some godforsaken durham mining town is representative of england.
Thanks to @NickyBreakspear for his polling analysis - my only question is whether any weighting is given to sample size. Only Savanta, YouGov and Redfield & Wilton sample more than 2,000 people - some of the pollsters have to my mind very small samples which may or may not explain the volatility.
We're also seeing the return of the "shy Tory" syndrome. Apparently, and you wouldn't think it on here, some people are embarrassed to admit they support the Conservatives so the polls are under-estimating the Conservatives some of whom hide behind Don't Know or my even claim to be Labour supporters.
Okay - the next thing is "well, people may say they're voting Labour but in the privacy of the polling booth the pencil will find its way to the Conservative candidate".
This is again part of the "1992 not 1997" narrative which is being spun by some of the Conservative supporters.
To be fair, Omnisis isn't a bad poll and especially I'd argue looking at the supplementaries where Sunak's quiet managerialism is seeing some benefits. I'd also argue the failure of the sky to cave in as some feared over winter (though I think it's been a difficult time for many people) and the natural optimism spring brings are probably also factors.
I'm sure Starmer and Labour have recognised this and their response to it is understandably more on the overall record of the Government and perhaps they need to remind people how close Sunk once was to Johnson and how he (Sunak) was at the very centre of the Government during the pandemic.
Just one comment on the subject of the post: Those I have talked to here, including some who have relatives in Scotland, are absolutely amazed by the likelihood that one Humza Yousaf will be the leader of the SNP, and probably FM.
Scotland is NOT racist, certainly by US standards.
However, it IS sectarian, by US standards, ditto England & Wales.
I very much hope Scotland is not racist in an "institutional" way, like the Met Police, but there are plenty of racists in Scotland, some on the grounds of skin colour and many on their irrational hatred of a rather diverse group of people they call "the English". This Anglophobia is probably a large driver of the Scottish Nationalist movement.
That is unadultered piss, take a good look at yourself in the mirror, under that gammony exterior lies a Little Englander racist.
Lol. I expected a bit of frothing from our resident amoeba brain nationalist. Your Anglophobia spews out of 90% of your semi-literate posts you feeble brained fool. If you knew anything about me you would realise how stupid your bit of psychologically projected nonsense is.
You and @StuartDickson are the personification of the type of racist that is north of the border that hides behind a pretence of saying your support is for localised government. At least @StuartDickson is honest; he admits he is an Anglophobe racist, though you don't need to as it is so obvious.
I guess the anger management programme hasn't worked that well, or have you been bullied by your wife again about how bad your breath smells?
Had to like that one. Sorry Malcy.
No problem Stocky , I laugh at the buffoon all the time. Guaranteed he has small penis syndrome. The braggart of the site who would empty a pub just by opening the door. He will be bullied at work , made to do housework by his wife ( if he has one) and tries to pretend he is a big shot online. A sad creature to be pitied.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
You only have to look at the large population movements of past centuries, when moving was considerably more difficult than it is now, to see that, yes, huge numbers of people would migrate.
Before my parents-in-law went to the US for a holiday recently they shared a drink with us the night before and my father-in-law joked that they were having an "American wake". This was the tradition in Ireland to hold what was effectively a wake for people before they migrated to America, because the chances are that no-one in Ireland would ever see them again after they left, so there's be no chance to hold a wake for them later when they actually died.
Now, in a world where migrating doesn't have to mean never seeing your family ever again, I am sure that even more people would be willing to move, compared to the many millions who migrated across the Atlantic in prior centuries.
Yes. But huge or HUGE is the question. I think huge.
I think we flatter ourselves into thinking the uk is a huge draw. Unless you are in a war torn country or suffering genuine famine it really isnt. Its a cold windy island with a reasonable standard of living for some but also many social problems. Look at the number of people on antidepressants for example.
Go spend an afternoon in a third world slum.
Maybe then you’ll get the point.
As an ex put it - having a breakdown is a first world thing. In Ghana, poor people just hang themselves.
Ive had many conversations with immigrants who have come over here who have said the uk is nowhere near as good a place as they thought it would be. Point is on a newham housing estate you will likely be dealing with drugs and violence problems as bad or worse than a 3rd world slum.
Bullshit. Crime in Newham is bad but it isn't the favelas of Sao Paulo.
You are comparing them to the most violent parts of South America. What about comparing them to poor areas of vietnam or cambodia and i think you would get a different picture.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
OK, not the whole of the 3rd world. 20% of the third world. And we'd share them with some of Europe, America and Australia. Realistically, just for Britain, we're probably only looking at hundreds of millions. Still feels pretty challenging.
That just wouldnt happen. Its a hyperbolic argument and I really believe Kinabalu is right on this. Most people in the 3rd world are not desperate to come to the uk.
I’ll have to tell all the in-laws trying to get visas etc that they don’t exist.
They definitely do The Coop Bank have issued me with 2 (1 debit and 1 Credit) free of charge
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
If what Malmesbury says of Peru is typical - and it sounds entirely plausible to me - then 20% of the global south would up sticks to the west if they could. That must amount to billions, surely - low billions, admittedly. But billions nonetheless. And why wouldn't you? The poorest Brits love like kings compared to the majority of Peruvians. I'm very fond of where I live. I value home anf local ties. I'm sure Peruvians feel the same. But if I lived the life of an Andean silver miner all the warm feelings from familiar views couldn't really compete with the pull factors of clean water and the giddy thrill of my kids probably living to adulthood.
They may live like kings in a narrow financial sense but would you rather live in the peruvian andes or a tower block in newham.
Seriously? Have you seen Andean mining towns? Newham is honestly an earthly paradise in comparison.
Yes but the surrounding countryside is spectacular.
I’m staggered how good that picture makes it look. The clouds of toxic shit are missing….
Yes but surely you would prefer living in cusco to newham. That mining town is no more representative of peru than some godforsaken durham mining town is representative of england.
If you are poor in Peru you are fucked. And you will stay fucked. There is next to no way out and up. Hence the lure of the First World. There you have a chance to change your life and that if your entire family.
It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t lived it - it still, very much a society based on people staying at the level they are at. Much of the world is like that. State provided university for half the population isn’t even on the horizon of their wildest dreams. A tiny few go to university.
Poor people don’t sit around admiring the view. They are busy trying to stay alive.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
This site will be turning into Stormfront soon, Nick Griffin will be comfortable on here.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
Nor did spanish immigration help the inca nor european immigration help native americans, not even the relaxed australians helped the maori's or aborigines
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
This site will be turning into Stormfront soon, Nick Griffin will be comfortable on here.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
You only have to look at the large population movements of past centuries, when moving was considerably more difficult than it is now, to see that, yes, huge numbers of people would migrate.
Before my parents-in-law went to the US for a holiday recently they shared a drink with us the night before and my father-in-law joked that they were having an "American wake". This was the tradition in Ireland to hold what was effectively a wake for people before they migrated to America, because the chances are that no-one in Ireland would ever see them again after they left, so there's be no chance to hold a wake for them later when they actually died.
Now, in a world where migrating doesn't have to mean never seeing your family ever again, I am sure that even more people would be willing to move, compared to the many millions who migrated across the Atlantic in prior centuries.
Yes. But huge or HUGE is the question. I think huge.
I think we flatter ourselves into thinking the uk is a huge draw. Unless you are in a war torn country or suffering genuine famine it really isnt. Its a cold windy island with a reasonable standard of living for some but also many social problems. Look at the number of people on antidepressants for example.
Go spend an afternoon in a third world slum.
Maybe then you’ll get the point.
As an ex put it - having a breakdown is a first world thing. In Ghana, poor people just hang themselves.
Ive had many conversations with immigrants who have come over here who have said the uk is nowhere near as good a place as they thought it would be. Point is on a newham housing estate you will likely be dealing with drugs and violence problems as bad or worse than a 3rd world slum.
Bullshit. Crime in Newham is bad but it isn't the favelas of Sao Paulo.
I have travelled a fair bit of the world and one thing that strikes me is how similar things are between countries. Visiting medical friends in India, Burma, Palestine, Malawi etc the lives of middle class people are remarkably similar. The lives of the poor have a bit more absolute poverty than ours, but don't differ as much as the difference between themselves and their middle class countrymen.
It is why the biggest migratory moves are within a country, generally to the commercial or political capitol. It still happens here, but even more so in poor countries. It is Mumbai, Lagos or Lima that those seeking their fortunes tend to go.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
You only have to look at the large population movements of past centuries, when moving was considerably more difficult than it is now, to see that, yes, huge numbers of people would migrate.
Before my parents-in-law went to the US for a holiday recently they shared a drink with us the night before and my father-in-law joked that they were having an "American wake". This was the tradition in Ireland to hold what was effectively a wake for people before they migrated to America, because the chances are that no-one in Ireland would ever see them again after they left, so there's be no chance to hold a wake for them later when they actually died.
Now, in a world where migrating doesn't have to mean never seeing your family ever again, I am sure that even more people would be willing to move, compared to the many millions who migrated across the Atlantic in prior centuries.
Yes. But huge or HUGE is the question. I think huge.
I think we flatter ourselves into thinking the uk is a huge draw. Unless you are in a war torn country or suffering genuine famine it really isnt. Its a cold windy island with a reasonable standard of living for some but also many social problems. Look at the number of people on antidepressants for example.
Go spend an afternoon in a third world slum.
Maybe then you’ll get the point.
As an ex put it - having a breakdown is a first world thing. In Ghana, poor people just hang themselves.
Ive had many conversations with immigrants who have come over here who have said the uk is nowhere near as good a place as they thought it would be. Point is on a newham housing estate you will likely be dealing with drugs and violence problems as bad or worse than a 3rd world slum.
Bullshit. Crime in Newham is bad but it isn't the favelas of Sao Paulo.
You are comparing them to the most violent parts of South America. What about comparing them to poor areas of vietnam or cambodia and i think you would get a different picture.
You were the one who mentioned the words "3rd world slum". I grant you less crime in rural Cambodia. Less lots of things in rural Cambodia.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
You only have to look at the large population movements of past centuries, when moving was considerably more difficult than it is now, to see that, yes, huge numbers of people would migrate.
Before my parents-in-law went to the US for a holiday recently they shared a drink with us the night before and my father-in-law joked that they were having an "American wake". This was the tradition in Ireland to hold what was effectively a wake for people before they migrated to America, because the chances are that no-one in Ireland would ever see them again after they left, so there's be no chance to hold a wake for them later when they actually died.
Now, in a world where migrating doesn't have to mean never seeing your family ever again, I am sure that even more people would be willing to move, compared to the many millions who migrated across the Atlantic in prior centuries.
Yes. But huge or HUGE is the question. I think huge.
I think we flatter ourselves into thinking the uk is a huge draw. Unless you are in a war torn country or suffering genuine famine it really isnt. Its a cold windy island with a reasonable standard of living for some but also many social problems. Look at the number of people on antidepressants for example.
Go spend an afternoon in a third world slum.
Maybe then you’ll get the point.
As an ex put it - having a breakdown is a first world thing. In Ghana, poor people just hang themselves.
Ive had many conversations with immigrants who have come over here who have said the uk is nowhere near as good a place as they thought it would be. Point is on a newham housing estate you will likely be dealing with drugs and violence problems as bad or worse than a 3rd world slum.
Bullshit. Crime in Newham is bad but it isn't the favelas of Sao Paulo.
I have travelled a fair bit of the world and one thing that strikes me is how similar things are between countries. Visiting medical friends in India, Burma, Palestine, Malawi etc the lives of middle class people are remarkably similar. The lives of the poor have a bit more absolute poverty than ours, but don't differ as much as the difference between themselves and their middle class countrymen.
It is why the biggest migratory moves are within a country, generally to the commercial or political capitol. It still happens here, but even more so in poor countries. It is Mumbai, Lagos or Lima that those seeking their fortunes tend to go.
Absolutely correct. A much easier step than travelling halfway round the world.
Throughout history, people have always gone to the money.
The expression "money talks, men walk" is no coincidence. From the agricultural workers who left their villages to come to the first factories in the 18th century or other examples throughout history, the truth is those wanting a better life for themselves and their families will be drawn to where they believe the wealth is.
There's a bit more to it than that because you could then ask why there aren't boatloads heading to Saudi, Oman, Qatar and the rest of the Arab world given their wealth so it's not just money but a lifestyle which allows personal economic and political freedom beyond that possible at home (and especially if you don't belong to the ruling group, tribe, family or elite).
Maybe Rahul Gandhi getting a prison sentence will give Congress a shot in the arm and unite the opposition against the BJP. Or Modi will continue to turn India into a Putin style dictatorship.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
Strange that. I keep getting told on here that Commonwealth countries greatly benefited from us building infrastructure and bringing economic development.
Another reason to abolish the coronation, it's going to be hijacked.
The Church of England plans to use the King’s coronation ceremony as a “unique opportunity” to convert people to Christianity and has released prayers asking God to “pour abundant gifts” on the new monarch.
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Most Revs Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell, have described the coronation as a “unique missional opportunity” to showcase “rich Christian symbols and values” to a global audience, hoping that it will help people to “encounter Jesus”.
The church has also released an information pack with details for 28 days of prayer between Easter day on April 9 and coronation day on May 6 so the nation can engage in “spiritual preparation alongside the King”.
Good to see that the C of E tradition for housing otherworldly eccentrics still flourishes.
I’m interested (as an atheist) as to how the Head Shed of a religion using a religious ceremony, in his number one venue, for recruitment is “hijacking”.
Isn’t that his job?
I'm more interested in how he thinks the coronation might convert anyone at all.
It really is a very odd idea.
Yes - "I was against the concept of thr monarchy, but the sheer magnificence of the ceremony won me over" - hard to imagine that's going to be a massive group.
It isn't trying to convert republicans to monarchists, the focus is more on converting agnostic monarchists to Christian monarchists from the Church of England's point of view (and Welby is on the evangelical wing of the Church of England after all).
Given about 2/3 of the UK population are monarchists still but only 47% of the UK population are now Christians that is nearly 20% of the UK population for the Church of England to target and only a minority of them will be from other faiths or confirmed atheists
6% say they are actually practising.
Less than 1% attend Church on a typical week.
47% ticked a box.
5% attend a Christian church every week, whether Anglican, Roman Catholic or non Anglican evangelical. Roman Catholics have the highest attendance rate and Pentecostals the highest attendance growth.
Though more go once you include those who go only for Christmas, Easter or Mothering Sunday, weddings, baptisms and funerals
That appears to be nearly 10 years out of date, and importantly pre-covid, where a lot of the habitual attendees just stopped going.
And weddings, baptisms and christenings? Really?
Everyone should, by law, still have to be married in the Church of England Church as in the good old days before 1837.
And they should all have to hire an organist, who gets £500 for turning up and £750 more for playing the fucking awful bullshit they usually choose as music.
Thanks to @NickyBreakspear for his polling analysis - my only question is whether any weighting is given to sample size. Only Savanta, YouGov and Redfield & Wilton sample more than 2,000 people - some of the pollsters have to my mind very small samples which may or may not explain the volatility.
We're also seeing the return of the "shy Tory" syndrome. Apparently, and you wouldn't think it on here, some people are embarrassed to admit they support the Conservatives so the polls are under-estimating the Conservatives some of whom hide behind Don't Know or my even claim to be Labour supporters.
Okay - the next thing is "well, people may say they're voting Labour but in the privacy of the polling booth the pencil will find its way to the Conservative candidate".
This is again part of the "1992 not 1997" narrative which is being spun by some of the Conservative supporters.
To be fair, Omnisis isn't a bad poll and especially I'd argue looking at the supplementaries where Sunak's quiet managerialism is seeing some benefits. I'd also argue the failure of the sky to cave in as some feared over winter (though I think it's been a difficult time for many people) and the natural optimism spring brings are probably also factors.
I'm sure Starmer and Labour have recognised this and their response to it is understandably more on the overall record of the Government and perhaps they need to remind people how close Sunk once was to Johnson and how he (Sunak) was at the very centre of the Government during the pandemic.
Though the counterargument against 1992 is that the Conservatives were never this far behind after John Major took over (indeed, it's possible they were never really behind, given what we know about polling that we didn't then).
Life certainly feels perkier, and the sun is coming out... but I wonder how long that will last. We've just had the two months where we don't pay Council Tax direct debits; that's quite a lot of money not coming out of accounts in January and February. And I've just had an email from my energy supplier saying that my direct debit is going up by £66 to compensate for the government support scheme ending. And whilst some public sector strikes look like they are ending, others are just beginning.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
This site will be turning into Stormfront soon, Nick Griffin will be comfortable on here.
Do give over you russian twat
Oi, Putin, can you send us one of your goons that actually understands the concept of capital letters?
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
Strange that. I keep getting told on here that Commonwealth countries greatly benefited from us building infrastructure and bringing economic development.
Ah but that was a different sort of immigration you see or something like that.
Throughout history, people have always gone to the money.
The expression "money talks, men walk" is no coincidence. From the agricultural workers who left their villages to come to the first factories in the 18th century or other examples throughout history, the truth is those wanting a better life for themselves and their families will be drawn to where they believe the wealth is.
There's a bit more to it than that because you could then ask why there aren't boatloads heading to Saudi, Oman, Qatar and the rest of the Arab world given their wealth so it's not just money but a lifestyle which allows personal economic and political freedom beyond that possible at home (and especially if you don't belong to the ruling group, tribe, family or elite).
80% of those living in UAE are immigrants, like our own Sandpit.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
This site will be turning into Stormfront soon, Nick Griffin will be comfortable on here.
Do give over you russian twat
Oi, Putin, can you send us one of your goons that actually understands the concept of capital letters?
His educated goons have been conscripted the ones that could read the instruction point barrel at enemy pull trigger
Throughout history, people have always gone to the money.
The expression "money talks, men walk" is no coincidence. From the agricultural workers who left their villages to come to the first factories in the 18th century or other examples throughout history, the truth is those wanting a better life for themselves and their families will be drawn to where they believe the wealth is.
There's a bit more to it than that because you could then ask why there aren't boatloads heading to Saudi, Oman, Qatar and the rest of the Arab world given their wealth so it's not just money but a lifestyle which allows personal economic and political freedom beyond that possible at home (and especially if you don't belong to the ruling group, tribe, family or elite).
80% of those living in UAE are immigrants, like our own Sandpit.
Yep, and the population here has gone up 10x in my lifetime.
What they do have though, is a working immigration system. As in, if you’re not working you don’t get in, and you leave when you’ve finished your work. And you’ll never be Emirati.
On immigration, can I just take two minutes to voice this unpopular and seldom said opinion?
If someone has the balls and the drive to find their way out of a country in an unstable region, and run the gauntlet of people smugglers, get across the channel in weather P&O wouldn’t dream of sailing in, all whilst not knowing if they will ever see their family again, all for a dream of living in the U.K.; I want them here.
That’s exactly who we need. I’d want to actively compete for them except we don’t need to - they choose us even though we are horrible to them.
Ah yes just want we want, people who associate with criminals and are happy to break the law....who could want anyone better?
Thank you for demonstrating my point.
Given a lot of them 40 odd percent are albanian are gangsters being brought in for country lines and a good percentage of the others are victims of people traffickers then yes sorry fuck off they aren't an advantage to the country they are a pustulent sore that needs lancing
Try some criticial thinking one day, you might enjoy it. You have cause and effect the wrong way around. Precisely because they are driven into the hands of criminals, they are at risk of incurring a “debt” and being drawn in. Be more open and we get them first.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the somewhat bizarre and unique mix of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's, overlaid on top of a pragmatic liberal tradition, that have made Britain more interesting.
Brexit, at least in its cultural politics rather than constitutional aspect, was partly an attempt to deny the idiosyncratic reality of all this. The Britain of the 1950's was deeply drab.
Throughout history, people have always gone to the money.
The expression "money talks, men walk" is no coincidence. From the agricultural workers who left their villages to come to the first factories in the 18th century or other examples throughout history, the truth is those wanting a better life for themselves and their families will be drawn to where they believe the wealth is.
There's a bit more to it than that because you could then ask why there aren't boatloads heading to Saudi, Oman, Qatar and the rest of the Arab world given their wealth so it's not just money but a lifestyle which allows personal economic and political freedom beyond that possible at home (and especially if you don't belong to the ruling group, tribe, family or elite).
The Gulf states are, very largely, supported by migrant workers.
Many of who are treated totally and utterly abominably. Yet there is no shortage of applicants.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
Agreed. There are some on this site who seem to think the changes of the last 50 years are a bad thing though with barely concealed nativist sentiments.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Nice to see Yiddish still features, and a curious island of Tagalog in South Cumbia.
Our riot police are pansies I know done training courses with them they always lost
You were training to be a rioter?
Well you can’t just go out and start rioting. Years of training. There’s the choice of projectiles, the face coverings to think about, and then there to Molotov or not… I’d be surprised if there isn’t a Uni degree in it somewhere (not Russell Group, of course).
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
“Albanians have no business here at all”? What, any of them? Oh, ok. You’re just an old school racist and I can ignore you.
Another reason to abolish the coronation, it's going to be hijacked.
The Church of England plans to use the King’s coronation ceremony as a “unique opportunity” to convert people to Christianity and has released prayers asking God to “pour abundant gifts” on the new monarch.
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Most Revs Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell, have described the coronation as a “unique missional opportunity” to showcase “rich Christian symbols and values” to a global audience, hoping that it will help people to “encounter Jesus”.
The church has also released an information pack with details for 28 days of prayer between Easter day on April 9 and coronation day on May 6 so the nation can engage in “spiritual preparation alongside the King”.
Good to see that the C of E tradition for housing otherworldly eccentrics still flourishes.
I’m interested (as an atheist) as to how the Head Shed of a religion using a religious ceremony, in his number one venue, for recruitment is “hijacking”.
Isn’t that his job?
I'm more interested in how he thinks the coronation might convert anyone at all.
It really is a very odd idea.
Yes - "I was against the concept of thr monarchy, but the sheer magnificence of the ceremony won me over" - hard to imagine that's going to be a massive group.
It isn't trying to convert republicans to monarchists, the focus is more on converting agnostic monarchists to Christian monarchists from the Church of England's point of view (and Welby is on the evangelical wing of the Church of England after all).
Given about 2/3 of the UK population are monarchists still but only 47% of the UK population are now Christians that is nearly 20% of the UK population for the Church of England to target and only a minority of them will be from other faiths or confirmed atheists
6% say they are actually practising.
Less than 1% attend Church on a typical week.
47% ticked a box.
5% attend a Christian church every week, whether Anglican, Roman Catholic or non Anglican evangelical. Roman Catholics have the highest attendance rate and Pentecostals the highest attendance growth.
Though more go once you include those who go only for Christmas, Easter or Mothering Sunday, weddings, baptisms and funerals
That appears to be nearly 10 years out of date, and importantly pre-covid, where a lot of the habitual attendees just stopped going.
And weddings, baptisms and christenings? Really?
Everyone should, by law, still have to be married in the Church of England Church as in the good old days before 1837.
And they should all have to hire an organist, who gets £500 for turning up and £750 more for playing the fucking awful bullshit they usually choose as music.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
Agreed. There are some on this site who seem to think the changes of the last 50 years are a bad thing though with barely concealed nativist sentiments.
When the Ukrainians take Moscow, perhaps they’ll make it a more multicultural place….
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
“Albanians have no business here at all”? What, any of them? Oh, ok. You’re just an old school racist and I can ignore you.
Its not a racist thing....they aren't refugees, albania isnt at civil war last I heard....why are they therefore arriving on boats claiming to be refugees. Albanians can apply for normal migrant status which is I believe you need a job paying a mere 26k a year. They have no business being on boats
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
Hospital/ Social Care I imagine. Great people to work with, professional and industrious.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
“Albanians have no business here at all”? What, any of them? Oh, ok. You’re just an old school racist and I can ignore you.
Its not a racist thing....they aren't refugees, albania isnt at civil war last I heard....why are they therefore arriving on boats claiming to be refugees. Albanians can apply for normal migrant status which is I believe you need a job paying a mere 26k a year. They have no business being on boats
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
Looks like Cumbria rather than Lancashire. Seafarers from Barrow?
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
The Yiddish enclave in Essex must have a hell of a story too
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
“Albanians have no business here at all”? What, any of them? Oh, ok. You’re just an old school racist and I can ignore you.
Its not a racist thing....they aren't refugees, albania isnt at civil war last I heard....why are they therefore arriving on boats claiming to be refugees. Albanians can apply for normal migrant status which is I believe you need a job paying a mere 26k a year. They have no business being on boats
That was rather the point of my first post, that you were replying to. I’d get rid of all those barriers… we should want these folk.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
The Yiddish enclave in Essex must have a hell of a story too
Got rich, moved out of London to somewhere big houses are cheap(er)?
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
It's also hyperbole to imply that nobody would want to do this. The actual figure is somewhere between 0% and 100%, and given that we are talking about very large numbers, it doesn't need to be a very big percentage to constitute a population that we couldn't assimilate.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
The Yiddish enclave in Essex must have a hell of a story too
Hyuffd rescued them on boats from Germany in 1939.
Gallup has some recent numbers on would-be immigrants to the US from Latin America: "Roughly 466 million adults live in the countries that make up Latin America and the Caribbean. Gallup has interviewed residents in these countries each year for the past 16 years, asking adults if they would like to move to another country permanently if they could.
In 2022, 30% said "yes." This means roughly 140 million Latin Americans would like to move permanently to another country -- if they could.
Gallup then asked where they would like to move.
Of those who want to leave their country permanently, 33% -- or 46 million -- said they want to move to the United States."
That looks much more like what we used to call a helicopter. Definitely not a car that drives on the street.
Somewhat ironically, a true flying car is further away now than it’s even been, mostly due to car regulations making them a lot heavier now than in the past.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Nice to see Yiddish still features, and a curious island of Tagalog in South Cumbia.
There’s a community of Orthodox Jews on Canvey Island.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
“Albanians have no business here at all”? What, any of them? Oh, ok. You’re just an old school racist and I can ignore you.
Its not a racist thing....they aren't refugees, albania isnt at civil war last I heard....why are they therefore arriving on boats claiming to be refugees. Albanians can apply for normal migrant status which is I believe you need a job paying a mere 26k a year. They have no business being on boats
That was rather the point of my first post, that you were replying to. I’d get rid of all those barriers… we should want these folk.
With migrants we should want net contributors.....what we dont need is minimum wage migrants. They don't add to net revenue all they do is supress wages. Have a job where you are a net gain come by all means....have a job where you aren't and sorry most minimum wage jobs aren't then all you are doing is providing an unlimited labour pool to keep those jobs min wage
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
The Yiddish enclave in Essex must have a hell of a story too
Hyuffd rescued them on boats from Germany in 1939.
I don’t think they ever did a swimming conversion for the Covenanter tank….
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
A question for the great and good here. (Hopefully this hasn't already been discussed)
IDS has just been on BBC news discussing Partygate and made an interesting claim that I have not heard before.
He said that Erskine May says that an MP is guilty if they 'knowingly' mislead Parliament but that the Standards Committee have widened the remit and said that misleading in itself is enough to find Johnson guilty, whether it was knowingly or unknowingly.
So a few questions arise.
- is IDS right that Erskine May says it specifically has to be knowingly? - if so have the committee widened the brief (without allowing Parliament to debate a rule change)? - Does it matter? Is Erskine May guidance or rules? - if the committee do find him guilty of misleading the House but decide it was not intentional, should they still be able to punish him?
Personally I would like them to throw the book at him as I think he did it all knowingly but I would be uncomfortable if they have bent the rules to do that.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Nice to see Yiddish still features, and a curious island of Tagalog in South Cumbia.
I am surprised that the area around Boston isn't Portuguese. It has one of the largest European populations of Portuguese outside the Iberian Peninsular.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
The Yiddish enclave in Essex must have a hell of a story too
Hyuffd rescued them on boats from Germany in 1939.
I don’t think they ever did a swimming conversion for the Covenanter tank….
Didn’t need it. Used the “little boats” which as we will all agree are better than “the small boats”.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
Tommy R. Is that you?
No you are looking in the mirror it was you and the remainers who preferred white european immigrants over duskier people. I on the other hand have said you are a net contributor I dont care your skin colour or creed etc....you are the only racist arsehole here
A question for the great and good here. (Hopefully this hasn't already been discussed)
IDS has just been on BBC news discussing Partygate and made an interesting claim that I have not heard before.
He said that Erskine May says that an MP is guilty if they 'knowingly' mislead Parliament but that the Standards Committee have widened the remit and said that misleading in itself is enough to find Johnson guilty, whether it was knowingly or unknowingly.
So a few questions arise.
- is IDS right that Erskine May says it specifically has to be knowingly? - if so have the committee widened the brief (without allowing Parliament to debate a rule change)? - Does it matter? Is Erskine May guidance or rules? - if the committee do find him guilty of misleading the House but decide it was not intentional, should they still be able to punish him?
Personally I would like them to throw the book at him as I think he did it all knowingly but I would be uncomfortable if they have bent the rules to do that.
Extended knowingly to recklessly to get over you can't prove what is in someones mind aiui.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
Tommy R. Is that you?
What with Pagan and Cookie its the Tommy Robinson and Nick Griffin show.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
“Albanians have no business here at all”? What, any of them? Oh, ok. You’re just an old school racist and I can ignore you.
Its not a racist thing....they aren't refugees, albania isnt at civil war last I heard....why are they therefore arriving on boats claiming to be refugees. Albanians can apply for normal migrant status which is I believe you need a job paying a mere 26k a year. They have no business being on boats
That was rather the point of my first post, that you were replying to. I’d get rid of all those barriers… we should want these folk.
With migrants we should want net contributors.....what we dont need is minimum wage migrants. They don't add to net revenue all they do is supress wages. Have a job where you are a net gain come by all means....have a job where you aren't and sorry most minimum wage jobs aren't then all you are doing is providing an unlimited labour pool to keep those jobs min wage
“Give me your tired, Your [filthy rich], Your [oligarchs] yearning to breathe free, The [best, most well trained people you’ve got], Send these [monied people with 12 houses on 3 continents], I lift my lamp beside the golden door”!
I don’t think it scans as well….. Might not have worked as well either.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
“Albanians have no business here at all”? What, any of them? Oh, ok. You’re just an old school racist and I can ignore you.
Its not a racist thing....they aren't refugees, albania isnt at civil war last I heard....why are they therefore arriving on boats claiming to be refugees. Albanians can apply for normal migrant status which is I believe you need a job paying a mere 26k a year. They have no business being on boats
That was rather the point of my first post, that you were replying to. I’d get rid of all those barriers… we should want these folk.
With migrants we should want net contributors.....what we dont need is minimum wage migrants. They don't add to net revenue all they do is supress wages. Have a job where you are a net gain come by all means....have a job where you aren't and sorry most minimum wage jobs aren't then all you are doing is providing an unlimited labour pool to keep those jobs min wage
And yet right now we can't get enough people from inside this country to do all those minimum wage jobs - the sorts of jobs that are vital to the running of our society but which no one seems to want to do. If you don't import that labour, how do you fill those vacancies in an aging population?
On immigration, can I just take two minutes to voice this unpopular and seldom said opinion?
If someone has the balls and the drive to find their way out of a country in an unstable region, and run the gauntlet of people smugglers, get across the channel in weather P&O wouldn’t dream of sailing in, all whilst not knowing if they will ever see their family again, all for a dream of living in the U.K.; I want them here.
That’s exactly who we need. I’d want to actively compete for them except we don’t need to - they choose us even though we are horrible to them.
Ah yes just want we want, people who associate with criminals and are happy to break the law....who could want anyone better?
Thank you for demonstrating my point.
Given a lot of them 40 odd percent are albanian are gangsters being brought in for country lines and a good percentage of the others are victims of people traffickers then yes sorry fuck off they aren't an advantage to the country they are a pustulent sore that needs lancing
Try some criticial thinking one day, you might enjoy it. You have cause and effect the wrong way around. Precisely because they are driven into the hands of criminals, they are at risk of incurring a “debt” and being drawn in. Be more open and we get them first.
You might wish to try a little of that critical thinking yourself. Intemperate though Pagan's language is, the point he raises is a valid one. You need to ask yourself why someone from Albania would want to pay £500 to a trafficker to undertake a risky sea voyage in a leaky dinghy, when there are cheap flights from Tirana to whichever UK airport takes their fancy. The only logical answer I can think of is that they do not wish their passport to be checked and their image be registered on a database - but I am open to alternative explanations.
A question for the great and good here. (Hopefully this hasn't already been discussed)
IDS has just been on BBC news discussing Partygate and made an interesting claim that I have not heard before.
He said that Erskine May says that an MP is guilty if they 'knowingly' mislead Parliament but that the Standards Committee have widened the remit and said that misleading in itself is enough to find Johnson guilty, whether it was knowingly or unknowingly.
So a few questions arise.
- is IDS right that Erskine May says it specifically has to be knowingly? - if so have the committee widened the brief (without allowing Parliament to debate a rule change)? - Does it matter? Is Erskine May guidance or rules? - if the committee do find him guilty of misleading the House but decide it was not intentional, should they still be able to punish him?
Personally I would like them to throw the book at him as I think he did it all knowingly but I would be uncomfortable if they have bent the rules to do that.
Extended knowingly to recklessly to get over you can't prove what is in someones mind aiui.
But should not those changes have been discussed and passed by Parliament itself? Or does EM not work that way?
Thanks to @NickyBreakspear for his polling analysis - my only question is whether any weighting is given to sample size. Only Savanta, YouGov and Redfield & Wilton sample more than 2,000 people - some of the pollsters have to my mind very small samples which may or may not explain the volatility.
We're also seeing the return of the "shy Tory" syndrome. Apparently, and you wouldn't think it on here, some people are embarrassed to admit they support the Conservatives so the polls are under-estimating the Conservatives some of whom hide behind Don't Know or my even claim to be Labour supporters.
Okay - the next thing is "well, people may say they're voting Labour but in the privacy of the polling booth the pencil will find its way to the Conservative candidate".
This is again part of the "1992 not 1997" narrative which is being spun by some of the Conservative supporters.
To be fair, Omnisis isn't a bad poll and especially I'd argue looking at the supplementaries where Sunak's quiet managerialism is seeing some benefits. I'd also argue the failure of the sky to cave in as some feared over winter (though I think it's been a difficult time for many people) and the natural optimism spring brings are probably also factors.
I'm sure Starmer and Labour have recognised this and their response to it is understandably more on the overall record of the Government and perhaps they need to remind people how close Sunk once was to Johnson and how he (Sunak) was at the very centre of the Government during the pandemic.
There isn't that much difference in accuracy between a sample of 500 and 2,000.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
FPT. Sorry I wasn't able to reply. I like your sentiments but the proof of the pudding is in the Prime Minister's appointment of Suella Braverman. Her statements about the people in dinghies have been pretty disgusting yet considered to be just what the Red Wallers want to hear to bring them back on side. If they were unattractive to that vital voting block I'm sure Sunak would have removed her.
Or Sunak recognises that the Red Wall could be lost either way and Suella is there to appeal to more traditionally blue seats to keep them happy and in the blue column.
The kind of seats from which all these comments projecting onto the Red Wall their own prejudices seem to be coming from anyway.
I can't think of a single commentator on this site from a Red Wall seat who is expressing those views or endorsing Suella Braverman. Those who seem to be doing so, seem to be in more typically safe blue seats than Red Wall seats.
Red Wall has become a flippant byline for people's own prejudices rather than thinking seriously about what people here actually want.
Hear hear, as someone who lives in a red wall seat I can only echo this. I would also go as far to say I have never heard anyone express a view on it. Issues like pay, fuel bills, availability of groceries for sure but not boat people.
People like Rogerdamus just have a passionate dislike for anything red wall blaming the red wall for Brexit. But your debating what people in the Red Wall think with a guy who spends half his life in France. He won't know, as you say it is people projecting.
The Red Wall is not a place, it's a type of voter. Specifically those who voted Tory for the 1st time in 2019 through genuine enthusiasm for Boris and his Brexit. These people delivered the big Con win and have been identified by both parties as key to the next election too. They will typically be Hard Leavers, quite nationalistic, anti-empathetic to migrants and refugees. The rhetoric designed to appeal to them can therefore cause the nose to wrinkle but we may as well get used to it, at least for the next 18 months.
Is it possible for politicians to do anything to stop the boats without causing the nose to wrinkle?
My understanding is that the vast majority of those crossing the channel illegally are not - in any sense of the word we would understand - refugees. And my view is that their arrival is not really a positive for the country - nor indeed (though this is less of my business) for their country of origin (i.e. Albania etc.). So I'd quite like something done which prevents their arrival. The Rwanda policy might disappoint many, but it does at least have the merit of being any policy at all, which is a welcome contrast to the last 30 years of immigration policy. For the record, I'm happy to welcome the likes of the Ukrainians, who are clearly genuine refugees.
You might take a different view on the desirability of the arrival of illegal immigrants, but I don't think my view is extreme or in any way 'wrong' to hold. Wrinkling your nose in distaste at the view that the crossings ought to be prevented is not particularly helpful.
A policy of dealing with the current backlog and promptly processing applications, and sending back those who do not have a valid claim, seems acceptable to everyone… except theConservative Party.
Except - practical experience has shown us that that's even less plausible than the Rwanda option. There needs to be something to deter people coming in the first place. Without that, the whole 3rd world beats a path to our door.
This sounds like you're cagily viewing the billions of people in less developed countries as some gigantic mono-mass of humanity so purely driven by monetary concerns that they'd all migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. I doubt this is the case myself. I think most people prefer to make a life in their own country.
To be clear, I do, a bit, and I don't mean to do so pejoratively. If I lived in Chad or Eritrea or Somalia I'd migrate thousands of miles to Manchester given half the chance. Mind you, if I lived in Coventry or Tunbridge Wells or Stoke I'd migrate the dozens of miles to Manchester given half the chance. 'Cos Manchester's boss. Nice one, our kid.
Top place obviously. About time I visited it again. It's been too long. But I do think you're underestimating how similar people all over the world are. Just as we are attached to our patch so are they. I don't buy this "4 billion are chomping at the bit to come here and they will if we let our guard down" type rhetoric. I think it's mainly a strawman debating technique of anti-immigrationers.
From being in Peru, having Peruvian relatives etc. you’d get 20%+ who would board a plane tomorrow, if they thought they could stay and get a job.
I’m talking “run for the plane without a second thought”.
I will have to take your word for this. Obviously we can't accept 7m from Peru.
The problem that some people have is that they see economic migrant as a pejorative label.
Everyone you meet in Peru sees getting to a First World country as a first step to getting Rich. You have to work, but there are the examples of those who've built home in Peru after making it big overseas. Houses with £1000 stainless steel taps in the kitchen and all the Mayfair style stuff.
The same is true of many other countries.
If you stay - the opportunities are limited. It may be hard for you to believe, but countries like Peru have much less opportunity for a someone at the bottom to rise, than say, the UK.
I can certainly believe that, yes. Also that many would migrate to the West if they could. But in general they also have strong ties to their own country, don't they. Same elsewhere. That literally billions of people are ready to up-sticks and cross the globe to come and live here is an exaggeration imo.
There are literally billions of people who would move across the world for a better life.
Minimum wage in the UK is 5 times higher than the global median salary, putting you in the top 8%, so there’s over seven billion people poorer than you.
I know how stupidly rich we in the UK are compared to most of humanity. But does this mean 'billions' would move here regardless of their ties to home and all the other non-financial factors? It's not an easy thing to quantify but I truly doubt it.
As an example, 10% of the GDP of the Philippines is money remitted by Filipinos working abroad, 2m people, 2% of the population.
If only 2% of the seven billion decide to move around, that’s 140m people.
It's a big issue and only going to get bigger with the global inequalities we have and with climate change. However I've been responding to "the whole of the 3rd world would beat a path to our door if they could". This is hyperbole imo, feeds a seize mentality, is used to justify policies and rhetoric that I find not justifiable at all.
After all, it is hard to conceive a world where people poured out of Europe, to all the continents of the world, displacing or overwhelming local cultures in pursuit of economic advantage, travelling by boats that the indigenous people couldn't stop.
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
Exactly. Mass immigration is seldom good news for the host population. Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
I think from this we can glean you are against the mass immigration and diversity of the last 50 years and you think Britain was better in the 1950s when it was nearly all white.
It's the combination of North American, Continental European and Afro-Asian influences since the late 1950's that have made Britain more interesting.
On that subject, this map of second languages according to the census is quite fascinating. I am not surprised at it being Gujerati around Leicester, but it seems that nearly exclusive to my Manor.
Must be a fascinating story behind the Filipino enclave in Lancashire.
The Yiddish enclave in Essex must have a hell of a story too
Got rich, moved out of London to somewhere big houses are cheap(er)?
Basically, yes, although Canvey is getting a bit more expensive than it was.
On immigration, can I just take two minutes to voice this unpopular and seldom said opinion?
If someone has the balls and the drive to find their way out of a country in an unstable region, and run the gauntlet of people smugglers, get across the channel in weather P&O wouldn’t dream of sailing in, all whilst not knowing if they will ever see their family again, all for a dream of living in the U.K.; I want them here.
That’s exactly who we need. I’d want to actively compete for them except we don’t need to - they choose us even though we are horrible to them.
Ah yes just want we want, people who associate with criminals and are happy to break the law....who could want anyone better?
Thank you for demonstrating my point.
Given a lot of them 40 odd percent are albanian are gangsters being brought in for country lines and a good percentage of the others are victims of people traffickers then yes sorry fuck off they aren't an advantage to the country they are a pustulent sore that needs lancing
Try some criticial thinking one day, you might enjoy it. You have cause and effect the wrong way around. Precisely because they are driven into the hands of criminals, they are at risk of incurring a “debt” and being drawn in. Be more open and we get them first.
You might wish to try a little of that critical thinking yourself. Intemperate though Pagan's language is, the point he raises is a valid one. You need to ask yourself why someone from Albania would want to pay £500 to a trafficker to undertake a risky sea voyage in a leaky dinghy, when there are cheap flights from Tirana to whichever UK airport takes their fancy. The only logical answer I can think of is that they do not wish their passport to be checked and their image be registered on a database - but I am open to alternative explanations.
Because we wouldn’t let them in to stay…. sort of my point.
On immigration, can I just take two minutes to voice this unpopular and seldom said opinion?
If someone has the balls and the drive to find their way out of a country in an unstable region, and run the gauntlet of people smugglers, get across the channel in weather P&O wouldn’t dream of sailing in, all whilst not knowing if they will ever see their family again, all for a dream of living in the U.K.; I want them here.
That’s exactly who we need. I’d want to actively compete for them except we don’t need to - they choose us even though we are horrible to them.
Ah yes just want we want, people who associate with criminals and are happy to break the law....who could want anyone better?
Thank you for demonstrating my point.
Given a lot of them 40 odd percent are albanian are gangsters being brought in for country lines and a good percentage of the others are victims of people traffickers then yes sorry fuck off they aren't an advantage to the country they are a pustulent sore that needs lancing
Try some criticial thinking one day, you might enjoy it. You have cause and effect the wrong way around. Precisely because they are driven into the hands of criminals, they are at risk of incurring a “debt” and being drawn in. Be more open and we get them first.
You might wish to try a little of that critical thinking yourself. Intemperate though Pagan's language is, the point he raises is a valid one. You need to ask yourself why someone from Albania would want to pay £500 to a trafficker to undertake a risky sea voyage in a leaky dinghy, when there are cheap flights from Tirana to whichever UK airport takes their fancy. The only logical answer I can think of is that they do not wish their passport to be checked and their image be registered on a database - but I am open to alternative explanations.
Simple. You cannot even get on a flight from Tirana to the UK if you do not have a valid visa. The airlines are held responsible for anyone they allow on their flights who do not have a valid visa/permit to enter the UK. No visa, no flight.
Err no albanians have no business here full stop. Be fucking less open and stop telling poor people they have to share meagre services between more and more people who aren't paying a single shekel
“Albanians have no business here at all”? What, any of them? Oh, ok. You’re just an old school racist and I can ignore you.
Its not a racist thing....they aren't refugees, albania isnt at civil war last I heard....why are they therefore arriving on boats claiming to be refugees. Albanians can apply for normal migrant status which is I believe you need a job paying a mere 26k a year. They have no business being on boats
That was rather the point of my first post, that you were replying to. I’d get rid of all those barriers… we should want these folk.
With migrants we should want net contributors.....what we dont need is minimum wage migrants. They don't add to net revenue all they do is supress wages. Have a job where you are a net gain come by all means....have a job where you aren't and sorry most minimum wage jobs aren't then all you are doing is providing an unlimited labour pool to keep those jobs min wage
And yet right now we can't get enough people from inside this country to do all those minimum wage jobs - the sorts of jobs that are vital to the running of our society but which no one seems to want to do. If you don't import that labour, how do you fill those vacancies in an aging population?
Immigration is a ponzi scheme...we need to learn how to live with a falling population. Africa is more or less the only place in the world with an above replacement birthrate....I suspect eventually it will catch up and have a falling rate too just like many developing countries have....what do we do then? Now is the right time to work it out how to deal with declining populations not when it becomes obvious that immigration is not a sustainable answer. There are undoubtedly tough questions ahead but the sooner we face them the less we hit a brick wall in the future
Comments
Just imagine what the world would have been like if that had happened.
I got mine from an overweight SWFC supporter called John in 2020 I think he was an SKS fan!
However again they aren't the group to be targeted anyway, that is agnostic monarchists.
No people who get married in church and attend church weddings aren't the same as those who go to Church each Sunday, hence the fees from weddings and burials and extra collections from the larger congregations at Baptisms, Easter and Christmas provide valuable extra income for Parish churches
You'd really prefer this to Newham?
Not sure how that conversation will go.
source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Sri_Lanka#:~:text=Near future estimates of drought,by increased temperatures and evaporation.
I bet HYUFD has me added into his Christian numbers as soon as i press post comment
It was St John the Baptist in Tideswell.
Apparently some C of E people reckon its "The Cathedral of the Peak"
I was thinking of putting a Tripadvisor review in "Nice Windows but not worth going to unless you are visiting Elliotts Fish and Chip Shop"
What do PBers think?
Thanks to @NickyBreakspear for his polling analysis - my only question is whether any weighting is given to sample size. Only Savanta, YouGov and Redfield & Wilton sample more than 2,000 people - some of the pollsters have to my mind very small samples which may or may not explain the volatility.
We're also seeing the return of the "shy Tory" syndrome. Apparently, and you wouldn't think it on here, some people are embarrassed to admit they support the Conservatives so the polls are under-estimating the Conservatives some of whom hide behind Don't Know or my even claim to be Labour supporters.
Okay - the next thing is "well, people may say they're voting Labour but in the privacy of the polling booth the pencil will find its way to the Conservative candidate".
This is again part of the "1992 not 1997" narrative which is being spun by some of the Conservative supporters.
To be fair, Omnisis isn't a bad poll and especially I'd argue looking at the supplementaries where Sunak's quiet managerialism is seeing some benefits. I'd also argue the failure of the sky to cave in as some feared over winter (though I think it's been a difficult time for many people) and the natural optimism spring brings are probably also factors.
I'm sure Starmer and Labour have recognised this and their response to it is understandably more on the overall record of the Government and perhaps they need to remind people how close Sunk once was to Johnson and how he (Sunak) was at the very centre of the Government during the pandemic.
Britain is a nation of immigrants. But the arrival of the Anglo Saxons didn't work out brilliantly for the Britons. And the arrival of the Vikings didn't work out brilliantly for the Anglo Saxons.
It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t lived it - it still, very much a society based on people staying at the level they are at. Much of the world is like that. State provided university for half the population isn’t even on the horizon of their wildest dreams. A tiny few go to university.
Poor people don’t sit around admiring the view. They are busy trying to stay alive.
https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1638476653968891904?s=20
Actually during my John Wick 4 film yesterday i visited the Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre
My review was "A lot of steps not as good per step as the Eiffel Tower".
It is why the biggest migratory moves are within a country, generally to the commercial or political capitol. It still happens here, but even more so in poor countries. It is Mumbai, Lagos or Lima that those seeking their fortunes tend to go.
I grant you less crime in rural Cambodia. Less lots of things in rural Cambodia.
The expression "money talks, men walk" is no coincidence. From the agricultural workers who left their villages to come to the first factories in the 18th century or other examples throughout history, the truth is those wanting a better life for themselves and their families will be drawn to where they believe the wealth is.
There's a bit more to it than that because you could then ask why there aren't boatloads heading to Saudi, Oman, Qatar and the rest of the Arab world given their wealth so it's not just money but a lifestyle which allows personal economic and political freedom beyond that possible at home (and especially if you don't belong to the ruling group, tribe, family or elite).
Life certainly feels perkier, and the sun is coming out... but I wonder how long that will last. We've just had the two months where we don't pay Council Tax direct debits; that's quite a lot of money not coming out of accounts in January and February. And I've just had an email from my energy supplier saying that my direct debit is going up by £66 to compensate for the government support scheme ending. And whilst some public sector strikes look like they are ending, others are just beginning.
https://twitter.com/Agitate4Change/status/1639240573377982464
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65069823
What they do have though, is a working immigration system. As in, if you’re not working you don’t get in, and you leave when you’ve finished your work. And you’ll never be Emirati.
Brexit, at least in its cultural politics rather than constitutional aspect, was partly an attempt to deny the idiosyncratic reality of all this. The Britain of the 1950's was deeply drab.
Many of who are treated totally and utterly abominably. Yet there is no shortage of applicants.
Nice to see Yiddish still features, and a curious island of Tagalog in South Cumbia.
I’d be surprised if there isn’t a Uni degree in it somewhere (not Russell Group, of course).
My review of the Cafe was "2nd best Snails ever. Only beaten by the ones at Joyland in Great Yarmouth"
https://twitter.com/ThemeParkWW/status/1296042674819084289/photo/1
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/03/united-airlines-reveals-first-evtol-passenger-route-starting-in-2025/
"Roughly 466 million adults live in the countries that make up Latin America and the Caribbean. Gallup has interviewed residents in these countries each year for the past 16 years, asking adults if they would like to move to another country permanently if they could.
In 2022, 30% said "yes." This means roughly 140 million Latin Americans would like to move permanently to another country -- if they could.
Gallup then asked where they would like to move.
Of those who want to leave their country permanently, 33% -- or 46 million -- said they want to move to the United States."
source: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/468074/message-million-latin-americans.aspx
(The current population of the United States is about 334.5 million.)
Somewhat ironically, a true flying car is further away now than it’s even been, mostly due to car regulations making them a lot heavier now than in the past.
A question for the great and good here. (Hopefully this hasn't already been discussed)
IDS has just been on BBC news discussing Partygate and made an interesting claim that I have not heard before.
He said that Erskine May says that an MP is guilty if they 'knowingly' mislead Parliament but that the Standards Committee have widened the remit and said that misleading in itself is enough to find Johnson guilty, whether it was knowingly or unknowingly.
So a few questions arise.
- is IDS right that Erskine May says it specifically has to be knowingly?
- if so have the committee widened the brief (without allowing Parliament to debate a rule change)?
- Does it matter? Is Erskine May guidance or rules?
- if the committee do find him guilty of misleading the House but decide it was not intentional, should they still be able to punish him?
Personally I would like them to throw the book at him as I think he did it all knowingly but I would be uncomfortable if they have bent the rules to do that.
Your [filthy rich],
Your [oligarchs] yearning to breathe free,
The [best, most well trained people you’ve got],
Send these [monied people with 12 houses on 3 continents],
I lift my lamp beside the golden door”!
I don’t think it scans as well….. Might not have worked as well either.
https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/calculating-sample-size/