Who also run LNER which is always full and rather profitable (don't know exactly how much but it's a stick I know they beat Aventi West Coast with all the time).
Just to do this one more time, this issue with the East Coast franchise wasn't that it wasn't profitable when privatised, it's that it wasn't profitable enough. Now, you can argue that the franchising system allowed private companies to gamble and then walk away, but the state isn't somehow massively better at running the operation than the private companies were.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
Come the GE I doubt this kind of thing will really impact on voting much though.
Events like today's interest rate rise, whilst small in itself, are the vote losers. The pinch is being felt by everyone except a few, who seem to be represented on here I note! And one or two who have mocked my flask filling from a kettle might like to hear that my entire monthly utility bill is now £45. Frugality pays.
The answer is and always has been higher productivity.
Country's don't get rich by holding down productivity and wages while increasing house prices.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
That's what I'd like to happen, and in exchange we take a proportion of those in France to a quota we agree (and only the most vulnerable) and in exchange we use our navy and border forces to help France secure theirs.
But, it requires Macron's cooperation and is probably politically difficult with Le Pen breathing down his neck.
The Royal Navy can't secure the British border (because no politician has the guts to order tow backs) so why are they going to be able to secure the French border?
Towbacks to Calais should be fine, if the French agree.
Towbacks in the Med would come under French command.
Hire the Libyan Coastguard. It’s the European solution, after all..
Perfectly moral and humane. Remember, it’s only bad when the British do it.
Sunaks going to have to have inflation under control in order for me (And millions of others) as a major factor in voting come the next GE tbh
Inflation will not return to the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target until late 2025, according to a new forecast which warns that interest rates risk being “higher for longer”.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, one of the country’s oldest independent think tanks, expects the current double-digit rate of inflation to fall to 5.4 per cent by the end of the year, falling short of the government’s aim to halve the headline rate of consumer price growth this year. The think tank’s forecast is also above the 3.9 per cent inflation rate the Bank expected for the end of the year in its last projections made in February.
The institute said inflation would only fall to the Bank’s 2 per cent target in the third quarter of 2025. That makes it more pessimistic than the Bank and the Office for Budget Responsibility, who think price growth will fall rapidly in the coming months.
Forecasts eh, look at all the forecasts on here in October/November last year which predicted economic disaster by Spring 2023, how accurate were they?
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
That's what I'd like to happen, and in exchange we take a proportion of those in France to a quota we agree (and only the most vulnerable) and in exchange we use our navy and border forces to help France secure theirs.
But, it requires Macron's cooperation and is probably politically difficult with Le Pen breathing down his neck.
The Royal Navy can't secure the British border (because no politician has the guts to order tow backs) so why are they going to be able to secure the French border?
Towbacks to Calais should be fine, if the French agree.
Towbacks in the Med would come under French command.
Tow backs in the channel don't need French agreement they just need the will to do it. Indonesia didn't agree to tow backs from Australia, they just have to do all the towing in international waters.
If the French were prepared to do tow backs in the Med they wouldn't need the RN to 'help' because the boats would stop within weeks.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Sunaks going to have to have inflation under control in order for me (And millions of others) as a major factor in voting come the next GE tbh
Inflation will not return to the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target until late 2025, according to a new forecast which warns that interest rates risk being “higher for longer”.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, one of the country’s oldest independent think tanks, expects the current double-digit rate of inflation to fall to 5.4 per cent by the end of the year, falling short of the government’s aim to halve the headline rate of consumer price growth this year. The think tank’s forecast is also above the 3.9 per cent inflation rate the Bank expected for the end of the year in its last projections made in February.
The institute said inflation would only fall to the Bank’s 2 per cent target in the third quarter of 2025. That makes it more pessimistic than the Bank and the Office for Budget Responsibility, who think price growth will fall rapidly in the coming months.
Forecasts eh, look at all the forecasts on here in October/November last year which predicted economic disaster by Spring 2023, how accurate were they?
There is also something of a trade off here that is not being acknowledged. A recession, all other things being equal, reduces inflation by reducing demand. We are not going to have a recession now, indeed growth is looking quite reasonable so it is not surprising that this is making inflation stickier. Personally, I'd rather have the growth.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
Come the GE I doubt this kind of thing will really impact on voting much though.
Events like today's interest rate rise, whilst small in itself, are the vote losers. The pinch is being felt by everyone except a few, who seem to be represented on here I note! And one or two who have mocked my flask filling from a kettle might like to hear that my entire monthly utility bill is now £45. Frugality pays.
The answer is and always has been higher productivity.
Country's don't get rich by holding down productivity and wages while increasing house prices.
Unfortunately, we only get productivity improvements by investment. Less consumption now to downpay on a better future.
Humanity in general, Britons in particular and British Boomers most of all find that "less consumption now" bit difficult.
Which is why we've spent the last decade looking for bits of furniture to burn.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
You mean the pro-Gollywog set who still vote Tory. They might think that.
People - actual conscious humane thinking people - wonder why we're so angry that the Afghans we abandoned are coming here via boats when there is no legal route to do so.
The tragedy of the recent political period has been the weaponisation of cruelty and ignorance. Happily, as last week showed, that spell is being lifted. For most.
Can we raise the debate above the level of "pro-Gollywog set" please?
We're better than that.
We're really not. Braverman's team told the press that she had berated Essicks police for going after the racist pub. This so alarmed the civil service that they also approached the polis to apologise. Turns out no such berating had happened .
So why did Braverman's team put that out? Because going after Golliwogs was upsetting their voters. In saying "pro-Gollywog voters" I am merely reporting what the actual Conservative Party actually thinks and does.
I don't like the fact they are racist any more than you do. But the racists vote Tory and the racist Braverman is perfectly happy to pander to them.
A splenetic post full of bigotry and prejudice that diminishes you. It is also potentially defamatory.
Get a grip.
Erm which bit is potentially defamatory? Racist pub? Police going after the guy for racist Facebook posts. Braverman's team briefing the press? Self evident as reported as such by the press. Braverman being racist? She fingered all Pakistani men.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Heathener opposes workers having pay rises.
Especially the low paid.
There's a revealing pattern among some people of:
Supporting handouts to the non-working poor Opposing pay rises for the working poor
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
Come the GE I doubt this kind of thing will really impact on voting much though.
Events like today's interest rate rise, whilst small in itself, are the vote losers. The pinch is being felt by everyone except a few, who seem to be represented on here I note! And one or two who have mocked my flask filling from a kettle might like to hear that my entire monthly utility bill is now £45. Frugality pays.
The answer is and always has been higher productivity.
Country's don't get rich by holding down productivity and wages while increasing house prices.
Correct. During the years of freedom of movement labour elasticity was a positive disincentive to productivity growth in this country. It was nearly always cheaper to just employ more labour than to invest in machinery or training. The current "open door" policy continues that error. It may have succeeded in avoiding a recession but it does not do much for our output per head.
Those who are against Sunak offer no solution bar let them continue to arrive. That is unsustainable
That is the reflexive defense. But even if it were true sometimes options can be seen to be wrong or ineffective (or both) even if an alternative solution cannot be offered. We don't go forward with bad ideas just because it's the only idea we have.
Say we had a problem about lack of parking spaces near town centres, and someone proposed a solution of automatically levelling every building at a radius away from the centre to create free land. We wouldn't need a second option in order to reject such a stupid solution.
Obviously people disagree how bad a plan Sunaks plan is. But whilst lack of other solutions is relevant, it doesn't make trying his plan necessary, if it is a bad plan.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
You mean the pro-Gollywog set who still vote Tory. They might think that.
People - actual conscious humane thinking people - wonder why we're so angry that the Afghans we abandoned are coming here via boats when there is no legal route to do so.
The tragedy of the recent political period has been the weaponisation of cruelty and ignorance. Happily, as last week showed, that spell is being lifted. For most.
Can we raise the debate above the level of "pro-Gollywog set" please?
We're better than that.
We're really not. Braverman's team told the press that she had berated Essicks police for going after the racist pub. This so alarmed the civil service that they also approached the polis to apologise. Turns out no such berating had happened .
So why did Braverman's team put that out? Because going after Golliwogs was upsetting their voters. In saying "pro-Gollywog voters" I am merely reporting what the actual Conservative Party actually thinks and does.
I don't like the fact they are racist any more than you do. But the racists vote Tory and the racist Braverman is perfectly happy to pander to them.
A splenetic post full of bigotry and prejudice that diminishes you. It is also potentially defamatory.
Get a grip.
Erm which bit is potentially defamatory? Racist pub? Police going after the guy for racist Facebook posts. Braverman's team briefing the press? Self evident as reported as such by the press. Braverman being racist? She fingered all Pakistani men.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
You mean the pro-Gollywog set who still vote Tory. They might think that.
People - actual conscious humane thinking people - wonder why we're so angry that the Afghans we abandoned are coming here via boats when there is no legal route to do so.
The tragedy of the recent political period has been the weaponisation of cruelty and ignorance. Happily, as last week showed, that spell is being lifted. For most.
Can we raise the debate above the level of "pro-Gollywog set" please?
We're better than that.
We're really not. Braverman's team told the press that she had berated Essicks police for going after the racist pub. This so alarmed the civil service that they also approached the polis to apologise. Turns out no such berating had happened .
So why did Braverman's team put that out? Because going after Golliwogs was upsetting their voters. In saying "pro-Gollywog voters" I am merely reporting what the actual Conservative Party actually thinks and does.
I don't like the fact they are racist any more than you do. But the racists vote Tory and the racist Braverman is perfectly happy to pander to them.
A splenetic post full of bigotry and prejudice that diminishes you. It is also potentially defamatory.
Get a grip.
Erm which bit is potentially defamatory? Racist pub? Police going after the guy for racist Facebook posts. Braverman's team briefing the press? Self evident as reported as such by the press. Braverman being racist? She fingered all Pakistani men.
Figuratively I trust? Or fingeratively even..
Suella, I said a handle not a hand.
Or even, 'when I said handle illegal migrants, that isn't what I meant!'
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
That's what I'd like to happen, and in exchange we take a proportion of those in France to a quota we agree (and only the most vulnerable) and in exchange we use our navy and border forces to help France secure theirs.
But, it requires Macron's cooperation and is probably politically difficult with Le Pen breathing down his neck.
The Royal Navy can't secure the British border (because no politician has the guts to order tow backs) so why are they going to be able to secure the French border?
Towbacks to Calais should be fine, if the French agree.
Towbacks in the Med would come under French command.
Hire the Libyan Coastguard. It’s the European solution, after all..
Perfectly moral and humane. Remember, it’s only bad when the British do it.
And the Libyan Coastguard use their er… rescued refugees as free farm labour.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
So neither safe legal routes and Rwanda won't put unsafe illegal routes out of business while the number of asylum cases grows and grows, and no alternative is being offered. Quick, order more accommodation barges!
Those who are against Sunak offer no solution bar let them continue to arrive. That is unsustainable
That is the reflexive defense. But even if it were true sometimes options can be seen to be wrong or ineffective (or both) even if an alternative solution cannot be offered. We don't go forward with bad ideas just because it's the only idea we have.
Say we had a problem about lack of parking spaces near town centres, and someone proposed a solution of automatically levelling every building at a radius away from the centre to create free land. We wouldn't need a second option in order to reject such a stupid solution.
Obviously people disagree how bad a plan Sunaks plan is. But whilst lack of other solutions is relevant, it doesn't make trying his plan necessary, if it is a bad plan.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
Come the GE I doubt this kind of thing will really impact on voting much though.
Events like today's interest rate rise, whilst small in itself, are the vote losers. The pinch is being felt by everyone except a few, who seem to be represented on here I note! And one or two who have mocked my flask filling from a kettle might like to hear that my entire monthly utility bill is now £45. Frugality pays.
The answer is and always has been higher productivity.
Country's don't get rich by holding down productivity and wages while increasing house prices.
Unfortunately, we only get productivity improvements by investment. Less consumption now to downpay on a better future.
Humanity in general, Britons in particular and British Boomers most of all find that "less consumption now" bit difficult.
Which is why we've spent the last decade looking for bits of furniture to burn.
True but not all investment is the same.
Some investment has a positive return and some doesn't.
And one way investment is more likely to be positive is if the costs of not investing are increasing.
So rising wages leads to investment in labour saving equipment which in return leads to investment in training and higher wages.
Continually adding more unskilled workers able to be exploited has the opposite effect - with in the case of car washing investment and productivity being reversed.
How long will it be relevant to point to the front pages of the print newspapers to indicate how a story is being driven/developed? Newspapers these days are designed to further the debate surrounding the news people got the day before online or (decreasingly) on TV, but on that basis you could equally discuss what was trending on social media.
Doesn't that already happen? Many a bbc story is about what is being said online, possibly by a tiny number of people.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
We need to squeeze our existing labour by incentivising investment and training boosting productivity. The budget played at that but did not, in my view, go nearly far enough.
It's an elephant trap for both major parties. For Labour because Sunak seems to have a plan; for the Tories because Sunak seems to have a plan.
Neither have a plan which could achieve its aim. Because there isn't one in the UK's gift. As a glance at net migration figures will show. Even if 'boats' were sorted, attention would immediately go to the massively higher figures of 'legal' migration.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
I am reminded of a couple (both of GPs) I know. Very well off.
They told me that if they lived back in India, their servants would have servants.
But they were so used to U.K. lifestyle that they couldn’t go back to having servants in the house.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
The problem is that no-one is going to work for £10 or £12 an hour if renting a property costs half the wage as today's ITV news story makes incredibly clear.
As rents increase people can no longer afford to live in the area so eventually the number of workers shrink as those people in lower wage jobs have no choice but to move away.
At which point you get to the situation in places like Beddgelert where you better eat early because the last bus leaves at 9pm and most of the kitchen staff (i.e. those who don't live in / are also doing breakfast) will be on it.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
Come the GE I doubt this kind of thing will really impact on voting much though.
Events like today's interest rate rise, whilst small in itself, are the vote losers. The pinch is being felt by everyone except a few, who seem to be represented on here I note! And one or two who have mocked my flask filling from a kettle might like to hear that my entire monthly utility bill is now £45. Frugality pays.
The answer is and always has been higher productivity.
Country's don't get rich by holding down productivity and wages while increasing house prices.
But you'll probably get reelected if you do that nonetheless.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned. Strikes me there is still a deal to be done with the EU that would allow this to happen and open up Europe once more to our young people.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
You mean the pro-Gollywog set who still vote Tory. They might think that.
People - actual conscious humane thinking people - wonder why we're so angry that the Afghans we abandoned are coming here via boats when there is no legal route to do so.
The tragedy of the recent political period has been the weaponisation of cruelty and ignorance. Happily, as last week showed, that spell is being lifted. For most.
Can we raise the debate above the level of "pro-Gollywog set" please?
We're better than that.
We're really not. Braverman's team told the press that she had berated Essicks police for going after the racist pub. This so alarmed the civil service that they also approached the polis to apologise. Turns out no such berating had happened .
So why did Braverman's team put that out? Because going after Golliwogs was upsetting their voters. In saying "pro-Gollywog voters" I am merely reporting what the actual Conservative Party actually thinks and does.
I don't like the fact they are racist any more than you do. But the racists vote Tory and the racist Braverman is perfectly happy to pander to them.
A splenetic post full of bigotry and prejudice that diminishes you. It is also potentially defamatory.
Get a grip.
Erm which bit is potentially defamatory? Racist pub? Police going after the guy for racist Facebook posts. Braverman's team briefing the press? Self evident as reported as such by the press. Braverman being racist? She fingered all Pakistani men.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
So neither safe legal routes and Rwanda won't put unsafe illegal routes out of business while the number of asylum cases grows and grows, and no alternative is being offered. Quick, order more accommodation barges!
I have said what my solution is before. We need to withdraw from the UN Convention on Asylum and refuse to accept refugees other than the ones we choose to accept (Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese etc). I acknowledge that we cannot do this alone but I think that it is inevitable that this is where the west will end up as the population of Africa explodes over the next couple of decades.
The government's scheme is trying to do this without doing it. The message from the Immigration minister yesterday is that the boats are not a method by which you can get leave to remain in the UK because you will be deported to a safe third country. But its not true. The total capacity of the Rwanda scheme is barely a day's supply of refugees. And we don't have anywhere else at the moment.
The pull factor is the right to claim asylum. If that right is lost then they may stop coming, certainly for economic advantage. Anything else is pretending.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
@TheKitchenCabinet Trump once again said last night 'I don't know her. I have never met her' And that is why the jury doesn't believe him and why he refused to testify, because he was shown, while being interviewed, as we have all seen, the very clear picture of him socialising with her. The man lies every time he opens his mouth.
No doubt a lot of PB Tories will be ready to bash the Bishop over this.
Has anyone bashed the Bishop in this thread?
On the whole people are not going to bash good intentions - and the A of C's intentions are good.
The problem is that where there is no holistic policy and practice that makes sense on a particular issue - and there isn't - the critics of those left holding the baby - who are always the government - do need to take care to present a total picture of their own preferred solutions which don't gloss over their difficulties.
All the options are terrible. The policy question is over which are more and which are less terrible. The A of C throws some but insufficient light on this.
All this talk of labour elasticity and net migration rates leaves me feeling wholly unconvinced. Countries like the USA which have had higher migration rates have experienced higher productivity growth, and countries like Japan which have had much lower immigration rates have tracked along the same course as the UK the past couple of decades, in terms of productivity growth.
I feel like the nuances are being flattened out in favour of a "it's common sense innit" argument that looks flimsy when you start to prod it.
Japan has done significantly worse than us. GDP per capita way down in the league tables where they used to be near the top.
Edit - But more socialism from this so called Tory government.
They are delivering so much of Michael Foot's 1983 manifesto.
That doesn't necessarily provide an instant solution. So many of the fubars were explicit instructions from DfT overlords. Almost none of the remaining private sector operators are actually independent.
Yeah, the government needs to smash the unions.
How does that solve the DfT fucktard overlords problem?
It's an elephant trap for both major parties. For Labour because Sunak seems to have a plan; for the Tories because Sunak seems to have a plan.
Neither have a plan which could achieve its aim. Because there isn't one in the UK's gift. As a glance at net migration figures will show. Even if 'boats' were sorted, attention would immediately go to the massively higher figures of 'legal' migration.
It's not really a trap either. It's a major global problem that impacts on most countries in the world, one way or another.
I would hope that Labour wouldn't carry on the Tory policy of trying to fix it through optics and strong language, and instead looked at the problem through a practical rather than political lens.
Brexit is, and always was, a Cnut's game. The world is changing, as it always has, and attempts to stop it are doomed to failure.
What is surprising is that none of the anti-immigration papers are saying anything about the fact that LEGAL immigration is probably higher now than before we left the EU. All they seem to be worried about are the few, relatively, who have been, perhaps, badly advised and seek to come here by dinghy, most whom, AIUI, qualify as immigrants anyway.
In other news, our nest-box now has two blue-tit chicks and seven eggs, instead of nine eggs!
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned. Strikes me there is still a deal to be done with the EU that would allow this to happen and open up Europe once more to our young people.
The incentive packages being offered around here are now quite remarkable. A £1k signing on bonus for a chef, free food and accommodation from the larger hotels such as Crieff Hydro and rapid increases in wages.
All this in a world where our colleges are not training chefs or hospitality staff because of low demand and offers courses on event management instead. Our education system is not focused on where the work is and is not providing the trained staff we need. It needs sorting out.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
You mean the pro-Gollywog set who still vote Tory. They might think that.
People - actual conscious humane thinking people - wonder why we're so angry that the Afghans we abandoned are coming here via boats when there is no legal route to do so.
The tragedy of the recent political period has been the weaponisation of cruelty and ignorance. Happily, as last week showed, that spell is being lifted. For most.
Can we raise the debate above the level of "pro-Gollywog set" please?
We're better than that.
We're really not. Braverman's team told the press that she had berated Essicks police for going after the racist pub. This so alarmed the civil service that they also approached the polis to apologise. Turns out no such berating had happened .
So why did Braverman's team put that out? Because going after Golliwogs was upsetting their voters. In saying "pro-Gollywog voters" I am merely reporting what the actual Conservative Party actually thinks and does.
I don't like the fact they are racist any more than you do. But the racists vote Tory and the racist Braverman is perfectly happy to pander to them.
A splenetic post full of bigotry and prejudice that diminishes you. It is also potentially defamatory.
Get a grip.
Erm which bit is potentially defamatory? Racist pub? Police going after the guy for racist Facebook posts. Braverman's team briefing the press? Self evident as reported as such by the press. Braverman being racist? She fingered all Pakistani men.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
So neither safe legal routes and Rwanda won't put unsafe illegal routes out of business while the number of asylum cases grows and grows, and no alternative is being offered. Quick, order more accommodation barges!
I have said what my solution is before. We need to withdraw from the UN Convention on Asylum and refuse to accept refugees other than the ones we choose to accept (Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese etc). I acknowledge that we cannot do this alone but I think that it is inevitable that this is where the west will end up as the population of Africa explodes over the next couple of decades.
The government's scheme is trying to do this without doing it. The message from the Immigration minister yesterday is that the boats are not a method by which you can get leave to remain in the UK because you will be deported to a safe third country. But its not true. The total capacity of the Rwanda scheme is barely a day's supply of refugees. And we don't have anywhere else at the moment.
The pull factor is the right to claim asylum. If that right is lost then they may stop coming, certainly for economic advantage. Anything else is pretending.
FWIW I agree that in the long run western countries will do this. How this would be achieved and implemented is somewhere between unthinkable and apocalyptic in a liberal society.
The other big unthinkable step is this: The refugee crisis is caused in the end by terrible governance and wicked wars. One day the western world may simply say that millions of people seeking refuge on account of this justifies imperial style intervention.
The great Matthew Parris (after leaving parliament!) has been onto this issue of unsustainability for quite a few years now. Other liberal voices will join him.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals are deemed superfluous even an impediment.
The ultimate vision of the rich is for the first world working class to be removed from areas the rich might visit.
They are to be replaced by lower cost, more servile migrant workers living in out of site 'dormitories'.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals run the cafes, bars and restaurants. More generally, they tend to earn more than minimum wage - hence the vacancies. But I agree that more housebuilding is needed.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
Isn't the lack of accommodation issue more about very wealthy people from That There London buying up accommodation that they can afford to leave empty for most of the week and most of the year? Gap Year Europeans don't take up much space.
Ultimately, we're not agreeing on what sort of problem Britain has. It could be a maths one, where we've got trapped in a space (fairly unique for rich Western countries) where it's rational to do low investment and low productivity, and we need to fix this by hobbling a degree of freedom to force businesses into making better long term choices. Or it could be a psychological one, where we go for taking as much cash as we can now and screw the future.
Looking at other phenomena (we don't build houses, we let things get shabby, we don't insulate our homes without pressure of a war), it looks more psychological to me. And that's going to be harder to fix.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
So neither safe legal routes and Rwanda won't put unsafe illegal routes out of business while the number of asylum cases grows and grows, and no alternative is being offered. Quick, order more accommodation barges!
I have said what my solution is before. We need to withdraw from the UN Convention on Asylum and refuse to accept refugees other than the ones we choose to accept (Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese etc). I acknowledge that we cannot do this alone but I think that it is inevitable that this is where the west will end up as the population of Africa explodes over the next couple of decades.
The government's scheme is trying to do this without doing it. The message from the Immigration minister yesterday is that the boats are not a method by which you can get leave to remain in the UK because you will be deported to a safe third country. But its not true. The total capacity of the Rwanda scheme is barely a day's supply of refugees. And we don't have anywhere else at the moment.
The pull factor is the right to claim asylum. If that right is lost then they may stop coming, certainly for economic advantage. Anything else is pretending.
FWIW I agree that in the long run western countries will do this. How this would be achieved and implemented is somewhere between unthinkable and apocalyptic in a liberal society.
The other big unthinkable step is this: The refugee crisis is caused in the end by terrible governance and wicked wars. One day the western world may simply say that millions of people seeking refuge on account of this justifies imperial style intervention.
The great Matthew Parris (after leaving parliament!) has been onto this issue of unsustainability for quite a few years now. Other liberal voices will join him.
Was it not (our) terrible governments that initiated the imperial style interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan which resulted in much of the migrant crises? The auguries are not good.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
Isn't the lack of accommodation issue more about very wealthy people from That There London buying up accommodation that they can afford to leave empty for most of the week and most of the year? Gap Year Europeans don't take up much space.
Ultimately, we're not agreeing on what sort of problem Britain has. It could be a maths one, where we've got trapped in a space (fairly unique for rich Western countries) where it's rational to do low investment and low productivity, and we need to fix this by hobbling a degree of freedom to force businesses into making better long term choices. Or it could be a psychological one, where we go for taking as much cash as we can now and screw the future.
Looking at other phenomena (we don't build houses, we let things get shabby, we don't insulate our homes without pressure of a war), it looks more psychological to me. And that's going to be harder to fix.
You can add quarter to quarter business planning to that list.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
So neither safe legal routes and Rwanda won't put unsafe illegal routes out of business while the number of asylum cases grows and grows, and no alternative is being offered. Quick, order more accommodation barges!
I have said what my solution is before. We need to withdraw from the UN Convention on Asylum and refuse to accept refugees other than the ones we choose to accept (Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese etc). I acknowledge that we cannot do this alone but I think that it is inevitable that this is where the west will end up as the population of Africa explodes over the next couple of decades.
The government's scheme is trying to do this without doing it. The message from the Immigration minister yesterday is that the boats are not a method by which you can get leave to remain in the UK because you will be deported to a safe third country. But its not true. The total capacity of the Rwanda scheme is barely a day's supply of refugees. And we don't have anywhere else at the moment.
The pull factor is the right to claim asylum. If that right is lost then they may stop coming, certainly for economic advantage. Anything else is pretending.
FWIW I agree that in the long run western countries will do this. How this would be achieved and implemented is somewhere between unthinkable and apocalyptic in a liberal society.
The other big unthinkable step is this: The refugee crisis is caused in the end by terrible governance and wicked wars. One day the western world may simply say that millions of people seeking refuge on account of this justifies imperial style intervention.
The great Matthew Parris (after leaving parliament!) has been onto this issue of unsustainability for quite a few years now. Other liberal voices will join him.
Your point about some style of imperial intervention, or neo-colonialism, is spot on and an idea I think is very much going to come to the fore in 10-15 years. At the end of the day, many African countries have been independent for 60+ years. How many more years can / will we hear the excuse that their problems are not really their fault?
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals run the cafes, bars and restaurants. More generally, they tend to earn more than minimum wage - hence the vacancies. But I agree that more housebuilding is needed.
The answer for the house building industry will always be more housing because that is where they make their profits.
A better solution would be the return of council housing and the acceptance that market forces are sub-optimal to solve this problem.
Edit - But more socialism from this so called Tory government.
They are delivering so much of Michael Foot's 1983 manifesto.
Nevermind Foot. Further proof that Corbyn, PBUH, won the argument!
BJO, please confirm?
Yes. The Labour manifesto of 2019. Sometimes a work is published that is denigrated when it first appears but with the passage of time grows steadily in reputation until, decades on, it assumes its rightful place as a stone cold classic of its genre. Examples of this are numerous and it looks like we might have another one here.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
Isn't the lack of accommodation issue more about very wealthy people from That There London buying up accommodation that they can afford to leave empty for most of the week and most of the year? Gap Year Europeans don't take up much space.
Ultimately, we're not agreeing on what sort of problem Britain has. It could be a maths one, where we've got trapped in a space (fairly unique for rich Western countries) where it's rational to do low investment and low productivity, and we need to fix this by hobbling a degree of freedom to force businesses into making better long term choices. Or it could be a psychological one, where we go for taking as much cash as we can now and screw the future.
Looking at other phenomena (we don't build houses, we let things get shabby, we don't insulate our homes without pressure of a war), it looks more psychological to me. And that's going to be harder to fix.
I agree with the cultural point. We’re a nation that likes to sweat its assets. In public and private sector, on left and right, remain or brexiteer. Sweating assets and financialising everything.
At this point, isn't it time to bring the entire railway system back into public ownership and have it run like an actual system, as a proper StateCo like DB or SNF?
The ideological move to "nationalise" but actually not do anything useful is classic Tory failure.
If Labour don't get a handle on this they'll lose big time.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals run the cafes, bars and restaurants. More generally, they tend to earn more than minimum wage - hence the vacancies. But I agree that more housebuilding is needed.
The answer for the house building industry will always be more housing because that is where they make their profits.
A better solution would be the return of council housing and the acceptance that market forces are sub-optimal to solve this problem.
The housing shortage is as a result of a deliberate series of policies, which aim limit house building.
Strangely, this results in limited house building.
@TheKitchenCabinet Trump once again said last night 'I don't know her. I have never met her' And that is why the jury doesn't believe him and why he refused to testify, because he was shown, while being interviewed, as we have all seen, the very clear picture of him socialising with her. The man lies every time he opens his mouth.
Pathetic of CNN to give airtime to his lies and repeated libels.
The Archbishop's comments are hardly surprising, Jesus himself was a refugee of course. However I doubt they make any difference to voters' views. Labour will welcome what he said, as will the LDs, many on the right will see him as a 'wishy washy woke' Archbishop again. The polls will see little movement either way
Edit - But more socialism from this so called Tory government.
They are delivering so much of Michael Foot's 1983 manifesto.
PM SKS would re privatise it
BJO are you even here seriously anymore? You add a vital perspective of the traditional left of Labour. But recently I feel like you're just complaining for the sake of it.
You know full well Labour policy is already to bring the railways back into public ownership.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
So neither safe legal routes and Rwanda won't put unsafe illegal routes out of business while the number of asylum cases grows and grows, and no alternative is being offered. Quick, order more accommodation barges!
I have said what my solution is before. We need to withdraw from the UN Convention on Asylum and refuse to accept refugees other than the ones we choose to accept (Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese etc). I acknowledge that we cannot do this alone but I think that it is inevitable that this is where the west will end up as the population of Africa explodes over the next couple of decades.
The government's scheme is trying to do this without doing it. The message from the Immigration minister yesterday is that the boats are not a method by which you can get leave to remain in the UK because you will be deported to a safe third country. But its not true. The total capacity of the Rwanda scheme is barely a day's supply of refugees. And we don't have anywhere else at the moment.
The pull factor is the right to claim asylum. If that right is lost then they may stop coming, certainly for economic advantage. Anything else is pretending.
FWIW I agree that in the long run western countries will do this. How this would be achieved and implemented is somewhere between unthinkable and apocalyptic in a liberal society.
The other big unthinkable step is this: The refugee crisis is caused in the end by terrible governance and wicked wars. One day the western world may simply say that millions of people seeking refuge on account of this justifies imperial style intervention.
The great Matthew Parris (after leaving parliament!) has been onto this issue of unsustainability for quite a few years now. Other liberal voices will join him.
Was it not (our) terrible governments that initiated the imperial style interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan which resulted in much of the migrant crises? The auguries are not good.
Please remember Russia's role in generating refugees. The policy of bombing civilians in Syria, partially carried out by its client, Assad, was a deliberate choice to generate refugee outflows. It coincided with a vicious anti-migrant propaganda push on social media, designed to sow fear of migrants in the countries it was hoping the refugees would flee to, notably Germany and the UK.
Similarly, the less successful attempt to harden western attitudes to refugees coming in through Eastern Europe, carried out by its client in Minsk, in the run-up to the further invasion of Ukraine. They were flying migrants and refugees into Belarus and pointing them at the border, advising them of the position of border patrols, and equipping them to break in.
For all the imperialist meddling that the west has done, we shouldn't carry the blame for all of it, when people like Putin have elevated crisis into policy.
That's a good point. The Belarus situation should have got much more attention, as it was weaponising refugees.
Mogg, passim: we must rid ourselves of these suffocating, oppressive EU laws!
Mogg this am: we must at least rid ourselves of these suffocating, oppressive EU laws which aren't being used!
I have sometimes tried to work out whether Mogg shows that Eton and Oxford are really brilliant and an extraordinary success story or really shit and not worth much.
For 'really brilliant and an extraordinary success story:' if they could get someone as manifestly thick as Mogg through A-levels and a degree and into a fairly successful career then they must have something going for their teaching quality.
For 'really shit and not worth much;' he's still manifestly thick.
On the whole I tend to come down on the 'really shit' side, because the rest can be explained by his family connections. But it's conflicting.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
Isn't the lack of accommodation issue more about very wealthy people from That There London buying up accommodation that they can afford to leave empty for most of the week and most of the year? Gap Year Europeans don't take up much space.
Ultimately, we're not agreeing on what sort of problem Britain has. It could be a maths one, where we've got trapped in a space (fairly unique for rich Western countries) where it's rational to do low investment and low productivity, and we need to fix this by hobbling a degree of freedom to force businesses into making better long term choices. Or it could be a psychological one, where we go for taking as much cash as we can now and screw the future...
Problem for the UK is that our governments are as bad, if not worse than business in making long term investment decisions.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
So neither safe legal routes and Rwanda won't put unsafe illegal routes out of business while the number of asylum cases grows and grows, and no alternative is being offered. Quick, order more accommodation barges!
I have said what my solution is before. We need to withdraw from the UN Convention on Asylum and refuse to accept refugees other than the ones we choose to accept (Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese etc). I acknowledge that we cannot do this alone but I think that it is inevitable that this is where the west will end up as the population of Africa explodes over the next couple of decades.
The government's scheme is trying to do this without doing it. The message from the Immigration minister yesterday is that the boats are not a method by which you can get leave to remain in the UK because you will be deported to a safe third country. But its not true. The total capacity of the Rwanda scheme is barely a day's supply of refugees. And we don't have anywhere else at the moment.
The pull factor is the right to claim asylum. If that right is lost then they may stop coming, certainly for economic advantage. Anything else is pretending.
FWIW I agree that in the long run western countries will do this. How this would be achieved and implemented is somewhere between unthinkable and apocalyptic in a liberal society.
The other big unthinkable step is this: The refugee crisis is caused in the end by terrible governance and wicked wars. One day the western world may simply say that millions of people seeking refuge on account of this justifies imperial style intervention.
The great Matthew Parris (after leaving parliament!) has been onto this issue of unsustainability for quite a few years now. Other liberal voices will join him.
Was it not (our) terrible governments that initiated the imperial style interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan which resulted in much of the migrant crises? The auguries are not good.
Please remember Russia's role in generating refugees. The policy of bombing civilians in Syria, partially carried out by its client, Assad, was a deliberate choice to generate refugee outflows. It coincided with a vicious anti-migrant propaganda push on social media, designed to sow fear of migrants in the countries it was hoping the refugees would flee to, notably Germany and the UK.
Similarly, the less successful attempt to harden western attitudes to refugees coming in through Eastern Europe, carried out by its client in Minsk, in the run-up to the further invasion of Ukraine. They were flying migrants and refugees into Belarus and pointing them at the border, advising them of the position of border patrols, and equipping them to break in.
For all the imperialist meddling that the west has done, we shouldn't carry the blame for all of it, when people like Putin have elevated crisis into policy.
Good point. It’s not just online that Russia seeks to divide the West, and Putin does inded bear a lot of responsibility for the refugee situation.
I think, after several years of sowing the seeds of division, Putin was somewhat surprised at how quickly everyone was united to support the Ukranians against his army. Yes it took the Germans a while to be completely on board, and there’s opposition both right and left in the US for a whole pile of reasons, but there’s no waning of support among Western leaders.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
You mean the pro-Gollywog set who still vote Tory. They might think that.
People - actual conscious humane thinking people - wonder why we're so angry that the Afghans we abandoned are coming here via boats when there is no legal route to do so.
The tragedy of the recent political period has been the weaponisation of cruelty and ignorance. Happily, as last week showed, that spell is being lifted. For most.
Can we raise the debate above the level of "pro-Gollywog set" please?
We're better than that.
We're really not. Braverman's team told the press that she had berated Essicks police for going after the racist pub. This so alarmed the civil service that they also approached the polis to apologise. Turns out no such berating had happened .
So why did Braverman's team put that out? Because going after Golliwogs was upsetting their voters. In saying "pro-Gollywog voters" I am merely reporting what the actual Conservative Party actually thinks and does.
I don't like the fact they are racist any more than you do. But the racists vote Tory and the racist Braverman is perfectly happy to pander to them.
A splenetic post full of bigotry and prejudice that diminishes you. It is also potentially defamatory.
Get a grip.
Erm which bit is potentially defamatory? Racist pub? Police going after the guy for racist Facebook posts. Braverman's team briefing the press? Self evident as reported as such by the press. Braverman being racist? She fingered all Pakistani men.
I'm the first to call out libelous stuff, as I have done in the past with Leon, but there is nothing libelous in that post whatsoever. What bit do you think is?
Casino_Royale is now just trying to get users banned to make this place even more of an echo chamber than it already is. Sad.
Nothing I posted is even potentially libellous. As Casino knows. What he is objecting to is me pointing to the dripping racism infesting what is left of the Tory Party. Because he's not racist, and he's a Tory, so stop saying Tories are racist.
I am not saying Tories as a group are racist. I am saying that the Tories are openly vying for racist voters by doing things which are explicitly racist or pander to racists.
It's a tough one. I too oppose the policy bit can't see how the current policy mix avoids tent cities of young men in every town centre of size. And then the politics will be a lot more rewarding than today.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
You mean the pro-Gollywog set who still vote Tory. They might think that.
People - actual conscious humane thinking people - wonder why we're so angry that the Afghans we abandoned are coming here via boats when there is no legal route to do so.
The tragedy of the recent political period has been the weaponisation of cruelty and ignorance. Happily, as last week showed, that spell is being lifted. For most.
Can we raise the debate above the level of "pro-Gollywog set" please?
We're better than that.
We're really not. Braverman's team told the press that she had berated Essicks police for going after the racist pub. This so alarmed the civil service that they also approached the polis to apologise. Turns out no such berating had happened .
So why did Braverman's team put that out? Because going after Golliwogs was upsetting their voters. In saying "pro-Gollywog voters" I am merely reporting what the actual Conservative Party actually thinks and does.
I don't like the fact they are racist any more than you do. But the racists vote Tory and the racist Braverman is perfectly happy to pander to them.
A splenetic post full of bigotry and prejudice that diminishes you. It is also potentially defamatory.
Get a grip.
Erm which bit is potentially defamatory? Racist pub? Police going after the guy for racist Facebook posts. Braverman's team briefing the press? Self evident as reported as such by the press. Braverman being racist? She fingered all Pakistani men.
I'm the first to call out libelous stuff, as I have done in the past with Leon, but there is nothing libelous in that post whatsoever. What bit do you think is?
TBF, I think it's a bit much to suggest Braverman performed sex acts on every man in Pakistan.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
So neither safe legal routes and Rwanda won't put unsafe illegal routes out of business while the number of asylum cases grows and grows, and no alternative is being offered. Quick, order more accommodation barges!
I have said what my solution is before. We need to withdraw from the UN Convention on Asylum and refuse to accept refugees other than the ones we choose to accept (Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese etc). I acknowledge that we cannot do this alone but I think that it is inevitable that this is where the west will end up as the population of Africa explodes over the next couple of decades.
The government's scheme is trying to do this without doing it. The message from the Immigration minister yesterday is that the boats are not a method by which you can get leave to remain in the UK because you will be deported to a safe third country. But its not true. The total capacity of the Rwanda scheme is barely a day's supply of refugees. And we don't have anywhere else at the moment.
The pull factor is the right to claim asylum. If that right is lost then they may stop coming, certainly for economic advantage. Anything else is pretending.
FWIW I agree that in the long run western countries will do this. How this would be achieved and implemented is somewhere between unthinkable and apocalyptic in a liberal society.
The other big unthinkable step is this: The refugee crisis is caused in the end by terrible governance and wicked wars. One day the western world may simply say that millions of people seeking refuge on account of this justifies imperial style intervention.
The great Matthew Parris (after leaving parliament!) has been onto this issue of unsustainability for quite a few years now. Other liberal voices will join him.
Was it not (our) terrible governments that initiated the imperial style interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan which resulted in much of the migrant crises? The auguries are not good.
That is first in the list of reasons making it unthinkable.
As unthinkable as Russia, following its experience in Afghanistan, might think invading a large and peaceful state in Europe bordering the EU and NATO is a good idea.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
You mean the pro-Gollywog set who still vote Tory. They might think that.
People - actual conscious humane thinking people - wonder why we're so angry that the Afghans we abandoned are coming here via boats when there is no legal route to do so.
The tragedy of the recent political period has been the weaponisation of cruelty and ignorance. Happily, as last week showed, that spell is being lifted. For most.
Can we raise the debate above the level of "pro-Gollywog set" please?
We're better than that.
We're really not. Braverman's team told the press that she had berated Essicks police for going after the racist pub. This so alarmed the civil service that they also approached the polis to apologise. Turns out no such berating had happened .
So why did Braverman's team put that out? Because going after Golliwogs was upsetting their voters. In saying "pro-Gollywog voters" I am merely reporting what the actual Conservative Party actually thinks and does.
I don't like the fact they are racist any more than you do. But the racists vote Tory and the racist Braverman is perfectly happy to pander to them.
A splenetic post full of bigotry and prejudice that diminishes you. It is also potentially defamatory.
Get a grip.
Erm which bit is potentially defamatory? Racist pub? Police going after the guy for racist Facebook posts. Braverman's team briefing the press? Self evident as reported as such by the press. Braverman being racist? She fingered all Pakistani men.
I'm the first to call out libelous stuff, as I have done in the past with Leon, but there is nothing libelous in that post whatsoever. What bit do you think is?
Totally agree. I'm not a fan of Leon but no issues here.
**Edit:** Rochdale made the post, not Leon. Sorry got confused with the thread. But either way don't see the issue.
Who said nobody has an alternative solution to the asylum backlog?
LOL!
(Looks around my city, sees tens of thousands of wealthy Russians, who have fled Putin’s country and taken jobs or set up businesses here).
When the war is finished, most of the Ukranian refugees around the world will go back to rebuild their country. Most of the Russians who have fled, many in top-10% jobs or running businesses, will be happy where they now find themselves, and have little interest in returning to the Motherland.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
Isn't the lack of accommodation issue more about very wealthy people from That There London buying up accommodation that they can afford to leave empty for most of the week and most of the year? Gap Year Europeans don't take up much space.
Ultimately, we're not agreeing on what sort of problem Britain has. It could be a maths one, where we've got trapped in a space (fairly unique for rich Western countries) where it's rational to do low investment and low productivity, and we need to fix this by hobbling a degree of freedom to force businesses into making better long term choices. Or it could be a psychological one, where we go for taking as much cash as we can now and screw the future.
Looking at other phenomena (we don't build houses, we let things get shabby, we don't insulate our homes without pressure of a war), it looks more psychological to me. And that's going to be harder to fix.
The real issue the UK has is that most of the businesses, utilities, etc are owned by foreigners whose only aim is to extract money in dividends and profits. The result of underinvestment does not really affect them because they live elsewhere and when they run the businesses into the ground, the govt steps in and either buys them back or forces someone to buy them and run them.
The UK is now sending a vast amount of money overseas. Fifty years ago, a lot of it used to stay here and get reinvested in to UK projects and businesses. Now the money leaves and we then borrow to shore up the economy whilst continuing to send money and profits abroad and then (the icing on the cake) we erect trade barriers with the nearest huge market to make it as hard as possible for our companies to trade and to remove a large segment of their markets from them.
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
That's what I'd like to happen, and in exchange we take a proportion of those in France to a quota we agree (and only the most vulnerable) and in exchange we use our navy and border forces to help France secure theirs.
But, it requires Macron's cooperation and is probably politically difficult with Le Pen breathing down his neck.
The Royal Navy can't secure the British border (because no politician has the guts to order tow backs) so why are they going to be able to secure the French border?
Towbacks to Calais should be fine, if the French agree.
Towbacks in the Med would come under French command.
Unless the sum is being transferred directly to the Ukrainian Government, that's simple theft by the US. The UK should studiously avoid following suit. People with large sums of money should understand what will happen when the USA turns against their Government, and locate their money accordingly.
Princess Anne confronted Camilla at Coronation Dinner.
'The Princess Royal is alleged to have told her sister-in-law that her title is Queen Consort and not Queen, according to Princess Diana’s dressmaker, David Emanuel.'
From the perspective of the politics, it seems rather idiotic to me that Sunak has put so much energy and publicity behind goals that seem totally impossible to meet?
Why is he giving so much ammunition to the opposition on immigration when it seems like this target will not be met in any way? And they have 13 years of prior failure to speak to as well?
People still don’t understand why irregular arrivals from France aren’t taken straight to Dover, and put on the next ferry back there.
That's what I'd like to happen, and in exchange we take a proportion of those in France to a quota we agree (and only the most vulnerable) and in exchange we use our navy and border forces to help France secure theirs.
But, it requires Macron's cooperation and is probably politically difficult with Le Pen breathing down his neck.
The Royal Navy can't secure the British border (because no politician has the guts to order tow backs) so why are they going to be able to secure the French border?
Towbacks to Calais should be fine, if the French agree.
Towbacks in the Med would come under French command.
Unless the sum is being transferred directly to the Ukrainian Government, that's simple theft by the US. The UK should studiously avoid following suit. People with large sums of money should understand what will happen when the USA turns against their Government, and locate their money accordingly.
The theft in question is Russia attempting to steal an entire country in broad daylight. Russia is a criminal enterprise. These are the proceeds of crime.
From the perspective of the politics, it seems rather idiotic to me that Sunak has put so much energy and publicity behind goals that seem totally impossible to meet?
Why is he giving so much ammunition to the opposition on immigration when it seems like this target will not be met in any way? And they have 13 years of prior failure to speak to as well?
Can anyone explain this strategy?
He's both politically cloth eared and scared of his right wing.
From the perspective of the politics, it seems rather idiotic to me that Sunak has put so much energy and publicity behind goals that seem totally impossible to meet?
Why is he giving so much ammunition to the opposition on immigration when it seems like this target will not be met in any way? And they have 13 years of prior failure to speak to as well?
Can anyone explain this strategy?
He did do some much easier goals too, like halving inflation which was going to happen anyway. Except, rather annoyingly for the government, it’s rather taking its time to do so.
So Adam Price forced out as Plaid leader after internal problems. Following the recent chaos in the SNP yet more good news for Unionists
Hi @hyifd. I guess we should settle our local elections bet. My charity is the alzheimer's society as they were great for my mum. Good on you for taking the bet and I have to admit I thought the odds were on your side but I had a gut feeling about it. In particular in the 3 districts around me (Guildford, mole valley and Woking) the LD councils were still popular and the elector still angry with the previous administrations. Give it time and the reverses will happen.
So Adam Price forced out as Plaid leader after internal problems. Following the recent chaos in the SNP yet more good news for Unionists
Hi @hyifd. I guess we should settle our local elections bet. My charity is the alzheimer's society as they were great for my mum. Good on you for taking the bet and I have to admit I thought the odds were on your side but I had a gut feeling about it. In particular in the 3 districts around me (Guildford, mole valley and Woking) the LD councils were still popular and the elector still angry with the previous administrations. Give it time and the reverses will happen.
Yes, will make the donation to the alzheimer's society and obviously you have had a good experience of their work for your mum. A few areas like North Norfolk and Torbay did see Tory net gains from the LDs but given the national picture you were correct and the LDs made gains overall from the Tories still
I doubt the average Daily Mail reader gets too hung up over 'People Smugglers'. If the boat people were all legitimate asylum seekers without a gang master in sight, they'd still want them torpedoed.
Comments
Country's don't get rich by holding down productivity and wages while increasing house prices.
If the French were prepared to do tow backs in the Med they wouldn't need the RN to 'help' because the boats would stop within weeks.
Humanity in general, Britons in particular and British Boomers most of all find that "less consumption now" bit difficult.
Which is why we've spent the last decade looking for bits of furniture to burn.
Or fingeratively even..
Especially the low paid.
There's a revealing pattern among some people of:
Supporting handouts to the non-working poor
Opposing pay rises for the working poor
Say we had a problem about lack of parking spaces near town centres, and someone proposed a solution of automatically levelling every building at a radius away from the centre to create free land. We wouldn't need a second option in order to reject such a stupid solution.
Obviously people disagree how bad a plan Sunaks plan is. But whilst lack of other solutions is relevant, it doesn't make trying his plan necessary, if it is a bad plan.
The assets, which are multi-million in scale, combine from sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev
Malofeev is close with Dugin and the Russian Orthodox Church and the head of ultranationalist Tsargrad network
He is accused of financing "Russian separatism" in Crimea
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1656564418942062600?s=20
Or even, 'when I said handle illegal migrants, that isn't what I meant!'
Quick, order more accommodation barges!
We must do something.
This is something.
Therefore we must do this.
Some investment has a positive return and some doesn't.
And one way investment is more likely to be positive is if the costs of not investing are increasing.
So rising wages leads to investment in labour saving equipment which in return leads to investment in training and higher wages.
Continually adding more unskilled workers able to be exploited has the opposite effect - with in the case of car washing investment and productivity being reversed.
Neither have a plan which could achieve its aim. Because there isn't one in the UK's gift. As a glance at net migration figures will show. Even if 'boats' were sorted, attention would immediately go to the massively higher figures of 'legal' migration.
They told me that if they lived back in India, their servants would have servants.
But they were so used to U.K. lifestyle that they couldn’t go back to having servants in the house.
Which is the vision of the future you like more?
https://twitter.com/DanielHewittITV/status/1656548763983306754
As rents increase people can no longer afford to live in the area so eventually the number of workers shrink as those people in lower wage jobs have no choice but to move away.
At which point you get to the situation in places like Beddgelert where you better eat early because the last bus leaves at 9pm and most of the kitchen staff (i.e. those who don't live in / are also doing breakfast) will be on it.
Mogg this am: we must at least rid ourselves of these suffocating, oppressive EU laws which aren't being used!
Never mind 'stopping boats'. How are the other pledges going?
BJO, please confirm?
The government's scheme is trying to do this without doing it. The message from the Immigration minister yesterday is that the boats are not a method by which you can get leave to remain in the UK because you will be deported to a safe third country. But its not true. The total capacity of the Rwanda scheme is barely a day's supply of refugees. And we don't have anywhere else at the moment.
The pull factor is the right to claim asylum. If that right is lost then they may stop coming, certainly for economic advantage. Anything else is pretending.
The problem is that where there is no holistic policy and practice that makes sense on a particular issue - and there isn't - the critics of those left holding the baby - who are always the government - do need to take care to present a total picture of their own preferred solutions which don't gloss over their difficulties.
All the options are terrible. The policy question is over which are more and which are less terrible. The A of C throws some but insufficient light on this.
Not all about demographics, but a fair bit is.
I would hope that Labour wouldn't carry on the Tory policy of trying to fix it through optics and strong language, and instead looked at the problem through a practical rather than political lens.
Brexit is, and always was, a Cnut's game. The world is changing, as it always has, and attempts to stop it are doomed to failure.
In other news, our nest-box now has two blue-tit chicks and seven eggs, instead of nine eggs!
Edit: not next month, 15th May and crossing the Forth Bridge!
All this in a world where our colleges are not training chefs or hospitality staff because of low demand and offers courses on event management instead. Our education system is not focused on where the work is and is not providing the trained staff we need. It needs sorting out.
The other big unthinkable step is this: The refugee crisis is caused in the end by terrible governance and wicked wars. One day the western world may simply say that millions of people seeking refuge on account of this justifies imperial style intervention.
The great Matthew Parris (after leaving parliament!) has been onto this issue of unsustainability for quite a few years now. Other liberal voices will join him.
The ultimate vision of the rich is for the first world working class to be removed from areas the rich might visit.
They are to be replaced by lower cost, more servile migrant workers living in out of site 'dormitories'.
Ultimately, we're not agreeing on what sort of problem Britain has. It could be a maths one, where we've got trapped in a space (fairly unique for rich Western countries) where it's rational to do low investment and low productivity, and we need to fix this by hobbling a degree of freedom to force businesses into making better long term choices. Or it could be a psychological one, where we go for taking as much cash as we can now and screw the future.
Looking at other phenomena (we don't build houses, we let things get shabby, we don't insulate our homes without pressure of a war), it looks more psychological to me. And that's going to be harder to fix.
A better solution would be the return of council housing and the acceptance that market forces are sub-optimal to solve this problem.
Something that will surely never happen.
The ideological move to "nationalise" but actually not do anything useful is classic Tory failure.
If Labour don't get a handle on this they'll lose big time.
Strangely, this results in limited house building.
You know full well Labour policy is already to bring the railways back into public ownership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–2022_Belarus–European_Union_border_crisis
For 'really brilliant and an extraordinary success story:' if they could get someone as manifestly thick as Mogg through A-levels and a degree and into a fairly successful career then they must have something going for their teaching quality.
For 'really shit and not worth much;' he's still manifestly thick.
On the whole I tend to come down on the 'really shit' side, because the rest can be explained by his family connections. But it's conflicting.
I think, after several years of sowing the seeds of division, Putin was somewhat surprised at how quickly everyone was united to support the Ukranians against his army. Yes it took the Germans a while to be completely on board, and there’s opposition both right and left in the US for a whole pile of reasons, but there’s no waning of support among Western leaders.
Is this a new project to see if Edinburgh's buses can double up as ferries to solve the public transport catastrophe in the Highlands and Islands?
I am not saying Tories as a group are racist. I am saying that the Tories are openly vying for racist voters by doing things which are explicitly racist or pander to racists.
https://twitter.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1656574763853029376?s=46
Who said nobody has an alternative solution to the asylum backlog?
As unthinkable as Russia, following its experience in Afghanistan, might think invading a large and peaceful state in Europe bordering the EU and NATO is a good idea.
**Edit:** Rochdale made the post, not Leon. Sorry got confused with the thread. But either way don't see the issue.
(Looks around my city, sees tens of thousands of wealthy Russians, who have fled Putin’s country and taken jobs or set up businesses here).
When the war is finished, most of the Ukranian refugees around the world will go back to rebuild their country. Most of the Russians who have fled, many in top-10% jobs or running businesses, will be happy where they now find themselves, and have little interest in returning to the Motherland.
The UK is now sending a vast amount of money overseas. Fifty years ago, a lot of it used to stay here and get reinvested in to UK projects and businesses. Now the money leaves and we then borrow to shore up the economy whilst continuing to send money and profits abroad and then (the icing on the cake) we erect trade barriers with the nearest huge market to make it as hard as possible for our companies to trade and to remove a large segment of their markets from them.
Renationalistaion is becoming a priority.
'The Princess Royal is alleged to have told her sister-in-law that her title is Queen Consort and not Queen, according to Princess Diana’s dressmaker, David Emanuel.'
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/princess-anne-allegedly-confronted-camilla-at-the-coronation-dinner/news-story/dbfbecd533a4e76d8910f0754e17c7ef
Why is he giving so much ammunition to the opposition on immigration when it seems like this target will not be met in any way? And they have 13 years of prior failure to speak to as well?
Can anyone explain this strategy?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/humiliated-youngsters-voter-id-stopped-29945301
Plus, with the proper latifundium vibe, we can remake Gone With The Wind
If anyone wants to see the ugly face of xenophobia watch Robert Jenrick's interviews yesterday