How Starmer compares with other opposition leaders at this stage – politicalbetting.com
One of the great things about the pollster Ipsos is that it has been carrying out political surveys in the UK since the mid-1970s. In the early days, it was known just as MORI but now it is part of the international polling group Ipsos.
He's been leader now for three very chaotic years. It's understandable he hasn't cut through as much as he would have hoped, but it seems unlikely he will turn it round before the next election.
However, he does have the advantage if I read the polls aright that people may not like him much but they are coming to really despise Sunak.*
The next election looks to be a Mercutio style one to me. Minor parties and the 'who gives a fuck' vote are likely to do well.
That in itself would disadvantage the incumbent and help Starmer.
But all that said - I agree an overall majority looks a very long shot.
*In it's own way that in itself is unfair. He's not much cop but he's a considerable improvement on at least his two immediate predecessors.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
From Twitter on the end of the previous thread @MrHarryCole Now foreign fishermen will be invited to man British boats amid a major skills shortage - as the Government’s migration promises lie in tatters…
Up here there are free "learn to sail" courses for schoolkids in the holidays. My (almost) 12 year old daughter enjoyed the beginner course so much she went on the next one. But this is absolutely about trying to get locals into the industry. As well as fishing there is a big support industry sending ships to oil, gas and wind offshore platforms.
Do we actually do enough to get kids to want to go to sea? It was Escape and Adventure for previous generations, but now? Yu get those things by getting spotted by Simon Cowell...
It was jaw dropping yesterday to see Sunak accusing Starmer of wanting an open door immigration policy . The Tories certainly can’t go into the next general election with net migration running at 500,000 plus so I expect student numbers to be removed and lots of other measures announced !
I honestly hadn't thought about how the proposed reforms might cause issues with student accommodation.
There is something deliciously ironic though in Conservatives calling for rental reforms to screw landlords by giving tenants more rights and Labour arguing against them in the name of flexibility.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
I would say that in the last 3 years Starmer has made Labour electable again which is no mean feat after the catastrophe of the Corbyn era. He has driven those low life nutters out of Labour in the same way Kinnick did with Militant. He has also sought to reorientate Labour to the centre ground by abandoning the pledges that got him elected one at a time.
The package he is offering now is dull, boring and safe. Which is exactly what he needs. I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
He is no Tony Blair or even David Cameron but he has been a significantly better than average LOTO.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
Is it just me or is that graph a mess. I'm constantly going back and forth trying to judge who is who by the length of the dot. I get they just wanted to us red and blue only but there are too many variable length dot options.
I would say that in the last 3 years Starmer has made Labour electable again which is no mean feat after the catastrophe of the Corbyn era. He has driven those low life nutters out of Labour in the same way Kinnick did with Militant. He has also sought to reorientate Labour to the centre ground by abandoning the pledges that got him elected one at a time.
The package he is offering now is dull, boring and safe. Which is exactly what he needs. I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
He is no Tony Blair or even David Cameron but he has been a significantly better than average LOTO.
I don't think he will make a majority. Around 290 seats would be a fantastic result, and also should be enough to propel him to power.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
Will Self said 'Not all Leavers are racist but all racists voted Leave'.
Certainly true but I'm not sure he wasn't being kind.
Yep - looking at the LOTO numbers in isolation doesn’t tell us much. It’s the comparison with the PM that matters. And that is only an issue, I’d suggest, if those numbers are significantly out of line with the headline figures. As it is, Starmer enjoys a healthy net favourability lead over Sunak, just as Labour enjoys a healthy polling lead over the Tories.
Right now, both the polling and the local election results point to an overall Labour majority. Like Mike, though, I am sceptical of one actually materialising. But this is hunch-based not data-based. Governments that have been in power for a while take some shifting. The 1997 election was the exception, not the rule.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
The very poorest in society are either on minimum wage or more likely not working. Its the low end of the squeezed middle that could be said to have benefitted from recent wage inflation.
I wouldn't say that Starmer is doing worse than Kinnock on the data as presented. Yes, his score for his most recent month is lower than for the equivalent month for Kinnock, but the scores bounce around within a certain range, and I'd say that Starmer was in the same range as Kinnock. Though that shouldn't be much comfort for him.
He's been leader now for three very chaotic years. It's understandable he hasn't cut through as much as he would have hoped, but it seems unlikely he will turn it round before the next election.
However, he does have the advantage if I read the polls aright that people may not like him much but they are coming to really despise Sunak.*
The next election looks to be a Mercutio style one to me. Minor parties and the 'who gives a fuck' vote are likely to do well.
That in itself would disadvantage the incumbent and help Starmer.
But all that said - I agree an overall majority looks a very long shot.
*In it's own way that in itself is unfair. He's not much cop but he's a considerable improvement on at least his two immediate predecessors.
Even if Sunak were ok, I think he's a bit screwed because people can see a lot of things are crap whilst he grinningly tells us we're wrong about that, or he's facing the consequences of being the 5th Tory PM to promise a solution to something and people have finally stopped buying it.
I mean I'm not interested in migration but a lot of people are, and the Tories have continually missed targets without being punished for it - but Sunak will.
I would say that in the last 3 years Starmer has made Labour electable again which is no mean feat after the catastrophe of the Corbyn era. He has driven those low life nutters out of Labour in the same way Kinnick did with Militant. He has also sought to reorientate Labour to the centre ground by abandoning the pledges that got him elected one at a time.
The package he is offering now is dull, boring and safe. Which is exactly what he needs. I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
He is no Tony Blair or even David Cameron but he has been a significantly better than average LOTO.
I don't think he will make a majority. Around 290 seats would be a fantastic result, and also should be enough to propel him to power.
But I agree with the rest.
What would be the LD and SNP price for coalition or confidence? SM/CU? Virtual Rejoin.
He's been leader now for three very chaotic years. It's understandable he hasn't cut through as much as he would have hoped, but it seems unlikely he will turn it round before the next election.
However, he does have the advantage if I read the polls aright that people may not like him much but they are coming to really despise Sunak.*
The next election looks to be a Mercutio style one to me. Minor parties and the 'who gives a fuck' vote are likely to do well.
That in itself would disadvantage the incumbent and help Starmer.
But all that said - I agree an overall majority looks a very long shot.
*In it's own way that in itself is unfair. He's not much cop but he's a considerable improvement on at least his two immediate predecessors.
Even if Sunak were ok, I think he's a bit screwed because people can see a lot of things are crap whilst he grinningly tells us we're wrong about that, or he's facing the consequences of being the 5th Tory PM to promise a solution to something and people have finally stopped buying it.
I mean I'm not interested in migration but a lot of people are, and the Tories have continually missed targets without being punished for it - but Sunak will.
He reminds me in some ways of Edward Heath. Obviously a decent brain, rather arrogant, has trouble relating to those around him and notable for his poor judgement.
Heath did win an election he was widely expected to lose. Equally, he did it from opposition not government.
I would say that in the last 3 years Starmer has made Labour electable again which is no mean feat after the catastrophe of the Corbyn era. He has driven those low life nutters out of Labour in the same way Kinnick did with Militant. He has also sought to reorientate Labour to the centre ground by abandoning the pledges that got him elected one at a time.
The package he is offering now is dull, boring and safe. Which is exactly what he needs. I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
He is no Tony Blair or even David Cameron but he has been a significantly better than average LOTO.
I don't think he will make a majority. Around 290 seats would be a fantastic result, and also should be enough to propel him to power.
But I agree with the rest.
What would be the LD and SNP price for coalition or confidence? SM/CU? Virtual Rejoin.
LD would surely be voting reform. That's way more important to them even than the EU. They can worry about that when they've got their prize.
I wonder what the SNP would demand if they were somehow cut to under 30 seats? Difficult to argue that as a mandate for SindyRef II. But they have nothing else they could plausibly demand. I think the one thing we can say with certainty is that Yousaf would find a way to mess things up.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
People who really care about low wages would be in favour of strong trade unions. They solve pay problems very effectively.
What is the consensus on whether we are out of the woods, or at least coming out of the woods, on energy prices?
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
We may have a test of that shortly:
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming.
Tory MPs should vote to suspend for 20 days. Still triggers, but sets precedent that they wouldn't just seek to lower punishment for their mates, oh no. Might come in handy.
I think 1979 is a closer parallel to the situation now than either 1992 or 1997, so was interested to see how Callaghan and Thatcher did on the same survey. Callaghan was surprisingly popular despite the chaos of the Winter of Discontent, while Thatcher only moved into positive territory just before the election.
I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
We may have a test of that shortly:
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
We may have a test of that shortly:
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
What is the consensus on whether we are out of the woods, or at least coming out of the woods, on energy prices?
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
The BBC have the futures price of gas at 64p/therm today. That is roughly 1/3 of what it was at its peak. In light of this the falls in the price of gas (roughly £500 a year for the average bill) are frankly a bit disappointing and there really should be a lot more falls to come.
It is hard to see prices coming down to anything like what they were before the invasion when Russian gas was both cheap and plentiful but on a year by year basis this should be a driver of lower inflation for the rest of the year at least.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
People seemingly only wanted a points-based migration system that greatly reduced numbers. Your side won - and we have that points-based system. Yet instead of everyone been delighted that it is working, the right are up in arms at the numbers of people it is allowing in.
As I have politely pointed out on here before, the target immigration number of so many is zero, or preferably a negative number. Their aim is to keep people out, the means of migration is merely a target along the route to foreigners go home.
You are a long long long way away . Try knocking doors on some of these red wall estates and actually ask people what they think.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
People seemingly only wanted a points-based migration system that greatly reduced numbers. Your side won - and we have that points-based system. Yet instead of everyone been delighted that it is working, the right are up in arms at the numbers of people it is allowing in.
As I have politely pointed out on here before, the target immigration number of so many is zero, or preferably a negative number. Their aim is to keep people out, the means of migration is merely a target along the route to foreigners go home.
You are a long long long way away . Try knocking doors on some of these red wall estates and actually ask people what they think.
In Aberdeenshire?
I completely disagree with your analysis. The left are desperate for the right to be up in arms about the migration numbers because it confirms all their prejudices and justifies their hate. In reality the majority of the right lament our failure to train our young people properly and recognise we need significant migration until we address that.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
We may have a test of that shortly:
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
It promises to be one of the more interesting bye elections of this Parliament.
If this by election happens, LAB would need to win LARGE - 20% plus - to demonstrate that they are really back in Scotland.
Why? They definitely need to win, for sure. But there are a huge number of central belt seats that fall on current numbers, as Yougov identified, without anything overly dramatic. This is a consequence of the even spread of SNP support which worked so well to their advantage last time out.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
The only mirror youre holdng up is one to yourself and it's not doing you any favours.
It feels like a Labour majority to me. The difference with Cameron is that Labour in 2010 still hadn't completely lost the trust of the public. There was residual support, albeit dented by first Iraq (a slow burner on public opinion) and then the financial crisis. There was also residual suspicion of the Tories.
Now, Conservative support is busted. If normally Tory-inclined people consider Starmer boring but safe then they're not going to be going out of their way to vote conservative. They might not quite bring themselves to vote Labour or Lib Dem, but there's nowhere near the same "choose your tribe" vibe as 2019 nor is there the "don't rock the boat, things seem to be looking up" vibe of 2015.
2015 also saw 2 big electoral map changes that made future Labour wins more difficult: the SNP replacement of Labour in the central belt and the Tory wipe out of Lib Dems in the South and SW, in seats Labour weren't competitive in. The former raised the bar for a Labour majority; the latter lowered the bar for a Tory majority. Both look set to unwind at least partially this time.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
People seemingly only wanted a points-based migration system that greatly reduced numbers. Your side won - and we have that points-based system. Yet instead of everyone been delighted that it is working, the right are up in arms at the numbers of people it is allowing in.
As I have politely pointed out on here before, the target immigration number of so many is zero, or preferably a negative number. Their aim is to keep people out, the means of migration is merely a target along the route to foreigners go home.
You are a long long long way away . Try knocking doors on some of these red wall estates and actually ask people what they think.
In Aberdeenshire?
I completely disagree with your analysis. The left are desperate for the right to be up in arms about the migration numbers because it confirms all their prejudices and justifies their hate. In reality the majority of the right lament our failure to train our young people properly and recognise we need significant migration until we address that.
No not up here. I'm sure there are pockets of it in deprived bits of towns, but everyone seems welcoming of everyone up here. A very wide group of nationalities in small village schools.
Can we talk about what you and Sandpit and others have said, the left's/my "hate".
There is bile and hate being issued. Not by me. Its by Iain Duncan Smith. Nigel Farage et al. I have said repeatedly that concern about migration is not racist, that a country has the right to decide on migration policies and numbers. A points-based system that works is ok with me. In the early days the points weren't being issued where there was need. But it now is more freely and the migration numbers back that up.
We're bringing in migrants with skills we need as a country. Which the right demanded and successfully implemented. So why is it so upset with the result? They are upset about it. Not me or the left. I'm entertained. Laughing. Not angry.
I wouldn't say that Starmer is doing worse than Kinnock on the data as presented. Yes, his score for his most recent month is lower than for the equivalent month for Kinnock, but the scores bounce around within a certain range, and I'd say that Starmer was in the same range as Kinnock. Though that shouldn't be much comfort for him.
The public are deeply more cynical of politicians now than in the 1980s. The same number as Kinnock will be relatively better than Kinnock in terms of GE voting.
I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
We may have a test of that shortly:
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
It promises to be one of the more interesting bye elections of this Parliament.
If this by election happens, LAB would need to win LARGE - 20% plus - to demonstrate that they are really back in Scotland.
Why? They definitely need to win, for sure. But there are a huge number of central belt seats that fall on current numbers, as Yougov identified, without anything overly dramatic. This is a consequence of the even spread of SNP support which worked so well to their advantage last time out.
Because the party which is aiming to gain a seat at a GE always needs to do relatively better in a by election in that seat as there will typically be a 'swing back' at the GE. We normally look for this in a CON - LAB seat but the argument holds up for this sort of situation too.
What is the consensus on whether we are out of the woods, or at least coming out of the woods, on energy prices?
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
The BBC have the futures price of gas at 64p/therm today. That is roughly 1/3 of what it was at its peak. In light of this the falls in the price of gas (roughly £500 a year for the average bill) are frankly a bit disappointing and there really should be a lot more falls to come.
It is hard to see prices coming down to anything like what they were before the invasion when Russian gas was both cheap and plentiful but on a year by year basis this should be a driver of lower inflation for the rest of the year at least.
What we can do is continue to develop our domestic oil and gas industries. We are moving to a future that will reduce - but not any time soon remove - our dependency on fossil fuels. So it is far better to burn our own than ship someone else's from across the world to burn theirs.
I would say that in the last 3 years Starmer has made Labour electable again which is no mean feat after the catastrophe of the Corbyn era. He has driven those low life nutters out of Labour in the same way Kinnick did with Militant. He has also sought to reorientate Labour to the centre ground by abandoning the pledges that got him elected one at a time.
The package he is offering now is dull, boring and safe. Which is exactly what he needs. I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
He is no Tony Blair or even David Cameron but he has been a significantly better than average LOTO.
I don't think he will make a majority. Around 290 seats would be a fantastic result, and also should be enough to propel him to power.
But I agree with the rest.
What would be the LD and SNP price for coalition or confidence? SM/CU? Virtual Rejoin.
One would hope that the SNP (contra the constant cry of Starmerist dads that the Nats wouldn't dare obstruct the exciting progressive Lab programme for government) would boot them in the balls over their fearful fugue state of being in thrall to the Daily Mail and Red Wall Man.
Great data. That's a pretty terrible graph, though. I get the idea of only using two colours for the two parties, but they could at least have labels at the end of lines so you dont have to spend a load of time working out which dotted line is which - I initially thought Blair was the dotted line right at the bottom, but clearly that couldn't be right...
I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
We may have a test of that shortly:
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
It promises to be one of the more interesting bye elections of this Parliament.
If this by election happens, LAB would need to win LARGE - 20% plus - to demonstrate that they are really back in Scotland.
Why? They definitely need to win, for sure. But there are a huge number of central belt seats that fall on current numbers, as Yougov identified, without anything overly dramatic. This is a consequence of the even spread of SNP support which worked so well to their advantage last time out.
Because the party which is aiming to gain a seat at a GE always needs to do relatively better in a by election in that seat as there will typically be a 'swing back' at the GE. We normally look for this in a CON - LAB seat but the argument holds up for this sort of situation too.
I think that is a nice to have but not necessary ingredient in the current situation. A big Labour win would certainly damage Yousless and cause panic in the SNP Westminster ranks but things are already going Labour's way up here and panic is not going to be necessary.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
The only mirror youre holdng up is one to yourself and it's not doing you any favours.
"They're all asians" not liking me calling it out is hardly something that is going to make me think I am wrong.
Shall we discuss the actual issue? I entirely agree with your statement about us being one of the "least racist" countries. 100%. Because this isn't racism. So many of the foreigners that native want to go home are as white and European as we are. Poles. Romanians. People who look like us and worship like us. And we still don't want them.
That isn't racism. They are our race. Its jingoism. Petty bigotry. Dislike of the other.
What is the consensus on whether we are out of the woods, or at least coming out of the woods, on energy prices?
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
The BBC have the futures price of gas at 64p/therm today. That is roughly 1/3 of what it was at its peak. In light of this the falls in the price of gas (roughly £500 a year for the average bill) are frankly a bit disappointing and there really should be a lot more falls to come.
It is hard to see prices coming down to anything like what they were before the invasion when Russian gas was both cheap and plentiful but on a year by year basis this should be a driver of lower inflation for the rest of the year at least.
It's been heartening how quickly we've managed to wean Europe off Russian gas, and surprising. Obviously to the great benefit of LNG exporters in North America and the Gulf.
Weaning ourselves off mutual economic dependency with China is a different business. My conversation with a mainland Chinese colleague today was worrying. She is convinced Xi will invade Taiwan within the next 3 years. If that happens, the Ukraine experience suggests that the West (including Japan and Korea) will hit back hard with comprehensive sanctions and more weapons supply to Taiwan. The Taiwanese economy itself would be in ruins. The world would plunge into a stagflationary recession. In turn China would call in all its belt and road favours and try to lock down half the world's basic commodities. It doesn't bear thinking about.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
People seemingly only wanted a points-based migration system that greatly reduced numbers. Your side won - and we have that points-based system. Yet instead of everyone been delighted that it is working, the right are up in arms at the numbers of people it is allowing in.
As I have politely pointed out on here before, the target immigration number of so many is zero, or preferably a negative number. Their aim is to keep people out, the means of migration is merely a target along the route to foreigners go home.
You are a long long long way away . Try knocking doors on some of these red wall estates and actually ask people what they think.
In Aberdeenshire?
I completely disagree with your analysis. The left are desperate for the right to be up in arms about the migration numbers because it confirms all their prejudices and justifies their hate. In reality the majority of the right lament our failure to train our young people properly and recognise we need significant migration until we address that.
Getting rid of Cruella would have hinted that the Tories understand your narrative. However, today we will see Braverman "defending" her immigration policy by conflating invited economic migrants with "idle-feckless asylum seekers". She will condemn Starmer for not supporting the Rwanda policy or her next dog-whistle policy of strafing the small boats. She will spend today spewing hate-filled bile to defend herself. She is a very unserious politician.
Sunak could engage in the dialogue which suggests we need economic migration from the Indian Sub-Continent now because it takes time to train domestic doctors and nurses, and when we have enough we will pull up the drawbridge. But whilst we have Braverman who is so out of touch she demands we "train" home grown fruit pickers, any sensible debate is out of the question
I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
We may have a test of that shortly:
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
SNP support is down and Humza Yousaf has a lower satisfaction than Labour's Anas Sarwar, new polling shows.
Yousaf's party is still in front on Westminster voting intention - but the level of backing has dropped in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon's resignation and the probe into party finances, figures suggest.
And some 2014 Yes voters are now more likely to back Labour, it is claimed.
Research by Ipsos shows a slight "weakening" of the link between supporting independence and voting SNP.
What is the consensus on whether we are out of the woods, or at least coming out of the woods, on energy prices?
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
The BBC have the futures price of gas at 64p/therm today. That is roughly 1/3 of what it was at its peak. In light of this the falls in the price of gas (roughly £500 a year for the average bill) are frankly a bit disappointing and there really should be a lot more falls to come.
It is hard to see prices coming down to anything like what they were before the invasion when Russian gas was both cheap and plentiful but on a year by year basis this should be a driver of lower inflation for the rest of the year at least.
What we can do is continue to develop our domestic oil and gas industries. We are moving to a future that will reduce - but not any time soon remove - our dependency on fossil fuels. So it is far better to burn our own than ship someone else's from across the world to burn theirs.
As, of course, is Kate Forbes. A good friend of mine who has had quite a lot of dealings with her in his business speaks very highly of her, describing her as the best and most dangerous leader the SNP could have had. Thankfully the errors of the Sturgeon era are not so easily eradicated.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You do self-parody so well.
I do wonder about the mentality of those who demand large scale migration, at the same time as demanding that no infrastructure be built.
The comment that someone made - “But building X houses would change the character of the country” (or some such) was quite revealing.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
The only mirror youre holdng up is one to yourself and it's not doing you any favours.
"They're all asians" not liking me calling it out is hardly something that is going to make me think I am wrong.
Shall we discuss the actual issue? I entirely agree with your statement about us being one of the "least racist" countries. 100%. Because this isn't racism. So many of the foreigners that native want to go home are as white and European as we are. Poles. Romanians. People who look like us and worship like us. And we still don't want them.
That isn't racism. They are our race. Its jingoism. Petty bigotry. Dislike of the other.
I go back to my original statement, the immigration issues have to do with economic affordability. People can see the strains on housing, infrastructure and wages. As @DavidL states people on the right worry more on why this country ( under a centre right government ) refuses to stand up to the mark and sort out these issues while ignoring an immigration influx which makes the problem worse.
What is the consensus on whether we are out of the woods, or at least coming out of the woods, on energy prices?
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
The BBC have the futures price of gas at 64p/therm today. That is roughly 1/3 of what it was at its peak. In light of this the falls in the price of gas (roughly £500 a year for the average bill) are frankly a bit disappointing and there really should be a lot more falls to come.
It is hard to see prices coming down to anything like what they were before the invasion when Russian gas was both cheap and plentiful but on a year by year basis this should be a driver of lower inflation for the rest of the year at least.
What we can do is continue to develop our domestic oil and gas industries. We are moving to a future that will reduce - but not any time soon remove - our dependency on fossil fuels. So it is far better to burn our own than ship someone else's from across the world to burn theirs.
As, of course, is Kate Forbes. A good friend of mine who has had quite a lot of dealings with her in his business speaks very highly of her, describing her as the best and most dangerous leader the SNP could have had. Thankfully the errors of the Sturgeon era are not so easily eradicated.
Her time will come. As for the other thing, so many eastern Europeans of various nationalities up here and they seem settled and welcome. I'm not aware of the Russians having been given any shit because of what Putin is up to. It feels very different to a Teesside where locals moaning about them was a regular occurrence.
I would say that in the last 3 years Starmer has made Labour electable again which is no mean feat after the catastrophe of the Corbyn era. He has driven those low life nutters out of Labour in the same way Kinnick did with Militant. He has also sought to reorientate Labour to the centre ground by abandoning the pledges that got him elected one at a time.
The package he is offering now is dull, boring and safe. Which is exactly what he needs. I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
He is no Tony Blair or even David Cameron but he has been a significantly better than average LOTO.
I don't think he will make a majority. Around 290 seats would be a fantastic result, and also should be enough to propel him to power.
But I agree with the rest.
What would be the LD and SNP price for coalition or confidence? SM/CU? Virtual Rejoin.
LD would surely be voting reform. That's way more important to them even than the EU. They can worry about that when they've got their prize.
I wonder what the SNP would demand if they were somehow cut to under 30 seats?
Loads of cash for l'Ecosse. It'd be a price that SKS would be happy to pay as it's not his money he'd be using. See May's multi billion quid payoff to the drumbashers.
I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
We may have a test of that shortly:
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
On energy prices, Martin Lewis reminds people to submit a meter reading around the 1 July so that your supplier doesn't overestimate your usage at the higher price.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
People seemingly only wanted a points-based migration system that greatly reduced numbers. Your side won - and we have that points-based system. Yet instead of everyone been delighted that it is working, the right are up in arms at the numbers of people it is allowing in.
As I have politely pointed out on here before, the target immigration number of so many is zero, or preferably a negative number. Their aim is to keep people out, the means of migration is merely a target along the route to foreigners go home.
You are a long long long way away . Try knocking doors on some of these red wall estates and actually ask people what they think.
In Aberdeenshire?
I completely disagree with your analysis. The left are desperate for the right to be up in arms about the migration numbers because it confirms all their prejudices and justifies their hate. In reality the majority of the right lament our failure to train our young people properly and recognise we need significant migration until we address that.
Getting rid of Cruella would have hinted that the Tories understand your narrative. However, today we will see Braverman "defending" her immigration policy by conflating invited economic migrants with "idle-feckless asylum seekers". She will condemn Starmer for not supporting the Rwanda policy or her next dog-whistle policy of strafing the small boats. She will spend today spewing hate-filled bile to defend herself. She is a very unserious politician.
Sunak could engage in the dialogue which suggests we need economic migration from the Indian Sub-Continent now because it takes time to train domestic doctors and nurses, and when we have enough we will pull up the drawbridge. But whilst we have Braverman who is so out of touch she demands we "train" home grown fruit pickers, any sensible debate is out of the question
I have never hidden my contempt for Braverman and do not seek to defend her positioning on this at all.
Is it just me or is that graph a mess. I'm constantly going back and forth trying to judge who is who by the length of the dot. I get they just wanted to us red and blue only but there are too many variable length dot options.
This happens so often with graphs. It's either that or shades of the same colours that are indistinguishable.
Would it be so hard to add a label to each line, rather than a key on the side?
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
The only mirror youre holdng up is one to yourself and it's not doing you any favours.
"They're all asians" not liking me calling it out is hardly something that is going to make me think I am wrong.
Shall we discuss the actual issue? I entirely agree with your statement about us being one of the "least racist" countries. 100%. Because this isn't racism. So many of the foreigners that native want to go home are as white and European as we are. Poles. Romanians. People who look like us and worship like us. And we still don't want them.
That isn't racism. They are our race. Its jingoism. Petty bigotry. Dislike of the other.
I go back to my original statement, the immigration issues have to do with economic affordability. People can see the strains on housing, infrastructure and wages. As @DavidL states people on the right worry more on why this country ( under a centre right government ) refuses to stand up to the mark and sort out these issues while ignoring an immigration influx which makes the problem worse.
Good - debate without petty insults.
We can debate how and why we have the strains you mentioned, or what we could do about them. But the immigration influx. That is something that the "Australian-style points-based migration system" has allowed. The same system that the right spent years demanding we have.
It is not open door migration. People now have to apply, be scored, pay us money, and then we choose whether to let them in or not. And we choose to. We have replaced anyone coming in, with the people we want and need coming in.
So why are the right up in arms? You described this as "wank" despite heavy reporting in all media over the last day or two, and more today with the latest figures. The right very much are up in arms about their system. Why?
I pointed out a while back that the new Migration and Borders 2023 Redux bill allowed ministers to set a cap for refugee numbers, and that many want the number to be zero. The same is true with legal migration. Close the open door, we want to choose. Then we choose, no not that many. We need them. No we don't.
So how many is the target of many on your side of the spectrum?
SNP support is down and Humza Yousaf has a lower satisfaction than Labour's Anas Sarwar, new polling shows.
Yousaf's party is still in front on Westminster voting intention - but the level of backing has dropped in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon's resignation and the probe into party finances, figures suggest.
And some 2014 Yes voters are now more likely to back Labour, it is claimed.
Research by Ipsos shows a slight "weakening" of the link between supporting independence and voting SNP.
The new total will include 174,200 Ukrainian refugees and 160,700 Hongkongers fleeing repression in China — groups entering the country via special visa schemes that command considerable public support.
It will also include large numbers of foreign students — they totaled 485,758 last year
What would be the LD and SNP price for coalition or confidence? SM/CU? Virtual Rejoin.
LD would surely be voting reform. That's way more important to them even than the EU. They can worry about that when they've got their prize.
If they could get westminster voting reform with no repercussions and no referendum they'd probably take it. But my guess is that in this post-AV-referendum world (a) that's unlikely to be offered by anybody and (b) the LDs would probably not try to ask for it. PR for local elections and increased autonomy for councils, maybe?
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
The only mirror youre holdng up is one to yourself and it's not doing you any favours.
"They're all asians" not liking me calling it out is hardly something that is going to make me think I am wrong.
Shall we discuss the actual issue? I entirely agree with your statement about us being one of the "least racist" countries. 100%. Because this isn't racism. So many of the foreigners that native want to go home are as white and European as we are. Poles. Romanians. People who look like us and worship like us. And we still don't want them.
That isn't racism. They are our race. Its jingoism. Petty bigotry. Dislike of the other.
I go back to my original statement, the immigration issues have to do with economic affordability. People can see the strains on housing, infrastructure and wages. As @DavidL states people on the right worry more on why this country ( under a centre right government ) refuses to stand up to the mark and sort out these issues while ignoring an immigration influx which makes the problem worse.
Good - debate without petty insults.
We can debate how and why we have the strains you mentioned, or what we could do about them. But the immigration influx. That is something that the "Australian-style points-based migration system" has allowed. The same system that the right spent years demanding we have.
It is not open door migration. People now have to apply, be scored, pay us money, and then we choose whether to let them in or not. And we choose to. We have replaced anyone coming in, with the people we want and need coming in.
So why are the right up in arms? You described this as "wank" despite heavy reporting in all media over the last day or two, and more today with the latest figures. The right very much are up in arms about their system. Why?
I pointed out a while back that the new Migration and Borders 2023 Redux bill allowed ministers to set a cap for refugee numbers, and that many want the number to be zero. The same is true with legal migration. Close the open door, we want to choose. Then we choose, no not that many. We need them. No we don't.
So how many is the target of many on your side of the spectrum?
I would suggest the right is up in arms because they can see their politicans serially failing in addressing problems. We have reached a stage where nobody wants to take on an issue and sort it out in case it leads to unpopularity, same applies to Labour.
Wrt numbers that cahnes every year in line with the economy, but persosnally I think we should only be looking at importing key skills until such times as we have reorganised our economy and put the 5 million odd non- workers back in to employment. By hhat time we could well be facing a different jobs crisis on the back of AI and no longer have the position of 1 million job vacancies but rather the reverse.
Anyway I now have to head to the dentist so have a good morning and no doubt well take up this conversation again
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
You really didn’t need to repeat that bile.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
People seemingly only wanted a points-based migration system that greatly reduced numbers. Your side won - and we have that points-based system. Yet instead of everyone been delighted that it is working, the right are up in arms at the numbers of people it is allowing in.
As I have politely pointed out on here before, the target immigration number of so many is zero, or preferably a negative number. Their aim is to keep people out, the means of migration is merely a target along the route to foreigners go home.
You are a long long long way away . Try knocking doors on some of these red wall estates and actually ask people what they think.
In Aberdeenshire?
I completely disagree with your analysis. The left are desperate for the right to be up in arms about the migration numbers because it confirms all their prejudices and justifies their hate. In reality the majority of the right lament our failure to train our young people properly and recognise we need significant migration until we address that.
Getting rid of Cruella would have hinted that the Tories understand your narrative. However, today we will see Braverman "defending" her immigration policy by conflating invited economic migrants with "idle-feckless asylum seekers". She will condemn Starmer for not supporting the Rwanda policy or her next dog-whistle policy of strafing the small boats. She will spend today spewing hate-filled bile to defend herself. She is a very unserious politician.
Sunak could engage in the dialogue which suggests we need economic migration from the Indian Sub-Continent now because it takes time to train domestic doctors and nurses, and when we have enough we will pull up the drawbridge. But whilst we have Braverman who is so out of touch she demands we "train" home grown fruit pickers, any sensible debate is out of the question
I have never hidden my contempt for Braverman and do not seek to defend her positioning on this at all.
My condemnation was not aimed at you, unless you have it in your gift to sack Braverman, but with Sunak.
I see the Musk Presidential campaign launch went about as well as the Starship launch...
They got numbers that were in six figures. It's not as good as they would have hoped and I think @rcs1000 was right: YouTube has a better reach than Twitter when it comes to these matters.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
I would suggest the people may not be very racist but the institutions of the state and media are considerably racist. We know that people were less worried about immigration relative to pre Brexit until quite recently when the press and government decided we were being swamped at the border (when actual numbers would be manageable if the government was actually interested in having policies and doing things).
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
The only mirror youre holdng up is one to yourself and it's not doing you any favours.
"They're all asians" not liking me calling it out is hardly something that is going to make me think I am wrong.
Shall we discuss the actual issue? I entirely agree with your statement about us being one of the "least racist" countries. 100%. Because this isn't racism. So many of the foreigners that native want to go home are as white and European as we are. Poles. Romanians. People who look like us and worship like us. And we still don't want them.
That isn't racism. They are our race. Its jingoism. Petty bigotry. Dislike of the other.
I go back to my original statement, the immigration issues have to do with economic affordability. People can see the strains on housing, infrastructure and wages. As @DavidL states people on the right worry more on why this country ( under a centre right government ) refuses to stand up to the mark and sort out these issues while ignoring an immigration influx which makes the problem worse.
Good - debate without petty insults.
We can debate how and why we have the strains you mentioned, or what we could do about them. But the immigration influx. That is something that the "Australian-style points-based migration system" has allowed. The same system that the right spent years demanding we have.
It is not open door migration. People now have to apply, be scored, pay us money, and then we choose whether to let them in or not. And we choose to. We have replaced anyone coming in, with the people we want and need coming in.
So why are the right up in arms? You described this as "wank" despite heavy reporting in all media over the last day or two, and more today with the latest figures. The right very much are up in arms about their system. Why?
I pointed out a while back that the new Migration and Borders 2023 Redux bill allowed ministers to set a cap for refugee numbers, and that many want the number to be zero. The same is true with legal migration. Close the open door, we want to choose. Then we choose, no not that many. We need them. No we don't.
So how many is the target of many on your side of the spectrum?
Dave spoke of "tens of thousands", and that has anchored the conversation ever since. Whether he knew what he was saying, or it was just a throwaway line, only he knows.
But the empirical experience is that less than 100k is only doable by really pulling the drawbridge up. The consequences of doing that for Britain's economy and conscience are pretty grim.
Assuming that the Conservatives are headed for opposition, ditching that figure might be their Clause Four that hints that they're ready to be taken seriously again.
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
SNP support is down and Humza Yousaf has a lower satisfaction than Labour's Anas Sarwar, new polling shows.
Yousaf's party is still in front on Westminster voting intention - but the level of backing has dropped in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon's resignation and the probe into party finances, figures suggest.
And some 2014 Yes voters are now more likely to back Labour, it is claimed.
Research by Ipsos shows a slight "weakening" of the link between supporting independence and voting SNP.
This just seems to be a general reaction to SNP scandal, no? And if SLab continue to be completely anti independence / Tory lite, and the SNP continue to be embroiled in scandal, we could expect Scot Greens to do better than previously if they can get some limelight in the future? Although they may be splashed with issues as they have been working with the SNP in government.
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
You don't see any middle ground between unlimited migration and a planned economy?
On my LinkedIn feed this morning, an email from the recruitment consultants inviting applications to become members of the newly announced London Policing Board.
You have to fill in a form and send in a 2 minute video. Well that will be easy: here you go 11 articles on what is wrong with the police and what needs to be done. Read those. Call me when you've read them.
On iPlayer there is a reading of a book called "Into the Night" - an account of a primary school teacher's year as a special Constable in London. It is well worth hearing because it describes well the reality of the daily job for policemen and how hard it can be and what good policing tries to do.
In the first episode he describes being in a van with colleagues and the men describing openly their views of the women they see - their thoughts on their arses and whether they fit with their faces or vice versa and whether they'd do them and so on.
He's shocked but mainly at his own reaction. He doesn't raise this with his superiors unlike, say, racist language because he concludes that if this happens with no-one checking themselves it must be so widespread that the superiors must know it is happening. So no point telling them what they already know. That is your bad culture right there. That kind of thinking about women is deeply embedded and it is not hard to find in groups which are largely male, almost without anyone realising it is happening or why it might be sub-optimal or why it might not lead to good outcomes.
I see the Musk Presidential campaign launch went about as well as the Starship launch...
They got numbers that were in six figures. It's not as good as they would have hoped and I think @rcs1000 was right: YouTube has a better reach than Twitter when it comes to these matters.
Anyhow. We're now a high immigration economy and that's not likely to change under either government. Whether high immigration is a Brexit success, it is the only lever left to governments after Brexit has damaged other parts of the economy, or whether higher immigration would have happened anyway, we will have it.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
The only mirror youre holdng up is one to yourself and it's not doing you any favours.
"They're all asians" not liking me calling it out is hardly something that is going to make me think I am wrong.
Shall we discuss the actual issue? I entirely agree with your statement about us being one of the "least racist" countries. 100%. Because this isn't racism. So many of the foreigners that native want to go home are as white and European as we are. Poles. Romanians. People who look like us and worship like us. And we still don't want them.
That isn't racism. They are our race. Its jingoism. Petty bigotry. Dislike of the other.
I go back to my original statement, the immigration issues have to do with economic affordability. People can see the strains on housing, infrastructure and wages. As @DavidL states people on the right worry more on why this country ( under a centre right government ) refuses to stand up to the mark and sort out these issues while ignoring an immigration influx which makes the problem worse.
Good - debate without petty insults.
We can debate how and why we have the strains you mentioned, or what we could do about them. But the immigration influx. That is something that the "Australian-style points-based migration system" has allowed. The same system that the right spent years demanding we have.
It is not open door migration. People now have to apply, be scored, pay us money, and then we choose whether to let them in or not. And we choose to. We have replaced anyone coming in, with the people we want and need coming in.
So why are the right up in arms? You described this as "wank" despite heavy reporting in all media over the last day or two, and more today with the latest figures. The right very much are up in arms about their system. Why?
I pointed out a while back that the new Migration and Borders 2023 Redux bill allowed ministers to set a cap for refugee numbers, and that many want the number to be zero. The same is true with legal migration. Close the open door, we want to choose. Then we choose, no not that many. We need them. No we don't.
So how many is the target of many on your side of the spectrum?
I would suggest the right is up in arms because they can see their politicans serially failing in addressing problems. We have reached a stage where nobody wants to take on an issue and sort it out in case it leads to unpopularity, same applies to Labour.
Wrt numbers that cahnes every year in line with the economy, but persosnally I think we should only be looking at importing key skills until such times as we have reorganised our economy and put the 5 million odd non- workers back in to employment. By hhat time we could well be facing a different jobs crisis on the back of AI and no longer have the position of 1 million job vacancies but rather the reverse.
Anyway I now have to head to the dentist so have a good morning and no doubt well take up this conversation again
This is a valid point of debate - the employment market is shifting and will do so much quicker as AI kicks in. We absolutely do have pockets of high under-employment which are separate from the pockets of unfillable vacancies.
The problem is that the people who could work do not live near the jobs. There are not affordable houses available to them, nor do they have the support for their kids should they move. Which is why we import foreign workers.
Unless we want to see the collapse of the care sector, chunks of tourism and big chunks of the food/farming sector, we need workers. And if the door will be slammed shut and the points-based system switched off, that leaves the problem of how you fill factory jobs in anglia with WWC single mothers from Stoke...
I see the Musk Presidential campaign launch went about as well as the Starship launch...
They got numbers that were in six figures. It's not as good as they would have hoped and I think @rcs1000 was right: YouTube has a better reach than Twitter when it comes to these matters.
The new total will include 174,200 Ukrainian refugees and 160,700 Hongkongers fleeing repression in China — groups entering the country via special visa schemes that command considerable public support.
It will also include large numbers of foreign students — they totaled 485,758 last year
Though to be fair since we are talking net migration and a significant number of those students will leave each year, it is debatable how much influence student numbers have on the figures we are talking about.
I was wrong to say Brexit would pull up the drawbridge to the UK, but thanks to you we now see a record net migration of 606,000 from other parts of the world.
I thank you all for your vote which made this possible.
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
I may be deluded, but wasn't this the rationale from the start. Justification to cut the welfare system to as close to zero as is politically possible. Sunak has made no secret of his distaste for the "something for nothing" society. If claimants are not prepared to move to a Fenland caravan of multiple occupancy their benefits will be curtailed, even though the Fenland farmer doesn't want useless domestic (home grown) economic migrants failing to pick, or pack enough fruit on time.
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
I mean, if the government was actually willing to spend on infrastructure, pay workers better and reform housing then yes, we would be able to manage much of this increase. In 2017 (a long time ago now, but seem to be the most recent data with analysis) there were approx 600,000 empty homes, with a third of them being empty for longer than 6 months. Some of these may be people in the process of moving, but many are based in the north so are likely due to the economic drain to the south, and those based in London are possibly "investments". If this issue was tackled, and if infrastructure spending was not linked to allowing private housing developments, we could easily have housing needs met, as well as economic growth from Keynesian means, as well as actually better infrastructure.
I would say that in the last 3 years Starmer has made Labour electable again which is no mean feat after the catastrophe of the Corbyn era. He has driven those low life nutters out of Labour in the same way Kinnick did with Militant. He has also sought to reorientate Labour to the centre ground by abandoning the pledges that got him elected one at a time.
The package he is offering now is dull, boring and safe. Which is exactly what he needs. I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
He is no Tony Blair or even David Cameron but he has been a significantly better than average LOTO.
I don't think he will make a majority. Around 290 seats would be a fantastic result, and also should be enough to propel him to power.
But I agree with the rest.
What would be the LD and SNP price for coalition or confidence? SM/CU? Virtual Rejoin.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
What a load of wank
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Sure. And to fix the services we seem incapable of funding, they have been told that the outsiders need to Go Home. From Theresa May having vans drive round literally telling people that, to all of the "breaking point" rhetoric, and now the furore that their demanded points-based system is doing its job, its very clear what the opinion is.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
The only mirror youre holdng up is one to yourself and it's not doing you any favours.
"They're all asians" not liking me calling it out is hardly something that is going to make me think I am wrong.
Shall we discuss the actual issue? I entirely agree with your statement about us being one of the "least racist" countries. 100%. Because this isn't racism. So many of the foreigners that native want to go home are as white and European as we are. Poles. Romanians. People who look like us and worship like us. And we still don't want them.
That isn't racism. They are our race. Its jingoism. Petty bigotry. Dislike of the other.
I go back to my original statement, the immigration issues have to do with economic affordability. People can see the strains on housing, infrastructure and wages. As @DavidL states people on the right worry more on why this country ( under a centre right government ) refuses to stand up to the mark and sort out these issues while ignoring an immigration influx which makes the problem worse.
Good - debate without petty insults.
We can debate how and why we have the strains you mentioned, or what we could do about them. But the immigration influx. That is something that the "Australian-style points-based migration system" has allowed. The same system that the right spent years demanding we have.
It is not open door migration. People now have to apply, be scored, pay us money, and then we choose whether to let them in or not. And we choose to. We have replaced anyone coming in, with the people we want and need coming in.
So why are the right up in arms? You described this as "wank" despite heavy reporting in all media over the last day or two, and more today with the latest figures. The right very much are up in arms about their system. Why?
I pointed out a while back that the new Migration and Borders 2023 Redux bill allowed ministers to set a cap for refugee numbers, and that many want the number to be zero. The same is true with legal migration. Close the open door, we want to choose. Then we choose, no not that many. We need them. No we don't.
So how many is the target of many on your side of the spectrum?
To my mind this could be one of the great successes of Brexit. If (and it is a big if at the moment as I don't know how effectively it is being run) the points system is working to bring us the people we want and need then the numbers let in become a simple political/economic question for the Government. They have the power to change them as they see fit and can be held responsible/congratulated/condemned for whatever those net migration figures are. If you don't like it then change the Government.
What is the consensus on whether we are out of the woods, or at least coming out of the woods, on energy prices?
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
The BBC have the futures price of gas at 64p/therm today. That is roughly 1/3 of what it was at its peak. In light of this the falls in the price of gas (roughly £500 a year for the average bill) are frankly a bit disappointing and there really should be a lot more falls to come.
It is hard to see prices coming down to anything like what they were before the invasion when Russian gas was both cheap and plentiful but on a year by year basis this should be a driver of lower inflation for the rest of the year at least.
I too am underwhelmed by Ofgem's announcement. Since moving to Octopus Tracker in early February my daily prices have gradually reduced from 7.12p for gas and 29p for electricity to today's 3.86p and 16.91p respectively. It feels like there should have been a much bigger reduction in standard prices.
I was wrong to say Brexit would pull up the drawbridge to the UK, but thanks to you we now see a record net migration of 606,000 from other parts of the world.
I thank you all for your vote which made this possible.
I see the Musk Presidential campaign launch went about as well as the Starship launch...
They got numbers that were in six figures. It's not as good as they would have hoped and I think @rcs1000 was right: YouTube has a better reach than Twitter when it comes to these matters.
Announcing on Twitter already shows a big political misunderstanding on DeSantis' campaign. Most people, most voters, are not on Twitter. Trump used Twitter as an amplifying tool for his usual media message - and screenshots of his Tweets were free to move around Facebook, 4chan and the tv networks. A Twitter video and then a (bad) Twitter space Q&A is not as transferable to other media.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
A remarkably stupid take on your part. The problem is really quite simple, where do the 600,000 people who moved here last year live? We aren't building anything like enough stuff to merely replace existing buildings and infrastructure. No government in living memory has done so. So the UK will become proportionally more crowded, more expensive, more dilapidated, and it gets worse year after year, with no end in sight.
Not one political party in the UK is serious about either limiting immigration, or building enough stuff to make immigration sustainable.
Frankly people like you who reach for the "racism" nonsense when people voice their concerns about immigration are as much a part of the problem as the NIMBYest curtain-twitcher in the Home Counties.
What is the consensus on whether we are out of the woods, or at least coming out of the woods, on energy prices?
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
The BBC have the futures price of gas at 64p/therm today. That is roughly 1/3 of what it was at its peak. In light of this the falls in the price of gas (roughly £500 a year for the average bill) are frankly a bit disappointing and there really should be a lot more falls to come.
It is hard to see prices coming down to anything like what they were before the invasion when Russian gas was both cheap and plentiful but on a year by year basis this should be a driver of lower inflation for the rest of the year at least.
Domestic gas suppliers are regulatorily obliged to buy gas forward, which means lags in both price rises and price falls.
It is 17 degrees here. The sky is blue. There is only the hint of a breeze. The birds are singing, especially the nest of fledgling blackbirds above my living room window. The roses, clematis and peonies are flowering and I am sitting on my terrace enjoying it all. This is where I intend being all day.
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
I may be deluded, but wasn't this the rationale from the start. Justification to cut the welfare system to as close to zero as is politically possible. Sunak has made no secret of his distaste for the "something for nothing" society. If claimants are not prepared to move to a Fenland caravan of multiple occupancy their benefits will be curtailed, even though the Fenland farmer doesn't want useless domestic (home grown) economic migrants failing to pick, or pack enough fruit on time.
Why are the "Domestic economic migrants" useless?
Is this a version of Oriental Lassitude? the well known phenomenon of everyone in the Far East being too lazy to do a days work...
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
I may be deluded, but wasn't this the rationale from the start. Justification to cut the welfare system to as close to zero as is politically possible. Sunak has made no secret of his distaste for the "something for nothing" society. If claimants are not prepared to move to a Fenland caravan of multiple occupancy their benefits will be curtailed, even though the Fenland farmer doesn't want useless domestic (home grown) economic migrants failing to pick, or pack enough fruit on time.
More from Sir John Bigot: "We’ve got 2.5 million people on long-term sick leave. We’ve got very many disabled people who said they want to work and can’t get jobs. We’ve got a lot of people who left the workforce during Covid, older people typically, who we need to get back into the workforce. So the argument there are no Britons for these jobs does not really stand up to the test of those figures."
So two problems: 1. How do you compensate these "workers" who are compelled to move to another part of the country. And for the locals about to be flooded by the chronically sick and disabled, will NHS facilities be beefed up to cope with this new demand? 2. How do you compensate the employers who have these "workers" imposed upon them? Productivity and absence will be major issues if the "workers" are too ill.
This is the typical crayon politics from a right wing who insist they have the "common sense" solutions and nobody else has any ideas. What he proposes will not work, at a very basic level and even more so when you consider the details.
Yet they keep saying this stupid, and have moron media repeat it, and there is now a client vote so dulled by this avalanche of "news" that they don't ask how. But we can't then talk about the actual issue or actual ideas to resolve, because Crayons.
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
I may be deluded, but wasn't this the rationale from the start. Justification to cut the welfare system to as close to zero as is politically possible. Sunak has made no secret of his distaste for the "something for nothing" society. If claimants are not prepared to move to a Fenland caravan of multiple occupancy their benefits will be curtailed, even though the Fenland farmer doesn't want useless domestic (home grown) economic migrants failing to pick, or pack enough fruit on time.
More from Sir John Bigot: "We’ve got 2.5 million people on long-term sick leave. We’ve got very many disabled people who said they want to work and can’t get jobs. We’ve got a lot of people who left the workforce during Covid, older people typically, who we need to get back into the workforce. So the argument there are no Britons for these jobs does not really stand up to the test of those figures."
So two problems: 1. How do you compensate these "workers" who are compelled to move to another part of the country. And for the locals about to be flooded by the chronically sick and disabled, will NHS facilities be beefed up to cope with this new demand? 2. How do you compensate the employers who have these "workers" imposed upon them? Productivity and absence will be major issues if the "workers" are too ill.
This is the typical crayon politics from a right wing who insist they have the "common sense" solutions and nobody else has any ideas. What he proposes will not work, at a very basic level and even more so when you consider the details.
Yet they keep saying this stupid, and have moron media repeat it, and there is now a client vote so dulled by this avalanche of "news" that they don't ask how. But we can't then talk about the actual issue or act
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
I may be deluded, but wasn't this the rationale from the start. Justification to cut the welfare system to as close to zero as is politically possible. Sunak has made no secret of his distaste for the "something for nothing" society. If claimants are not prepared to move to a Fenland caravan of multiple occupancy their benefits will be curtailed, even though the Fenland farmer doesn't want useless domestic (home grown) economic migrants failing to pick, or pack enough fruit on time.
Why are the "Domestic economic migrants" useless?
Is this a version of Oriental Lassitude? the well known phenomenon of everyone in the Far East being too lazy to do a days work...
How -practically - do we make this work? IDS went up the valleys and told the unemployed there were loads of jobs in Cardiff. He was right. Bar jobs. Hospitality. Late shifts. Proposed as a solution for people with kids and no child support and of course no public transport to get them all the way home.
Great as a Crayon solution, useless in the real world. Inner city single mums are not available to work in a bar in Devon tourist spots for the summer. Or Wisbech food factories. However much Crayons get deployed.
Comments
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article245527312/Deutsche-Wirtschaft-ist-in-die-Rezession-abgerutscht.html
However, he does have the advantage if I read the polls aright that people may not like him much but they are coming to really despise Sunak.*
The next election looks to be a Mercutio style one to me. Minor parties and the 'who gives a fuck' vote are likely to do well.
That in itself would disadvantage the incumbent and help Starmer.
But all that said - I agree an overall majority looks a very long shot.
*In it's own way that in itself is unfair. He's not much cop but he's a considerable improvement on at least his two immediate predecessors.
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
@MrHarryCole
Now foreign fishermen will be invited to man British boats amid a major skills shortage - as the Government’s migration promises lie in tatters…
Up here there are free "learn to sail" courses for schoolkids in the holidays. My (almost) 12 year old daughter enjoyed the beginner course so much she went on the next one. But this is absolutely about trying to get locals into the industry. As well as fishing there is a big support industry sending ships to oil, gas and wind offshore platforms.
Do we actually do enough to get kids to want to go to sea? It was Escape and Adventure for previous generations, but now? Yu get those things by getting spotted by Simon Cowell...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65681015
I honestly hadn't thought about how the proposed reforms might cause issues with student accommodation.
There is something deliciously ironic though in Conservatives calling for rental reforms to screw landlords by giving tenants more rights and Labour arguing against them in the name of flexibility.
We live in what has been regularly one of the least racist countries on the planet and still is. You simply slander the good people of this nation with your own bile.
People worry about immigration because they can see with their own eyes the impact on housing, infrastructure, wages and public services.
Many of us on the centre-right are proud of what the UK has done for Ukraine and Hong Kong over the past year, and believe that a skills-based system is better than a free-for-all based on nationality, that had the effect of driving down wages for the very poorest in society.
The issue is Labour are so incredibly far behind. They have fewer seats than when Kinnock started his marathon in 1983.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1988-1997
This link works:
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1661496322980028423
The package he is offering now is dull, boring and safe. Which is exactly what he needs. I still think he will make a small majority with the help of a serious dod of seats from Scotland.
He is no Tony Blair or even David Cameron but he has been a significantly better than average LOTO.
But I agree with the rest.
Certainly true but I'm not sure he wasn't being kind.
Right now, both the polling and the local election results point to an overall Labour majority. Like Mike, though, I am sceptical of one actually materialising. But this is hunch-based not data-based. Governments that have been in power for a while take some shifting. The 1997 election was the exception, not the rule.
I mean I'm not interested in migration but a lot of people are, and the Tories have continually missed targets without being punished for it - but Sunak will.
All down to Scotland to swing it now.
Heath did win an election he was widely expected to lose. Equally, he did it from opposition not government.
I wonder what the SNP would demand if they were somehow cut to under 30 seats? Difficult to argue that as a mandate for SindyRef II. But they have nothing else they could plausibly demand. I think the one thing we can say with certainty is that Yousaf would find a way to mess things up.
Looking as a consumer, it is all very well having the price cap cut in July when I'm using very little energy, what counts is where this is going for the winter ahead - you'd like it to be further down or at least flat.
So, serious question. How is what rcs1000 had as the 2-3 year European project of diversification from Russian gas going? And are the futures for winter delivery still looking OK?
Are there any more shocks potentially left in the system before this ends?
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules.
A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming…..
If there is a by-election, Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning this seat from the SNP.
Sir Keir Starmer is in Scotland today and I’ve heard he’s expected to visit Rutherglen tomorrow.
https://twitter.com/stvkathryn/status/1661636791206641664
Labour will gain the seats it needs there by doing no more than standing still. The Starmer approach is perfectly adequate for this purpose.
It is hard to see prices coming down to anything like what they were before the invasion when Russian gas was both cheap and plentiful but on a year by year basis this should be a driver of lower inflation for the rest of the year at least.
As I have politely pointed out on here before, the target immigration number of so many is zero, or preferably a negative number. Their aim is to keep people out, the means of migration is merely a target along the route to foreigners go home.
You are a long long long way away . Try knocking doors on some of these red wall estates and actually ask people what they think.
I completely disagree with your analysis. The left are desperate for the right to be up in arms about the migration numbers because it confirms all their prejudices and justifies their hate. In reality the majority of the right lament our failure to train our young people properly and recognise we need significant migration until we address that.
You and a few others don't like me holding the mirror up to the right. And that's fine. But I'm still going to do it. You defended Braverman's attack on Pakistanis as not being racist because she is "asian" - as if her Indian heritage and Pakistani heritage are interchangeable. It is this blind ignorance which so many of your fellow right wing voters demonstrate on a daily basis. Don't know, don't care, they're all the same.
Now, Conservative support is busted. If normally Tory-inclined people consider Starmer boring but safe then they're not going to be going out of their way to vote conservative. They might not quite bring themselves to vote Labour or Lib Dem, but there's nowhere near the same "choose your tribe" vibe as 2019 nor is there the "don't rock the boat, things seem to be looking up" vibe of 2015.
2015 also saw 2 big electoral map changes that made future Labour wins more difficult: the SNP replacement of Labour in the central belt and the Tory wipe out of Lib Dems in the South and SW, in seats Labour weren't competitive in. The former raised the bar for a Labour majority; the latter lowered the bar for a Tory majority. Both look set to unwind at least partially this time.
Can we talk about what you and Sandpit and others have said, the left's/my "hate".
There is bile and hate being issued. Not by me. Its by Iain Duncan Smith. Nigel Farage et al. I have said repeatedly that concern about migration is not racist, that a country has the right to decide on migration policies and numbers. A points-based system that works is ok with me. In the early days the points weren't being issued where there was need. But it now is more freely and the migration numbers back that up.
We're bringing in migrants with skills we need as a country. Which the right demanded and successfully implemented. So why is it so upset with the result? They are upset about it. Not me or the left. I'm entertained. Laughing. Not angry.
Shall we discuss the actual issue? I entirely agree with your statement about us being one of the "least racist" countries. 100%. Because this isn't racism. So many of the foreigners that native want to go home are as white and European as we are. Poles. Romanians. People who look like us and worship like us. And we still don't want them.
That isn't racism. They are our race. Its jingoism. Petty bigotry. Dislike of the other.
Weaning ourselves off mutual economic dependency with China is a different business. My conversation with a mainland Chinese colleague today was worrying. She is convinced Xi will invade Taiwan within the next 3 years. If that happens, the Ukraine experience suggests that the West (including Japan and Korea) will hit back hard with comprehensive sanctions and more weapons supply to Taiwan. The Taiwanese economy itself would be in ruins. The world would plunge into a stagflationary recession. In turn China would call in all its belt and road favours and try to lock down half the world's basic commodities. It doesn't bear thinking about.
Sunak could engage in the dialogue which suggests we need economic migration from the Indian Sub-Continent now because it takes time to train domestic doctors and nurses, and when we have enough we will pull up the drawbridge. But whilst we have Braverman who is so out of touch she demands we "train" home grown fruit pickers, any sensible debate is out of the question
Yousaf's party is still in front on Westminster voting intention - but the level of backing has dropped in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon's resignation and the probe into party finances, figures suggest.
And some 2014 Yes voters are now more likely to back Labour, it is claimed.
Research by Ipsos shows a slight "weakening" of the link between supporting independence and voting SNP.
https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,snp-support-down-as-yes-voters-eye-labour-poll-finds?
As, of course, is Kate Forbes. A good friend of mine who has had quite a lot of dealings with her in his business speaks very highly of her, describing her as the best and most dangerous leader the SNP could have had. Thankfully the errors of the Sturgeon era are not so easily eradicated.
The comment that someone made - “But building X houses would change the character of the country” (or some such) was quite revealing.
Would it be so hard to add a label to each line, rather than a key on the side?
We can debate how and why we have the strains you mentioned, or what we could do about them. But the immigration influx. That is something that the "Australian-style points-based migration system" has allowed. The same system that the right spent years demanding we have.
It is not open door migration. People now have to apply, be scored, pay us money, and then we choose whether to let them in or not. And we choose to. We have replaced anyone coming in, with the people we want and need coming in.
So why are the right up in arms? You described this as "wank" despite heavy reporting in all media over the last day or two, and more today with the latest figures. The right very much are up in arms about their system. Why?
I pointed out a while back that the new Migration and Borders 2023 Redux bill allowed ministers to set a cap for refugee numbers, and that many want the number to be zero. The same is true with legal migration. Close the open door, we want to choose. Then we choose, no not that many. We need them. No we don't.
So how many is the target of many on your side of the spectrum?
So Sir Keir/Anas, what would you say to the 50% of Scots who support an independent Scotland and the two thirds who favour rejoining the EU?
I look forward to the mealy-mouthed answer with relish.
The new total will include 174,200 Ukrainian refugees and 160,700 Hongkongers fleeing repression in China — groups entering the country via special visa schemes that command considerable public support.
It will also include large numbers of foreign students — they totaled 485,758 last year
https://www.politico.eu/article/tories-brexit-done-uk-conservatives-on-immigration-rishi-sunak/
We have reached a stage where nobody wants to take on an issue and sort it out in case it leads to unpopularity, same applies to Labour.
Wrt numbers that cahnes every year in line with the economy, but persosnally I think we should only be looking at importing key skills until such times as we have reorganised our economy and put the 5 million odd non- workers back in to employment. By hhat time we could well be facing a different jobs crisis on the back of AI and no longer have the position of 1 million job vacancies but rather the reverse.
Anyway I now have to head to the dentist so have a good morning and no doubt well take up this conversation again
But the empirical experience is that less than 100k is only doable by really pulling the drawbridge up. The consequences of doing that for Britain's economy and conscience are pretty grim.
Assuming that the Conservatives are headed for opposition, ditching that figure might be their Clause Four that hints that they're ready to be taken seriously again.
"You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.
Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.
You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable."
He has been a full-throated supporter of the very points-based system which has allowed these people in. So if it wasn't the system itself that was the prize, what was it? To stop people coming.
The government needs to face into a difficult challenge. If we are not going to allow people in using points to fill critical vacancies, then we will need to compel people already here to take these jobs and in many cases likely move.
That could be fascinating to watch. "If you want to keep claiming benefits, you need to move to Wisbech and work in a food factory".
On my LinkedIn feed this morning, an email from the recruitment consultants inviting applications to become members of the newly announced London Policing Board.
You have to fill in a form and send in a 2 minute video. Well that will be easy: here you go 11 articles on what is wrong with the police and what needs to be done. Read those. Call me when you've read them.
On iPlayer there is a reading of a book called "Into the Night" - an account of a primary school teacher's year as a special Constable in London. It is well worth hearing because it describes well the reality of the daily job for policemen and how hard it can be and what good policing tries to do.
In the first episode he describes being in a van with colleagues and the men describing openly their views of the women they see - their thoughts on their arses and whether they fit with their faces or vice versa and whether they'd do them and so on.
He's shocked but mainly at his own reaction. He doesn't raise this with his superiors unlike, say, racist language because he concludes that if this happens with no-one checking themselves it must be so widespread that the superiors must know it is happening. So no point telling them what they already know. That is your bad culture right there. That kind of thinking about women is deeply embedded and it is not hard to find in groups which are largely male, almost without anyone realising it is happening or why it might be sub-optimal or why it might not lead to good outcomes.
The iPlayer link is here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lypd.
The problem is that the people who could work do not live near the jobs. There are not affordable houses available to them, nor do they have the support for their kids should they move. Which is why we import foreign workers.
Unless we want to see the collapse of the care sector, chunks of tourism and big chunks of the food/farming sector, we need workers. And if the door will be slammed shut and the points-based system switched off, that leaves the problem of how you fill factory jobs in anglia with WWC single mothers from Stoke...
I was wrong to say Brexit would pull up the drawbridge to the UK, but thanks to you we now see a record net migration of 606,000 from other parts of the world.
I thank you all for your vote which made this possible.
(home grown) economic migrants failing to pick, or pack enough fruit on time.
(Source for housing numbers: https://www.atticstorage.co.uk/blog/empty-housing-in-england-and-the-homeless/)
Not one political party in the UK is serious about either limiting immigration, or building enough stuff to make immigration sustainable.
Frankly people like you who reach for the "racism" nonsense when people voice their concerns about immigration are as much a part of the problem as the NIMBYest curtain-twitcher in the Home Counties.
Is this a version of Oriental Lassitude? the well known phenomenon of everyone in the Far East being too lazy to do a days work...
"We’ve got 2.5 million people on long-term sick leave. We’ve got very many disabled people who said they want to work and can’t get jobs. We’ve got a lot of people who left the workforce during Covid, older people typically, who we need to get back into the workforce. So the argument there are no Britons for these jobs does not really stand up to the test of those figures."
So two problems:
1. How do you compensate these "workers" who are compelled to move to another part of the country. And for the locals about to be flooded by the chronically sick and disabled, will NHS facilities be beefed up to cope with this new demand?
2. How do you compensate the employers who have these "workers" imposed upon them? Productivity and absence will be major issues if the "workers" are too ill.
This is the typical crayon politics from a right wing who insist they have the "common sense" solutions and nobody else has any ideas. What he proposes will not work, at a very basic level and even more so when you consider the details.
Yet they keep saying this stupid, and have moron media repeat it, and there is now a client vote so dulled by this avalanche of "news" that they don't ask how. But we can't then talk about the actual issue or actual ideas to resolve, because Crayons.
"We’ve got 2.5 million people on long-term sick leave. We’ve got very many disabled people who said they want to work and can’t get jobs. We’ve got a lot of people who left the workforce during Covid, older people typically, who we need to get back into the workforce. So the argument there are no Britons for these jobs does not really stand up to the test of those figures."
So two problems:
1. How do you compensate these "workers" who are compelled to move to another part of the country. And for the locals about to be flooded by the chronically sick and disabled, will NHS facilities be beefed up to cope with this new demand?
2. How do you compensate the employers who have these "workers" imposed upon them? Productivity and absence will be major issues if the "workers" are too ill.
This is the typical crayon politics from a right wing who insist they have the "common sense" solutions and nobody else has any ideas. What he proposes will not work, at a very basic level and even more so when you consider the details.
Yet they keep saying this stupid, and have moron media repeat it, and there is now a client vote so dulled by this avalanche of "news" that they don't ask how. But we can't then talk about the actual issue or act How -practically - do we make this work? IDS went up the valleys and told the unemployed there were loads of jobs in Cardiff. He was right. Bar jobs. Hospitality. Late shifts. Proposed as a solution for people with kids and no child support and of course no public transport to get them all the way home.
Great as a Crayon solution, useless in the real world. Inner city single mums are not available to work in a bar in Devon tourist spots for the summer. Or Wisbech food factories. However much Crayons get deployed.
He's good - but he's not that good.