Cat Neilan @CatNeilan MPs now believe Robert Jenrick has resigned - I'm told Simon Clarke asked Rishi Sunak directly at the 1922 meeting if he had stepped down and the PM did not deny it
That calls into question Sunak's Government. He was a fool not to promote Jenrick when Braverman left. He's just terrible at politics.
If this bill isn't hard enough, but our supposed partners we're sending the forrin to say they won't comply, where does that leave the small-dicked hard right?
Hard (ho hum) to say that Starmer / leftie lawyers / the courts are blocking their Rwanda plan when Rwanda says it won't do it.
Shockingly enough, the UK doesn't get to dictate to foreigners what they should do...
Well, we used to. In the days of Impah. It's been downhill since there.
Must resist the temptation to create the meme that Britain should respond to this by declaring war in Rwanda. It's what we'd have done in the good old days.
This all sounds like the NI Bill that started with it sort of breaks international law . We now have the earth is made of cheese bill which starts with its not compatible with the ECHR.
If this bill isn't hard enough, but our supposed partners we're sending the forrin to say they won't comply, where does that leave the small-dicked hard right?
Hard (ho hum) to say that Starmer / leftie lawyers / the courts are blocking their Rwanda plan when Rwanda says it won't do it.
Shockingly enough, the UK doesn't get to dictate to foreigners what they should do...
Well, we used to. In the days of Impah. It's been downhill since there.
Must resist the temptation to create the meme that Britain should respond to this by declaring war in Rwanda. It's what we'd have done in the good old days.
Not to mention the Netherlands. I can't remember the last but one time a British Prime Minister wanted to invade them for their own sake (as opposed to Germans, French, etc. etc. occupying them).
I think Sunak will pack the Lords to get the Rwanda legislation through. There is a total madness infecting the Conservative party currently. They are hellbent on this.
The King wouldn't agree, see the People's Budget saga and King George V.
Assuming the crossbenchers voted against the government, Sunak would need to appoint just over 250 peers.
Correct. George V demanded a second general election to test public opinion before agreeing to create the extra peers if necessary to get the Budget / Parliament Act through.
Helpfully, the Tories restored the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament on his own initiative, earlier this parliament.
So Abolish the Monarchy too. And get rid of the Lords. And change the name of the country to Leonia
The Lords can only delay legislation, including the Rwanda Bill, not block it and the King will sign any legislation Parliament has voted for
The Lords can delay it until the next session, which would mean October
It would be absolutely fucking hilarious if Rwanda pulled out of the scheme because its government doesn't want to do deals with international-law-breaking countries.
Cat Neilan @CatNeilan MPs now believe Robert Jenrick has resigned - I'm told Simon Clarke asked Rishi Sunak directly at the 1922 meeting if he had stepped down and the PM did not deny it
That calls into question Sunak's Government. He was a fool not to promote Jenrick when Braverman left. He's just terrible at politics.
I'm surprised no one resigned when Cameron was appointed, it being either an admission he didn't want the hassle of a wider reshuffle, or that he thinks no MP in the party was capable enough.
The Home Secretary prefaces the "Beaches are Safe" bill with a statement that he can't say this is compatible with ECHR but the government are doing it anyway
Rwanda issue a statement saying they're out if the bill breaches the ECHR
Robert tooboringtobotherinsulting Jenrick resigns as Migration minister because the bill isn't tough enough
Pass the popcorn.
Calling the Putinists, which is the will of the peeps now? Jenrick or Sunaks version? How is this to be determined?
That is a silly argument. Would you like a referendum on the ECHR? How about the death penalty for child killers?
Perhaps Starmer could promise the Rwandan government an extra 100 million if they pull out of the Treaty. It would surely rubber stamp the end of this cesspit government.
I think Sunak will pack the Lords to get the Rwanda legislation through. There is a total madness infecting the Conservative party currently. They are hellbent on this.
The King wouldn't agree, see the People's Budget saga and King George V.
Assuming the crossbenchers voted against the government, Sunak would need to appoint just over 250 peers.
Correct. George V demanded a second general election to test public opinion before agreeing to create the extra peers if necessary to get the Budget / Parliament Act through.
Helpfully, the Tories restored the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament on his own initiative, earlier this parliament.
So Abolish the Monarchy too. And get rid of the Lords. And change the name of the country to Leonia
The Lords can only delay legislation, including the Rwanda Bill, not block it and the King will sign any legislation Parliament has voted for
The Lords can delay legislation for 12 months - or 13 at the end of a parliamentary session. That gives them a veto this side of a general election (which has to be called by 18 Dec 2024 at the extreme latest).
I think Sunak will pack the Lords to get the Rwanda legislation through. There is a total madness infecting the Conservative party currently. They are hellbent on this.
The King wouldn't agree, see the People's Budget saga and King George V.
Assuming the crossbenchers voted against the government, Sunak would need to appoint just over 250 peers.
Correct. George V demanded a second general election to test public opinion before agreeing to create the extra peers if necessary to get the Budget / Parliament Act through.
Helpfully, the Tories restored the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament on his own initiative, earlier this parliament.
So Abolish the Monarchy too. And get rid of the Lords. And change the name of the country to Leonia
The Lords can only delay legislation, including the Rwanda Bill, not block it and the King will sign any legislation Parliament has voted for
The Lords can delay it until the next session, which would mean October
It needs to get through the commons first. And with Jenrick + Braverman against it I don't fancy Rishi's chances...
It's rare Mrs Stodge offers a vaguely political opinion but she is incredulous about the "loss" of WhatsApp messages involving both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. "It's all very convenient?" was her sanguine comment.
Life moves on and having failed to stop the immigration of a virus we now seem to be struggling with the entry into our country of much more advanced multi-cellular organisms.
I raised the core question about immigration a couple of days ago - I did wonder after the 2016 Referendum whether we would offer a form of "gastarbeit" visa or permission on the West German model restricting both the numbers and the time anyone could stay in the country.
There were some interesting comments from Hague a day or two back - we have moved to a "post-work" world possibly as a result of the pandemic experience which caused a lot of people to re-evaluate their life priorities. There's more to life than work or I work to live, I don't live to work are mantras I hear. The notion of work as some form of life affirmation has gone and no amount of cajolery from Ministers or former Conservative leaders is going to change that.
Oddly enough, part of that derives from Inheritance, that good old Tory virtue (so we are told). As older people gain parental inheritance later in life, it becomes the mechanism by which they can retire earlier and move into that post-work way of life. A sudden influx of additional capital from the inheritance of a deceased parent can be transformational.
The Home Secretary prefaces the "Beaches are Safe" bill with a statement that he can't say this is compatible with ECHR but the government are doing it anyway
Rwanda issue a statement saying they're out if the bill breaches the ECHR
Robert tooboringtobotherinsulting Jenrick resigns as Migration minister because the bill isn't tough enough
Pass the popcorn.
I feel like its inevitable that in the election loss aftermath everything is going to be pinned pretty much fully on failure to deal with immigration, that no matter how hard the government goes it was not hard enough.
And while a lot of people are mad about the failure to reduce immigration, I find it hard to believe the MPs think that is the only major problem or factor at play here. But that may well shape the leadership contest, as it's a convenient explanation.
I think Sunak will pack the Lords to get the Rwanda legislation through. There is a total madness infecting the Conservative party currently. They are hellbent on this.
The King wouldn't agree, see the People's Budget saga and King George V.
Assuming the crossbenchers voted against the government, Sunak would need to appoint just over 250 peers.
Correct. George V demanded a second general election to test public opinion before agreeing to create the extra peers if necessary to get the Budget / Parliament Act through.
Helpfully, the Tories restored the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament on his own initiative, earlier this parliament.
So Abolish the Monarchy too. And get rid of the Lords. And change the name of the country to Leonia
The Lords can only delay legislation, including the Rwanda Bill, not block it and the King will sign any legislation Parliament has voted for
The Lords can delay legislation for 12 months - or 13 at the end of a parliamentary session. That gives them a veto this side of a general election (which has to be called by 18 Dec 2024 at the extreme latest).
I thought it was 28th January 2025 it had to be called by? That is over a year.
The modifications agreed with Rwanda may satisfy the Lords, if not the Tories can use it as an election issue and Starmer wants to shift to a more elected and less appointed upper house anyway
If this bill isn't hard enough, but our supposed partners we're sending the forrin to say they won't comply, where does that leave the small-dicked hard right?
Hard (ho hum) to say that Starmer / leftie lawyers / the courts are blocking their Rwanda plan when Rwanda says it won't do it.
Shockingly enough, the UK doesn't get to dictate to foreigners what they should do...
That’s ridiculous!!!! Bring back the empire!!!! What’s the point of foreigners if we can’t dictate to them? Send a battleship to Rwanda! What do you mean, it doesn’t have a coastline?
Actually, food is the one place where I would say @kyf_100 has a point about dystopian modern life
The worldwide plague of obesity is not due to some global collapse in willpower, it is because the food industry has learned to create sweet fatty foods that we all find horrifyingly addictive, and which give us cravings for more. It is hideous. In my widely travelled lifetime I have watched one country after another fall victim to this, obesity is now so ubiquitous it is a shock when you reach a country which doesn’t suffer it - Cambodia is an example, Thailand is not: they are getting fat
On my recent visit to France I noticed it there, too: the French are also getting fat
We desperately need these weight loss drugs to work: as a species. Or we fiercely regulate the food industry
When it comes to addictions very heavy regulation drives a huge industry very profitably underground, as in the drugs trade, with immense costs to all the rest of us.
The difficulty with food in a prosperous society is that the basis of the problem stuff is in an excess of generally essential stuff - sugars and fats in particular, combined with particular stuff, like chocolate/cocoa products which in themselves are harmless.
It is perfectly possible to get to be 190 kilos with a BMI of 80 on cheese and chocolate without much assistance from anything more exotic.
Regulation will make very little difference, even if it bans certain particular formulations. It can't ban sugars, chocolate/cocoa and dairy/fats any more than it can ban water.
Yes, I agree. Prohibition generally does not work, it would be the last act of a desperate government
That’s why we must pray that Ozempic works and doesn’t give you thyroid cancer
Food is, I think, different to the general rules on prohibition in that it's needed in such quantities it can't be produced underground. The question is more whether regulation can be made to work both in enforcement (probably but not easy) and on cost (more doubtful). High fat processed foods are relatively cheap. Who's going to be the politician slapping 20% or whatever on the weekly shop?
The idea that 'fat' is to blame for making us fat is a very discredited notion that sadly many people are still beholden to - it's a generational thing. This demonstrates the danger of big changes in public policy on food - they could (ans probably would) be based on inaccurate information and therefore make things worse.
The issue here is not the quantity of food we're consuming, it's the quality - there isn't any. I heard from a nutritionalist recently (I have no corroboration for this, it's just being discussed) that in the 1950s you could get 100% of your vitamin A for a day by consuming a peach. Today, it would take 30 peaches. Is it any wonder that when we fail to give our bodies what they've asked for, they carry on asking?
Hey LG
Are you saying that peaches have declined in nutritional merit, or that the requirements have increased?
The former. A consequence of demineralised soils, nitrogen fertilisers, and any other practises prioritising bulk and yield over nutrient content.
Such a big reduction seems rather unlikely to me. You've already said you are just presenting it 'as heard', so fair enough.
The whole nutrition requirements thing is pretty opaque in my view. Very important, but it's a minefield of self-interested statements.
It seemed extreme to me too, but at the same time, not terribly surprising. I am not sure of how vitamins form, but with minerals it's a simple case of minerals in, minerals out. If the produce is grown in poor soil, mostly by means of nitrogen fertilisers to add bulk, it will contain mostly nitrogen and very little of anything else. Another outcome would be a case of transubstantiation.
There's a vast amount we can do to improve the quality of our basic diets, and see how that helps the health and wellbeing of the general populace. I'm convinced a lot of stuff like obesity would decline significantly.
Well vitamins are a mixed bag. Some are simple, some not. I don't know much beyond that though. Minerals (A term I know, but whatever it means) are a very mixed bag. There's always too little and always too much as everyday possibilities.
The Home Secretary prefaces the "Beaches are Safe" bill with a statement that he can't say this is compatible with ECHR but the government are doing it anyway
Rwanda issue a statement saying they're out if the bill breaches the ECHR
Robert tooboringtobotherinsulting Jenrick resigns as Migration minister because the bill isn't tough enough
Pass the popcorn.
Calling the Putinists, which is the will of the peeps now? Jenrick or Sunaks version? How is this to be determined?
That is a silly argument. Would you like a referendum on the ECHR? How about the death penalty for child killers?
No, I suggest we have a system of government that works.
The "will of the people" is only valid if passed as laws by parliament. Courts interpret those laws.
What the PM says he wants does not carry legal weight if he doesn't pass laws.
I think Sunak will pack the Lords to get the Rwanda legislation through. There is a total madness infecting the Conservative party currently. They are hellbent on this.
The King wouldn't agree, see the People's Budget saga and King George V.
Assuming the crossbenchers voted against the government, Sunak would need to appoint just over 250 peers.
Correct. George V demanded a second general election to test public opinion before agreeing to create the extra peers if necessary to get the Budget / Parliament Act through.
Helpfully, the Tories restored the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament on his own initiative, earlier this parliament.
So Abolish the Monarchy too. And get rid of the Lords. And change the name of the country to Leonia
The Lords can only delay legislation, including the Rwanda Bill, not block it and the King will sign any legislation Parliament has voted for
The Lords can delay legislation for 12 months - or 13 at the end of a parliamentary session. That gives them a veto this side of a general election (which has to be called by 18 Dec 2024 at the extreme latest).
I thought it was 28th January 2025 it had to be called by? That is over a year.
The modifications agreed with Rwanda may satisfy the Lords, if not the Tories can use it as an election issue and Starmer wants to shift to a more elected and less appointed upper house anyway
Nope 28th January 2025 is when the election needs to be held by.
It needs to be called by 18 Dec 2024 (i.e. 5 years after this Parliament first met) and 28th January 2025 is the date it would occur on if called on that date due to various Bank holidays over Christmas / New Year.
If this bill isn't hard enough, but our supposed partners we're sending the forrin to say they won't comply, where does that leave the small-dicked hard right?
Hard (ho hum) to say that Starmer / leftie lawyers / the courts are blocking their Rwanda plan when Rwanda says it won't do it.
Shockingly enough, the UK doesn't get to dictate to foreigners what they should do...
That’s ridiculous!!!! Bring back the empire!!!! What’s the point of foreigners if we can’t dictate to them? Send a battleship to Rwanda! What do you mean, it doesn’t have a coastline?
It's right next to a big lake, surely we can airdrop some kind of artillery in there?
I think Sunak will pack the Lords to get the Rwanda legislation through. There is a total madness infecting the Conservative party currently. They are hellbent on this.
The King wouldn't agree, see the People's Budget saga and King George V.
Assuming the crossbenchers voted against the government, Sunak would need to appoint just over 250 peers.
Correct. George V demanded a second general election to test public opinion before agreeing to create the extra peers if necessary to get the Budget / Parliament Act through.
Helpfully, the Tories restored the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament on his own initiative, earlier this parliament.
So Abolish the Monarchy too. And get rid of the Lords. And change the name of the country to Leonia
The Lords can only delay legislation, including the Rwanda Bill, not block it and the King will sign any legislation Parliament has voted for
The Lords can delay legislation for 12 months - or 13 at the end of a parliamentary session. That gives them a veto this side of a general election (which has to be called by 18 Dec 2024 at the extreme latest).
I thought it was 28th January 2025 it had to be called by? That is over a year.
The modifications agreed with Rwanda may satisfy the Lords, if not the Tories can use it as an election issue and Starmer wants to shift to a more elected and less appointed upper house anyway
Two basic problems love 1. Rwanda are throwing the agreement in the bin because its illegal 2. See 1
So your entire wedge issue against Labour / leftie lawyers / the courts / people with morality falls apart. You can't break international law. You've just published a bill where the Home Secretary introducing the bill says he can't say it doesn't break international law (because it does) but we're doing it anyway.
The world doesn't work like that any more. We don't get to tell the forrin what to do any more. Your election issue battle isn't with Starmer. Who hasn't blocked this. Its with the Nigel, who rightly skewers your crayon politics as being utterly inept.
If this bill isn't hard enough, but our supposed partners we're sending the forrin to say they won't comply, where does that leave the small-dicked hard right?
Hard (ho hum) to say that Starmer / leftie lawyers / the courts are blocking their Rwanda plan when Rwanda says it won't do it.
Shockingly enough, the UK doesn't get to dictate to foreigners what they should do...
That’s ridiculous!!!! Bring back the empire!!!! What’s the point of foreigners if we can’t dictate to them? Send a battleship to Rwanda! What do you mean, it doesn’t have a coastline?
It's right next to a big lake, surely we can airdrop some kind of artillery in there?
If we can get a Duracell AAA battery airdropped there I'd be amazed.
If this bill isn't hard enough, but our supposed partners we're sending the forrin to say they won't comply, where does that leave the small-dicked hard right?
Hard (ho hum) to say that Starmer / leftie lawyers / the courts are blocking their Rwanda plan when Rwanda says it won't do it.
Shockingly enough, the UK doesn't get to dictate to foreigners what they should do...
That’s ridiculous!!!! Bring back the empire!!!! What’s the point of foreigners if we can’t dictate to them? Send a battleship to Rwanda! What do you mean, it doesn’t have a coastline?
What do you mean, we don't have a battleship either?
I think Sunak will pack the Lords to get the Rwanda legislation through. There is a total madness infecting the Conservative party currently. They are hellbent on this.
The King wouldn't agree, see the People's Budget saga and King George V.
Assuming the crossbenchers voted against the government, Sunak would need to appoint just over 250 peers.
Correct. George V demanded a second general election to test public opinion before agreeing to create the extra peers if necessary to get the Budget / Parliament Act through.
Helpfully, the Tories restored the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament on his own initiative, earlier this parliament.
So Abolish the Monarchy too. And get rid of the Lords. And change the name of the country to Leonia
The Lords can only delay legislation, including the Rwanda Bill, not block it and the King will sign any legislation Parliament has voted for
The Lords can delay legislation for 12 months - or 13 at the end of a parliamentary session. That gives them a veto this side of a general election (which has to be called by 18 Dec 2024 at the extreme latest).
I thought it was 28th January 2025 it had to be called by? That is over a year.
The modifications agreed with Rwanda may satisfy the Lords, if not the Tories can use it as an election issue and Starmer wants to shift to a more elected and less appointed upper house anyway
Nope 28th January 2025 is when the election needs to be held by.
It needs to be called by 18 Dec 2024 (i.e. 5 years after this Parliament first met) and 28th January 2025 is the date it would occur on if called on that date due to various Bank holidays over Christmas / New Year.
After today January 2024 looks like an option...
I think the Reverend HY imagines a "Who Rules Britain" election. Where we will be able to deport 704,000 foreigners to Rwanda if people vote out of power that bastard Starmer.
In the real world, how does Rishi get around a two-front war inside the parliamentary party? He's toast ins't he unless the limp-dicked right back down. And they are so thick that they can't see Mr Floppy.
The United States is already in a dispute with Venezuela. And the Washington Post thinks we should be tougher: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken was unequivocal in his statement about Venezuela on Oct. 18. He said the United States expected Venezuela to take steps to allow all candidates to run for president and to release improperly held U.S. citizens by the end of November. If not, he threatened, sanctions that had been lifted would be snapped back into place.
The deadline has come and gone. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro took some half-steps toward election reform on Nov. 30 that hardly fulfill Mr. Blinken’s conditions. The State Department called the half-steps an “important development” but said it was “deeply concerned by the lack of progress” on prisoner releases." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/06/venezuela-nicolas-maduro-blinken/
(Is there a link between these issues and the Venezuelan threats to Guyana? That seems likely, though not certain.
The Post appears to believe that Venezuela is holding three Americans hostage, though they don't say they are hostages.)
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
Worth noting that the Con 2019 -> now don't know look much more like those still intending to vote Conservative than those intending to vote Reform or left wing, which would align with a fair bit of swingback in that group. That said, they might just as well not vote. But don't look that likely to go full tonto vote Reform.
The far right in this country never does well in elections (the old European Parliament ones excepted, since the voters viewed them as a harmless way to register protest through a noddy assembly.) This is because (a) FPTP means that they're regarded as a wasted vote and (b) the Tories appease their potential electorate through the adoption of some of their obsessions.
Time for our regular reminder that the Conservative Party has a higher floor of support than Labour, has never polled less than 30% in a General Election in its entire history, and that the median age of the electorate has measurably increased since the 1997 mauling. They ought to poll at least a third of the popular vote, and potentially a good deal more if the Labour Continuity Sunak Party disillusions and bores a lot of its younger supporters into not bothering to turn out.
The Tories undoubtedly deserve to be smashed to pieces whenever this dismal Parliament finally runs out of road, but I'm far from convinced that this will happen. Labour surprised on the upside in 2017, when almost nobody was predicting this and the opinion polls were massively against Corbyn only a few weeks out from polling day; I think that the Conservatives might well outperform next time around.
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
I see from the Oxford Migration Observatory that since 2019, the number of people from the EU8 (aka the Eastern European EU expansion) employed in the UK dropped by 14% in the three years to end 2022 as people returned home. How much of that was people leaving social care jobs?
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
One of the insanities of what has just been announced is that the NHS can recruit foreign workers who remain able to bring their dependents but the care sector cannot.
I mean. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
a) Will divert recruitment from care to lower levels of nhs care.
b) mean care sector is in even more shit than now and so we will get more bed blocking and so on.
Why is the care sector seen as the cinderella every fucking time compared to "our wonderful NHS"???
The Home Secretary prefaces the "Beaches are Safe" bill with a statement that he can't say this is compatible with ECHR but the government are doing it anyway
Rwanda issue a statement saying they're out if the bill breaches the ECHR
Robert tooboringtobotherinsulting Jenrick resigns as Migration minister because the bill isn't tough enough
Pass the popcorn.
Also wondering what happens to all that money spent on 0 migrants. Is there a refund clause?
We will be in default of the agreement.
Note that Cleverly flies to Kigali to sign a new agreement. Says "now we have new powers". The Rwandan co-signatory tells the media that there are no new powers and what is he on about.
So this is a clear theme - the UK plan is too toxic for the Rwandan government.
Surely some nice Tory backbencher can pass an amendment to the Beaches are Safe bill stating that the Rwandan government does not get to say no to the 17.4m who voted to send people to Rwanda who do these dirty foreigners think they are?
It's funny that Rwanda was a German colony, then a Belgian colony, then had a relationship with France that they thought better of, then joined the Commonwealth. Is it some weird kind of national self-harm?
Actually, food is the one place where I would say @kyf_100 has a point about dystopian modern life
The worldwide plague of obesity is not due to some global collapse in willpower, it is because the food industry has learned to create sweet fatty foods that we all find horrifyingly addictive, and which give us cravings for more. It is hideous. In my widely travelled lifetime I have watched one country after another fall victim to this, obesity is now so ubiquitous it is a shock when you reach a country which doesn’t suffer it - Cambodia is an example, Thailand is not: they are getting fat
On my recent visit to France I noticed it there, too: the French are also getting fat
We desperately need these weight loss drugs to work: as a species. Or we fiercely regulate the food industry
When it comes to addictions very heavy regulation drives a huge industry very profitably underground, as in the drugs trade, with immense costs to all the rest of us.
The difficulty with food in a prosperous society is that the basis of the problem stuff is in an excess of generally essential stuff - sugars and fats in particular, combined with particular stuff, like chocolate/cocoa products which in themselves are harmless.
It is perfectly possible to get to be 190 kilos with a BMI of 80 on cheese and chocolate without much assistance from anything more exotic.
Regulation will make very little difference, even if it bans certain particular formulations. It can't ban sugars, chocolate/cocoa and dairy/fats any more than it can ban water.
Yes, I agree. Prohibition generally does not work, it would be the last act of a desperate government
That’s why we must pray that Ozempic works and doesn’t give you thyroid cancer
Food is, I think, different to the general rules on prohibition in that it's needed in such quantities it can't be produced underground. The question is more whether regulation can be made to work both in enforcement (probably but not easy) and on cost (more doubtful). High fat processed foods are relatively cheap. Who's going to be the politician slapping 20% or whatever on the weekly shop?
The idea that 'fat' is to blame for making us fat is a very discredited notion that sadly many people are still beholden to - it's a generational thing. This demonstrates the danger of big changes in public policy on food - they could (ans probably would) be based on inaccurate information and therefore make things worse.
The issue here is not the quantity of food we're consuming, it's the quality - there isn't any. I heard from a nutritionalist recently (I have no corroboration for this, it's just being discussed) that in the 1950s you could get 100% of your vitamin A for a day by consuming a peach. Today, it would take 30 peaches. Is it any wonder that when we fail to give our bodies what they've asked for, they carry on asking?
Hey LG
Are you saying that peaches have declined in nutritional merit, or that the requirements have increased?
The former. A consequence of demineralised soils, nitrogen fertilisers, and any other practises prioritising bulk and yield over nutrient content.
Such a big reduction seems rather unlikely to me. You've already said you are just presenting it 'as heard', so fair enough.
The whole nutrition requirements thing is pretty opaque in my view. Very important, but it's a minefield of self-interested statements.
It seemed extreme to me too, but at the same time, not terribly surprising. I am not sure of how vitamins form, but with minerals it's a simple case of minerals in, minerals out. If the produce is grown in poor soil, mostly by means of nitrogen fertilisers to add bulk, it will contain mostly nitrogen and very little of anything else. Another outcome would be a case of transubstantiation.
There's a vast amount we can do to improve the quality of our basic diets, and see how that helps the health and wellbeing of the general populace. I'm convinced a lot of stuff like obesity would decline significantly.
Well vitamins are a mixed bag. Some are simple, some not. I don't know much beyond that though. Minerals (A term I know, but whatever it means) are a very mixed bag. There's always too little and always too much as everyday possibilities.
Modern produce tends to be low in important minerals like magnesium, selenium, potassium, zinc etc., which are vital to human health.
As an aside, how many of the dependents being brought to the UK are oldies, how many spouses, and how many are kids? Because - again - it's one of those numbers that makes a massive difference to understanding what's going on.
Cat Neilan @CatNeilan MPs now believe Robert Jenrick has resigned - I'm told Simon Clarke asked Rishi Sunak directly at the 1922 meeting if he had stepped down and the PM did not deny it
That calls into question Sunak's Government. He was a fool not to promote Jenrick when Braverman left. He's just terrible at politics.
I'm surprised no one resigned when Cameron was appointed, it being either an admission he didn't want the hassle of a wider reshuffle, or that he thinks no MP in the party was capable enough.
When are we likely to feel the impact of the Cameron bounce do you think?
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
One of the insanities of what has just been announced is that the NHS can recruit foreign workers who remain able to bring their dependents but the care sector cannot.
I mean. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
a) Will divert recruitment from care to lower levels of nhs care.
b) mean care sector is in even more shit than now and so we will get more bed blocking and so on.
Why is the care sector seen as the cinderella every fucking time compared to "our wonderful NHS"???
I am furious about this.
It is fairly obvious. Care = councils. NHS = cabinet.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
One of the insanities of what has just been announced is that the NHS can recruit foreign workers who remain able to bring their dependents but the care sector cannot.
I mean. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
a) Will divert recruitment from care to lower levels of nhs care.
b) mean care sector is in even more shit than now and so we will get more bed blocking and so on.
Why is the care sector seen as the cinderella every fucking time compared to "our wonderful NHS"???
I am furious about this.
It is fairly obvious. Care = councils. NHS = cabinet.
Also the likes of Sunak and the cabinet might need the NHS at times. They will have their own private social care provision rather than relying on state funded provision.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Frankly Braverman and Jenrick heading to ReformUK is fine by me
Cat Neilan @CatNeilan MPs now believe Robert Jenrick has resigned - I'm told Simon Clarke asked Rishi Sunak directly at the 1922 meeting if he had stepped down and the PM did not deny it
That calls into question Sunak's Government. He was a fool not to promote Jenrick when Braverman left. He's just terrible at politics.
I'm surprised no one resigned when Cameron was appointed, it being either an admission he didn't want the hassle of a wider reshuffle, or that he thinks no MP in the party was capable enough.
When are we likely to feel the impact of the Cameron bounce do you think?
Bounce, such as it is, has probably been and is probably about to go.
And Sunak will be in the same prison as before- centrists hating the rhetoric and rightists hating the inaction.
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
One of the insanities of what has just been announced is that the NHS can recruit foreign workers who remain able to bring their dependents but the care sector cannot.
I mean. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
a) Will divert recruitment from care to lower levels of nhs care.
b) mean care sector is in even more shit than now and so we will get more bed blocking and so on.
Why is the care sector seen as the cinderella every fucking time compared to "our wonderful NHS"???
I am furious about this.
It is fairly obvious. Care = councils. NHS = cabinet.
Yep.
Not joined up thinking.
NHS and care needs a proper merger imho.
What's the frigging difference? Loads of waffle about "it's not health, it's cleaning a person's arse", "picking them up off the floor" etc . Come on. That is so related to their wellbeing it is health.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Frankly Braverman and Jenrick heading to ReformUK is fine by me
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Frankly Braverman and Jenrick heading to ReformUK is fine by me
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!...
Partly. You produced a video in which you noted the upcoming demographic problems would require solutions, of which immigration would be one, but also said no solution was politically palatable.
In fairness to you, that was five years ago in 2018.
One of the reasons why the Conservatives really need to go into opposition and have a good long hard think is because they have signally failed to grasp this. You did five years ago. They are just flailing around, pressing buttons at random.
Actually, food is the one place where I would say @kyf_100 has a point about dystopian modern life
The worldwide plague of obesity is not due to some global collapse in willpower, it is because the food industry has learned to create sweet fatty foods that we all find horrifyingly addictive, and which give us cravings for more. It is hideous. In my widely travelled lifetime I have watched one country after another fall victim to this, obesity is now so ubiquitous it is a shock when you reach a country which doesn’t suffer it - Cambodia is an example, Thailand is not: they are getting fat
On my recent visit to France I noticed it there, too: the French are also getting fat
We desperately need these weight loss drugs to work: as a species. Or we fiercely regulate the food industry
I'd rather we hammer Big Food. Those fuckers are poisoning us whilst raking in billions.
Big Food, no, locally-owned takeaways do more damage. I live in a town of 9,000 people. I can count 10 takeaways that do home deliveries.
Nah, there's a handful of transnational corporations pumping out billions of dollars of ultra processed food. Whole families eat nothing but that shite. It ain't the takeaways.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Frankly Braverman and Jenrick heading to ReformUK is fine by me
Are we getting a great Realignment of the Right? Like with the Corn Laws?
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
One of the insanities of what has just been announced is that the NHS can recruit foreign workers who remain able to bring their dependents but the care sector cannot.
I mean. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
a) Will divert recruitment from care to lower levels of nhs care.
b) mean care sector is in even more shit than now and so we will get more bed blocking and so on.
Why is the care sector seen as the cinderella every fucking time compared to "our wonderful NHS"???
I am furious about this.
It is fairly obvious. Care = councils. NHS = cabinet.
That and the astronomical cost of putting social care right - and the not-so-small question of where all the money would come from.
Theresa May tried to tap the obvious source - oldies' houses - and look what happened to her.
It always comes back to the same old problem in this country. Most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of homeowners over the age of 50, virtually all of whom believe that they already pay too much to prop up the state or that they shouldn't be paying anything at all. Most of the rest of the population, the very wealthy aside, have been bled white already by the cumulative burden of taxation and housing costs and have nothing left to give.
Nobody will dare touch the former group because they're too numerous and are too good at turning out to vote, so all the Government can do is trim costs around the edges through more performative cruelty towards the poor and disabled, and by whistling its way through the slow motion collapse of England's entire framework of local authorities.
Will Labour do any better if they get the chance? Probably not.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Frankly Braverman and Jenrick heading to ReformUK is fine by me
Are we getting a great Realignment of the Right? Like with the Corn Laws?
Jenrick resigning - if he has - when the ERG loons seem happy and self-described moderates have caved once more seems very strange to me.
Distinction between Fastidious Constitutionalists and Will Of The People Populists in the ERG, and the Conservative Movement more generally. Bill Cash and Jonathan Gullis. The first group just want Westminster to assert its democratic rights- doing mostly the same stuff, but via the ancient framework. The second group want Rwanda now, never mind how.
They're not really compatible, except as far as they saw the EU as the enemy.
If Jenrick were to leave the Tory party along with Braverman I might actually be slightly more disposed towards them. But they won't and even if they did it wouldn't be enough to make me vote for them.
Jenrick resigning - if he has - when the ERG loons seem happy and self-described moderates have caved once more seems very strange to me.
I'm lost with this now.
Is he planning to run as Braverman's deputy?
She is aiming to dislodge Tice then
I am not sure why you think it's realistic that Braverman would head off to join Reform when she'll get her chance to try for the leadership of the Tories in less than a year (if that, the way things are going).
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!...
Partly. You produced a video in which you noted the upcoming demographic problems would require solutions, of which immigration would be one, but also said no solution was politically palatable.
In fairness to you, that was five years ago in 2018.
One of the reasons why the Conservatives really need to go into opposition and have a good long hard think is because they have signally failed to grasp this. You did five years ago. They are just flailing around, pressing buttons at random.
I think that video - which I haven't seen for five years! - does a pretty good job of getting the issues across
Jenrick said to all and sundry that he was resigning, anticipating the rampaging hordes of the lunatic Tory hard right would follow him over the top. But it turns out that they're OK with the legislation and the moderates have caved once more. So Jenrick is rather stuck. It could not happen to a nicer bloke. How bleakly amusing.
Nah - Braverman wants to be Con leader while Tice and Reform want to replace the Cons by harnessing anti-Lab Govt voters who have not forgotten what a piss-poor effort this Con Govt has been.
Which of those is more realistic - well time will tell. I somehow doubt either will achieve their objective
Jenrick said to all and sundry that he was resigning, anticipating the rampaging hordes of the lunatic Tory hard right would follow him over the top. But it turns out that they're OK with the legislation and the moderates have caved once more. So Jenrick is rather stuck. It could not happen to a nicer bloke. How bleakly amusing.
Could it be that the prospect of unemployment within the next year is starting to concentrate the minds of Tory MPs on issues concerning Planet Earth?
Actually, food is the one place where I would say @kyf_100 has a point about dystopian modern life
The worldwide plague of obesity is not due to some global collapse in willpower, it is because the food industry has learned to create sweet fatty foods that we all find horrifyingly addictive, and which give us cravings for more. It is hideous. In my widely travelled lifetime I have watched one country after another fall victim to this, obesity is now so ubiquitous it is a shock when you reach a country which doesn’t suffer it - Cambodia is an example, Thailand is not: they are getting fat
On my recent visit to France I noticed it there, too: the French are also getting fat
We desperately need these weight loss drugs to work: as a species. Or we fiercely regulate the food industry
When it comes to addictions very heavy regulation drives a huge industry very profitably underground, as in the drugs trade, with immense costs to all the rest of us.
The difficulty with food in a prosperous society is that the basis of the problem stuff is in an excess of generally essential stuff - sugars and fats in particular, combined with particular stuff, like chocolate/cocoa products which in themselves are harmless.
It is perfectly possible to get to be 190 kilos with a BMI of 80 on cheese and chocolate without much assistance from anything more exotic.
Regulation will make very little difference, even if it bans certain particular formulations. It can't ban sugars, chocolate/cocoa and dairy/fats any more than it can ban water.
Yes, I agree. Prohibition generally does not work, it would be the last act of a desperate government
That’s why we must pray that Ozempic works and doesn’t give you thyroid cancer
Food is, I think, different to the general rules on prohibition in that it's needed in such quantities it can't be produced underground. The question is more whether regulation can be made to work both in enforcement (probably but not easy) and on cost (more doubtful). High fat processed foods are relatively cheap. Who's going to be the politician slapping 20% or whatever on the weekly shop?
The idea that 'fat' is to blame for making us fat is a very discredited notion that sadly many people are still beholden to - it's a generational thing. This demonstrates the danger of big changes in public policy on food - they could (ans probably would) be based on inaccurate information and therefore make things worse.
The issue here is not the quantity of food we're consuming, it's the quality - there isn't any. I heard from a nutritionalist recently (I have no corroboration for this, it's just being discussed) that in the 1950s you could get 100% of your vitamin A for a day by consuming a peach. Today, it would take 30 peaches. Is it any wonder that when we fail to give our bodies what they've asked for, they carry on asking?
Hey LG
Are you saying that peaches have declined in nutritional merit, or that the requirements have increased?
The former. A consequence of demineralised soils, nitrogen fertilisers, and any other practises prioritising bulk and yield over nutrient content.
Such a big reduction seems rather unlikely to me. You've already said you are just presenting it 'as heard', so fair enough.
The whole nutrition requirements thing is pretty opaque in my view. Very important, but it's a minefield of self-interested statements.
It seemed extreme to me too, but at the same time, not terribly surprising. I am not sure of how vitamins form, but with minerals it's a simple case of minerals in, minerals out. If the produce is grown in poor soil, mostly by means of nitrogen fertilisers to add bulk, it will contain mostly nitrogen and very little of anything else. Another outcome would be a case of transubstantiation.
There's a vast amount we can do to improve the quality of our basic diets, and see how that helps the health and wellbeing of the general populace. I'm convinced a lot of stuff like obesity would decline significantly.
As vitamin A is a fully organic compound, mineral depletion is unlikely to result in such a huge change. I suspect you have been misinformed by someone with an agenda.
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
One of the insanities of what has just been announced is that the NHS can recruit foreign workers who remain able to bring their dependents but the care sector cannot.
I mean. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
a) Will divert recruitment from care to lower levels of nhs care.
b) mean care sector is in even more shit than now and so we will get more bed blocking and so on.
Why is the care sector seen as the cinderella every fucking time compared to "our wonderful NHS"???
I am furious about this.
It is fairly obvious. Care = councils. NHS = cabinet.
That and the astronomical cost of putting social care right - and the not-so-small question of where all the money would come from.
Theresa May tried to tap the obvious source - oldies' houses - and look what happened to her.
It always comes back to the same old problem in this country. Most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of homeowners over the age of 50, virtually all of whom believe that they already pay too much to prop up the state or that they shouldn't be paying anything at all. Most of the rest of the population, the very wealthy aside, have been bled white already by the cumulative burden of taxation and housing costs and have nothing left to give.
Nobody will dare touch the former group because they're too numerous and are too good at turning out to vote, so all the Government can do is trim costs around the edges through more performative cruelty towards the poor and disabled, and by whistling its way through the slow motion collapse of England's entire framework of local authorities.
Will Labour do any better if they get the chance? Probably not.
Reform IHT so that it all is ear marked for social care.
Work out what the social care cost is likely to be (for a proper, decent, quality service - not current mess) over say next five years.
Levy that amount of money via IHT.
You might add a cap like Dilnot wanted and then create some kind of insurance market.
This is solvable. If the political class have the will.
I mean for FFS - we created the bloody NHS just after the War.
Now we can't find a way of putting another few £billion a year into care for old and disabled?
That and the astronomical cost of putting social care right - and the not-so-small question of where all the money would come from.
Theresa May tried to tap the obvious source - oldies' houses - and look what happened to her.
It always comes back to the same old problem in this country. Most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of homeowners over the age of 50, virtually all of whom believe that they already pay too much to prop up the state or that they shouldn't be paying anything at all. Most of the rest of the population, the very wealthy aside, have been bled white already by the cumulative burden of taxation and housing costs and have nothing left to give.
Nobody will dare touch the former group because they're too numerous and are too good at turning out to vote, so all the Government can do is trim costs around the edges through more performative cruelty towards the poor and disabled, and by whistling its way through the slow motion collapse of England's entire framework of local authorities.
Will Labour do any better if they get the chance? Probably not.
I agree with some of this but not all of it.
The "homeowners over the age of 50" may or may not be supporting children through University ot higher education and are still probably concerned they won't have enough to fund a lifestyle in retirement. Yet, you might say, look how many older people go on cruises. That might make you think ALL over 50s homeowners are full of cash - I'm less convinced.
I think you may also find older people support public spending especially if it's something the children or better yet the grandchildren might enjoy or use. Try to close the local nursery or playgroup and see how far you get.
There's a wider point about aspiration - Conservatives always do well when they can offer a clear route or policy for thoser who simply want to do better for themselves or their families. The current Conservative incarnation has closed down those routes and has nothing to say to the aspirational.
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!...
Partly. You produced a video in which you noted the upcoming demographic problems would require solutions, of which immigration would be one, but also said no solution was politically palatable.
In fairness to you, that was five years ago in 2018.
One of the reasons why the Conservatives really need to go into opposition and have a good long hard think is because they have signally failed to grasp this. You did five years ago. They are just flailing around, pressing buttons at random.
I think that video - which I haven't seen for five years! - does a pretty good job of getting the issues across
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
One of the insanities of what has just been announced is that the NHS can recruit foreign workers who remain able to bring their dependents but the care sector cannot.
I mean. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
a) Will divert recruitment from care to lower levels of nhs care.
b) mean care sector is in even more shit than now and so we will get more bed blocking and so on.
Why is the care sector seen as the cinderella every fucking time compared to "our wonderful NHS"???
I am furious about this.
It is fairly obvious. Care = councils. NHS = cabinet.
Yep.
Not joined up thinking.
NHS and care needs a proper merger imho.
What's the frigging difference? Loads of waffle about "it's not health, it's cleaning a person's arse", "picking them up off the floor" etc . Come on. That is so related to their wellbeing it is health.
There is also the fundamental reason that we have a bed crisis in the NHS is the inability to discharge people to social care.
The division of SC from NHS occurred at the formation of the NHS, when the workhouse hospitals became NHS, but the responsibility for Social Care remained with the councils.
What is the play now for the Braverman right. Or even the Sunak right. Rwanda will not accept this bill because it is illegal under international law. Cleverly can't now say it is legal, because the front page of the bill - published by him - says it isn't.
What do proponents of this envisage? We just tell Rwanda want they have to do?
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Frankly Braverman and Jenrick heading to ReformUK is fine by me
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Frankly Braverman and Jenrick heading to ReformUK is fine by me
Are we getting a great Realignment of the Right? Like with the Corn Laws?
There's been one due since the Noughties. If we had PR it would have happened with one Conservative and one UKIP/Reform party. But FPTP has its gravitational pull and they simply refuse to split, like one of those manically-grinning couples that can't get thru a game of Risk without screaming at each other.
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!...
Partly. You produced a video in which you noted the upcoming demographic problems would require solutions, of which immigration would be one, but also said no solution was politically palatable.
In fairness to you, that was five years ago in 2018.
One of the reasons why the Conservatives really need to go into opposition and have a good long hard think is because they have signally failed to grasp this. You did five years ago. They are just flailing around, pressing buttons at random.
I think that video - which I haven't seen for five years! - does a pretty good job of getting the issues across
As do I.
It's funny, that video shows the difficulties of producing YouTube content. It's 10 to 12 minutes long. It's moderately interesting. And it garnered 23,000 views. At 1 cent a time, that's $230.
I think you may also find older people support public spending especially if it's something the children or better yet the grandchildren might enjoy or use.
Paid for by other people.
Suggest ramping rates and lowering thresholds for inheritance tax, introducing land value taxation, or abolishing the sodding triple lock and see how far you get.
The Supreme Court can’t block the current Rwanda legislation but can issue a declaration of incompatibility.
This isn’t legally binding on Parliament but is supposed to act as a nudge to address the incompatibility. It won’t make much difference to the Tories in the Commons who are becoming seriously unhinged in their pursuit to get the bunting out as the first flight takes off .
The HOL is an altogether different matter . They tend to be mindful of breaching international Agreements . It will be that against the right wing media portraying them as enemies of the people .
Now is the time to throw the nutters out though. They're described often as the right of the party, but they're just the nutters. A sensible Tory party standing at the next GE will undoubtedly get annihilated, but they can have perhaps 200 good MPs rather than 100+100 arses.
Actually, food is the one place where I would say @kyf_100 has a point about dystopian modern life
The worldwide plague of obesity is not due to some global collapse in willpower, it is because the food industry has learned to create sweet fatty foods that we all find horrifyingly addictive, and which give us cravings for more. It is hideous. In my widely travelled lifetime I have watched one country after another fall victim to this, obesity is now so ubiquitous it is a shock when you reach a country which doesn’t suffer it - Cambodia is an example, Thailand is not: they are getting fat
On my recent visit to France I noticed it there, too: the French are also getting fat
We desperately need these weight loss drugs to work: as a species. Or we fiercely regulate the food industry
When it comes to addictions very heavy regulation drives a huge industry very profitably underground, as in the drugs trade, with immense costs to all the rest of us.
The difficulty with food in a prosperous society is that the basis of the problem stuff is in an excess of generally essential stuff - sugars and fats in particular, combined with particular stuff, like chocolate/cocoa products which in themselves are harmless.
It is perfectly possible to get to be 190 kilos with a BMI of 80 on cheese and chocolate without much assistance from anything more exotic.
Regulation will make very little difference, even if it bans certain particular formulations. It can't ban sugars, chocolate/cocoa and dairy/fats any more than it can ban water.
Yes, I agree. Prohibition generally does not work, it would be the last act of a desperate government
That’s why we must pray that Ozempic works and doesn’t give you thyroid cancer
Food is, I think, different to the general rules on prohibition in that it's needed in such quantities it can't be produced underground. The question is more whether regulation can be made to work both in enforcement (probably but not easy) and on cost (more doubtful). High fat processed foods are relatively cheap. Who's going to be the politician slapping 20% or whatever on the weekly shop?
The idea that 'fat' is to blame for making us fat is a very discredited notion that sadly many people are still beholden to - it's a generational thing. This demonstrates the danger of big changes in public policy on food - they could (ans probably would) be based on inaccurate information and therefore make things worse.
The issue here is not the quantity of food we're consuming, it's the quality - there isn't any. I heard from a nutritionalist recently (I have no corroboration for this, it's just being discussed) that in the 1950s you could get 100% of your vitamin A for a day by consuming a peach. Today, it would take 30 peaches. Is it any wonder that when we fail to give our bodies what they've asked for, they carry on asking?
Hey LG
Are you saying that peaches have declined in nutritional merit, or that the requirements have increased?
The former. A consequence of demineralised soils, nitrogen fertilisers, and any other practises prioritising bulk and yield over nutrient content.
Such a big reduction seems rather unlikely to me. You've already said you are just presenting it 'as heard', so fair enough.
The whole nutrition requirements thing is pretty opaque in my view. Very important, but it's a minefield of self-interested statements.
It seemed extreme to me too, but at the same time, not terribly surprising. I am not sure of how vitamins form, but with minerals it's a simple case of minerals in, minerals out. If the produce is grown in poor soil, mostly by means of nitrogen fertilisers to add bulk, it will contain mostly nitrogen and very little of anything else. Another outcome would be a case of transubstantiation.
There's a vast amount we can do to improve the quality of our basic diets, and see how that helps the health and wellbeing of the general populace. I'm convinced a lot of stuff like obesity would decline significantly.
As vitamin A is a fully organic compound, mineral depletion is unlikely to result in such a huge change. I suspect you have been misinformed by someone with an agenda.
There is some truth that modern varieties are nutritionally poor compared with older varieties. Though not quite as bad as claimed.
Many older varieties are still available if you grow your own. They also have the advantage of a longer cropping season, which is a problem for commercial growers but an advantage for domestic growers.
I think you may also find older people support public spending especially if it's something the children or better yet the grandchildren might enjoy or use.
Paid for by other people.
Suggest ramping rates and lowering thresholds for inheritance tax, introducing land value taxation, or abolishing the sodding triple lock and see how far you get.
Even lefty Kinabalu wants to keep his free 60+ travel pass because he enjoys it.....
Actually, food is the one place where I would say @kyf_100 has a point about dystopian modern life
The worldwide plague of obesity is not due to some global collapse in willpower, it is because the food industry has learned to create sweet fatty foods that we all find horrifyingly addictive, and which give us cravings for more. It is hideous. In my widely travelled lifetime I have watched one country after another fall victim to this, obesity is now so ubiquitous it is a shock when you reach a country which doesn’t suffer it - Cambodia is an example, Thailand is not: they are getting fat
On my recent visit to France I noticed it there, too: the French are also getting fat
We desperately need these weight loss drugs to work: as a species. Or we fiercely regulate the food industry
When it comes to addictions very heavy regulation drives a huge industry very profitably underground, as in the drugs trade, with immense costs to all the rest of us.
The difficulty with food in a prosperous society is that the basis of the problem stuff is in an excess of generally essential stuff - sugars and fats in particular, combined with particular stuff, like chocolate/cocoa products which in themselves are harmless.
It is perfectly possible to get to be 190 kilos with a BMI of 80 on cheese and chocolate without much assistance from anything more exotic.
Regulation will make very little difference, even if it bans certain particular formulations. It can't ban sugars, chocolate/cocoa and dairy/fats any more than it can ban water.
Yes, I agree. Prohibition generally does not work, it would be the last act of a desperate government
That’s why we must pray that Ozempic works and doesn’t give you thyroid cancer
Food is, I think, different to the general rules on prohibition in that it's needed in such quantities it can't be produced underground. The question is more whether regulation can be made to work both in enforcement (probably but not easy) and on cost (more doubtful). High fat processed foods are relatively cheap. Who's going to be the politician slapping 20% or whatever on the weekly shop?
The idea that 'fat' is to blame for making us fat is a very discredited notion that sadly many people are still beholden to - it's a generational thing. This demonstrates the danger of big changes in public policy on food - they could (ans probably would) be based on inaccurate information and therefore make things worse.
The issue here is not the quantity of food we're consuming, it's the quality - there isn't any. I heard from a nutritionalist recently (I have no corroboration for this, it's just being discussed) that in the 1950s you could get 100% of your vitamin A for a day by consuming a peach. Today, it would take 30 peaches. Is it any wonder that when we fail to give our bodies what they've asked for, they carry on asking?
Hey LG
Are you saying that peaches have declined in nutritional merit, or that the requirements have increased?
The former. A consequence of demineralised soils, nitrogen fertilisers, and any other practises prioritising bulk and yield over nutrient content.
Such a big reduction seems rather unlikely to me. You've already said you are just presenting it 'as heard', so fair enough.
The whole nutrition requirements thing is pretty opaque in my view. Very important, but it's a minefield of self-interested statements.
It seemed extreme to me too, but at the same time, not terribly surprising. I am not sure of how vitamins form, but with minerals it's a simple case of minerals in, minerals out. If the produce is grown in poor soil, mostly by means of nitrogen fertilisers to add bulk, it will contain mostly nitrogen and very little of anything else. Another outcome would be a case of transubstantiation.
There's a vast amount we can do to improve the quality of our basic diets, and see how that helps the health and wellbeing of the general populace. I'm convinced a lot of stuff like obesity would decline significantly.
As vitamin A is a fully organic compound, mineral depletion is unlikely to result in such a huge change. I suspect you have been misinformed by someone with an agenda.
There is some truth that modern varieties are nutritionally poor compared with older varieties. Though not quite as bad as claimed.
Many older varieties are still available if you grow your own. They also have the advantage of a longer cropping season, which is a problem for commercial growers but an advantage for domestic growers.
Yes, I saw a paper suggesting 16% less vitamin A over 70 years. I also wonder about the content per item, as if the fruit is generally larger, but less nutritionally dense, the effects may cancel.
Paul Brand @PaulBrandITV · 6m Jenrick says the bill is a “triumph of hope over experience” - ie it won’t work.
He promises his support to his long-standing friend Sunak from the backbenches. But he also makes clear he’ll be campaigning on this issue and others. Positioned for leadership bid later down line?
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1m Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
Frankly Braverman and Jenrick heading to ReformUK is fine by me
Are we getting a great Realignment of the Right? Like with the Corn Laws?
There's been one due since the Noughties. If we had PR it would have happened with one Conservative and one UKIP/Reform party. But FPTP has its gravitational pull and they simply refuse to split, like one of those manically-grinning couples that can't get thru a game of Risk without screaming at each other.
In Canada it did happen with FPTP in 1993, with the Canadian Tories being overtaken by the Canadian Reform Party in 1993.
However both just split the rightwing vote and allowed the Liberal government 3 successive general election victories with clear majorities.
So in 2003 the Tories and Canadian Alliance (the successor to Reform) merged to form today's Conservative Party of Canada which eventually got back to power when it won most seats in the 2006 Canadian general election under Stephen Harper.
Under PR however the centre right and populist or libertarian right have stood separately and formed coalitions for government after the election. That is now the case in Sweden with the Moderates and Swedish Democrats, in Spain with the PP and Vox, in Italy with Brothers of Italy, Lega Nord and Forza Italia and in New Zealand with the Nationals and NZ First and the ACT.
If we had PR a longer term realignment of the right would therefore be likely yes, not under FPTP unless Reform merges with and takes over the Tories a la Canada
Paul Brand @PaulBrandITV · 6m Jenrick says the bill is a “triumph of hope over experience” - ie it won’t work.
He promises his support to his long-standing friend Sunak from the backbenches. But he also makes clear he’ll be campaigning on this issue and others. Positioned for leadership bid later down line?
Hence, Braverman's speech. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's watched Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro and the rest and fancies a piece of the action.
Or, Braverman is doing the job of democratic politics and reflecting public concern. See the polls in the header
The UK is experiencing waves of immigration that are unprecedented both in its own history, and in the history of most nations. Literally 1.3 million people in just two years. On top of that we have a minor invasion by boat across the Channel of tens of thousands every year, which we seem utterly incapable of stemming
And yet even the slightest attempt to reduce either influx is labelled as “hard right” or “Orbanite” or some other insane hyperbolic nonsense
it is quite surreal to watch, and - irony of ironies - if we continue to avoid tackling the problem, that WILL lead to actual Fascists in power and then you will have a reason for your bleating
People don't like immigration, they bleat on about it all the time, but they also don't like their mum's care home having no staff, or their kid's school having no teachers. We have a chronic labour shortage because of our society's changing demographic structure, and it's only going to get worse. If people don't like immigration then they need to either embrace higher pension ages or much worse services. I'm actually getting sick of people whining about immigration now. To think we left the EU to "fix" this problem too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This mantra about a "chronic labour shortage" is just the inverse of the lump of labour fallacy. We could easily have managed without the mass immigration of the last 25 years, and it's highly debatable whether there has been any per-capita benefit as a result of it.
That's nonsense. What matters is the dependency ratio - the share of non workers to working age people. When it's too high, you have too few workers and you find firms desperate to bring in people. And that works because immigrants are disproportionately of working age. You're seeing exactly the same pressures to bring in people everywhere this demographic problem is playing out. People need to stop whining about immigration and come up with solutions that will actually work, like significantly raising the pension age.
“In the year to September, 143,990 foreign health and care workers brought 173,896 dependants with them"
143990+173896=317886
Capacity of a BA Airbus-A380: 469
317886/469=678 ish
So that's 678 Airbuses in nine months
678/9*12= 904 Airbuses per year
904/52= 17 Airbuses per week, or 5 Airbuses A380s every two days
So we are importing 5 Airbuses every two days full of care workers and their families
or
143990+173896=317886
317886/9*12= 423848 people per year
So we are importing 423,848 people per year, including their dependants, to work in the health and care sectors
And that doesn't include the nine squillion people we are importing to do courses.
I know @rcs1000 had a good video in favor of mass immigration to solve problems. But this really is rather a lot of people.
I don't think I produced any such video!...
Partly. You produced a video in which you noted the upcoming demographic problems would require solutions, of which immigration would be one, but also said no solution was politically palatable.
In fairness to you, that was five years ago in 2018.
One of the reasons why the Conservatives really need to go into opposition and have a good long hard think is because they have signally failed to grasp this. You did five years ago. They are just flailing around, pressing buttons at random.
I think that video - which I haven't seen for five years! - does a pretty good job of getting the issues across
As do I.
It's funny, that video shows the difficulties of producing YouTube content. It's 10 to 12 minutes long. It's moderately interesting. And it garnered 23,000 views. At 1 cent a time, that's $230.
You need sponsorship. Like Squarespace or Nebula or Raycon earbuds or Manscaped or that annoying prick who keeps recommending his futures trading software whilst arsing around in Ascot or whatever (I hate him. Hate hate hate him)
Incidentally if you google "that annoying man who keeps recommending his trading software" he's the first entry. He's called Greg Secker.
Also incidentally, you should be able to get something that would move you up to £20 per 1000 views. You're finance and economics and sponsors love that.
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67641500
"Ukraine claims killing of 'traitor' ex-MP Illya Kyva in Russia"
Must resist the temptation to create the meme that Britain should respond to this by declaring war in Rwanda. It's what we'd have done in the good old days.
It's rare Mrs Stodge offers a vaguely political opinion but she is incredulous about the "loss" of WhatsApp messages involving both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. "It's all very convenient?" was her sanguine comment.
Life moves on and having failed to stop the immigration of a virus we now seem to be struggling with the entry into our country of much more advanced multi-cellular organisms.
I raised the core question about immigration a couple of days ago - I did wonder after the 2016 Referendum whether we would offer a form of "gastarbeit" visa or permission on the West German model restricting both the numbers and the time anyone could stay in the country.
There were some interesting comments from Hague a day or two back - we have moved to a "post-work" world possibly as a result of the pandemic experience which caused a lot of people to re-evaluate their life priorities. There's more to life than work or I work to live, I don't live to work are mantras I hear. The notion of work as some form of life affirmation has gone and no amount of cajolery from Ministers or former Conservative leaders is going to change that.
Oddly enough, part of that derives from Inheritance, that good old Tory virtue (so we are told). As older people gain parental inheritance later in life, it becomes the mechanism by which they can retire earlier and move into that post-work way of life. A sudden influx of additional capital from the inheritance of a deceased parent can be transformational.
And while a lot of people are mad about the failure to reduce immigration, I find it hard to believe the MPs think that is the only major problem or factor at play here. But that may well shape the leadership contest, as it's a convenient explanation.
The modifications agreed with Rwanda may satisfy the Lords, if not the Tories can use it as an election issue and Starmer wants to shift to a more elected and less appointed upper house anyway
The "will of the people" is only valid if passed as laws by parliament. Courts interpret those laws.
What the PM says he wants does not carry legal weight if he doesn't pass laws.
It needs to be called by 18 Dec 2024 (i.e. 5 years after this Parliament first met) and 28th January 2025 is the date it would occur on if called on that date due to various Bank holidays over Christmas / New Year.
After today January 2024 looks like an option...
1. Rwanda are throwing the agreement in the bin because its illegal
2. See 1
So your entire wedge issue against Labour / leftie lawyers / the courts / people with morality falls apart. You can't break international law. You've just published a bill where the Home Secretary introducing the bill says he can't say it doesn't break international law (because it does) but we're doing it anyway.
The world doesn't work like that any more. We don't get to tell the forrin what to do any more. Your election issue battle isn't with Starmer. Who hasn't blocked this. Its with the Nigel, who rightly skewers your crayon politics as being utterly inept.
In the real world, how does Rishi get around a two-front war inside the parliamentary party? He's toast ins't he unless the limp-dicked right back down. And they are so thick that they can't see Mr Floppy.
"Secretary of State Antony Blinken was unequivocal in his statement about Venezuela on Oct. 18. He said the United States expected Venezuela to take steps to allow all candidates to run for president and to release improperly held U.S. citizens by the end of November. If not, he threatened, sanctions that had been lifted would be snapped back into place.
The deadline has come and gone. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro took some half-steps toward election reform on Nov. 30 that hardly fulfill Mr. Blinken’s conditions. The State Department called the half-steps an “important development” but said it was “deeply concerned by the lack of progress” on prisoner releases."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/06/venezuela-nicolas-maduro-blinken/
(Is there a link between these issues and the Venezuelan threats to Guyana? That seems likely, though not certain.
The Post appears to believe that Venezuela is holding three Americans hostage, though they don't say they are hostages.)
I do, however, think it is a complicated topic. And there are a lot of things that need to be balanced out.
Take care homes. Is the number a gross number or a net number? Is it the case that 3 Polish ladies have gone home and are being replaced by Ghanaian ones? Or is it the case that that is a net increase?
How many people are here on short-term visas (like working holiday ones), and how many on long term ones? (In the US, they divide visas between immigrant and non-immigrant. I'm on a non-immigrant visa, because I am not planning on staying permanently in the US.)
And if we got rid of all new visas for care home workers, how many roles would Brits need to fill? How much would wages need to rise to fill those roles? What impact would that have on the bills of Councils? (For that matter, what is the natural increase in staffing necessary in this sector?)
Time for our regular reminder that the Conservative Party has a higher floor of support than Labour, has never polled less than 30% in a General Election in its entire history, and that the median age of the electorate has measurably increased since the 1997 mauling. They ought to poll at least a third of the popular vote, and potentially a good deal more if the Labour Continuity Sunak Party disillusions and bores a lot of its younger supporters into not bothering to turn out.
The Tories undoubtedly deserve to be smashed to pieces whenever this dismal Parliament finally runs out of road, but I'm far from convinced that this will happen. Labour surprised on the upside in 2017, when almost nobody was predicting this and the opinion polls were massively against Corbyn only a few weeks out from polling day; I think that the Conservatives might well outperform next time around.
I mean. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
a) Will divert recruitment from care to lower levels of nhs care.
b) mean care sector is in even more shit than now and so we will get more bed blocking and so on.
Why is the care sector seen as the cinderella every fucking time compared to "our wonderful NHS"???
I am furious about this.
BREAK: Home Office Minister Laura Farris confirms live on air with
AndrewMarr9 that Robert Jenrick has resigned! LBC
https://x.com/hattmarris84/status/1732472109853458496
Alex Wickham
@alexwickham
·
1m
Asked if Jenrick has resigned by Andrew Marr on LBC, Home Office minister Laura Farris says: “I understand that he has.”
And Sunak will be in the same prison as before- centrists hating the rhetoric and rightists hating the inaction.
Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
Not joined up thinking.
NHS and care needs a proper merger imho.
What's the frigging difference? Loads of waffle about "it's not health, it's cleaning a person's arse", "picking them up off the floor" etc . Come on. That is so related to their wellbeing it is health.
Leadership election incoming?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxUbPlR9HL8&t=690s
In fairness to you, that was five years ago in 2018.
One of the reasons why the Conservatives really need to go into opposition and have a good long hard think is because they have signally failed to grasp this. You did five years ago. They are just flailing around, pressing buttons at random.
Is he planning to run as Braverman's deputy?
Theresa May tried to tap the obvious source - oldies' houses - and look what happened to her.
It always comes back to the same old problem in this country. Most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of homeowners over the age of 50, virtually all of whom believe that they already pay too much to prop up the state or that they shouldn't be paying anything at all. Most of the rest of the population, the very wealthy aside, have been bled white already by the cumulative burden of taxation and housing costs and have nothing left to give.
Nobody will dare touch the former group because they're too numerous and are too good at turning out to vote, so all the Government can do is trim costs around the edges through more performative cruelty towards the poor and disabled, and by whistling its way through the slow motion collapse of England's entire framework of local authorities.
Will Labour do any better if they get the chance? Probably not.
They're not really compatible, except as far as they saw the EU as the enemy.
The raw numbers are Labour 29%, Conservative 19%, Don't Know 17%, WNV (Would Not Vote) 13%, LD 8%.
The 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 16% Don't Know, 11% Labour and 10% Reform.
MIC have changed their methodology - under the "old" methodology Labour would have led by 14 (42-28) so no significant change.
Which of those is more realistic - well time will tell. I somehow doubt either will achieve their objective
Quite right Eddy, the current non-ridiculousness of the Tory party must be preserved at all costs.
General Election now.
Work out what the social care cost is likely to be (for a proper, decent, quality service - not current mess) over say next five years.
Levy that amount of money via IHT.
You might add a cap like Dilnot wanted and then create some kind of insurance market.
This is solvable. If the political class have the will.
I mean for FFS - we created the bloody NHS just after the War.
Now we can't find a way of putting another few £billion a year into care for old and disabled?
It's fucking pathetic.
The "homeowners over the age of 50" may or may not be supporting children through University ot higher education and are still probably concerned they won't have enough to fund a lifestyle in retirement. Yet, you might say, look how many older people go on cruises. That might make you think ALL over 50s homeowners are full of cash - I'm less convinced.
I think you may also find older people support public spending especially if it's something the children or better yet the grandchildren might enjoy or use. Try to close the local nursery or playgroup and see how far you get.
There's a wider point about aspiration - Conservatives always do well when they can offer a clear route or policy for thoser who simply want to do better for themselves or their families. The current Conservative incarnation has closed down those routes and has nothing to say to the aspirational.
The division of SC from NHS occurred at the formation of the NHS, when the workhouse hospitals became NHS, but the responsibility for Social Care remained with the councils.
What do proponents of this envisage? We just tell Rwanda want they have to do?
@PaulBrandITV
·
47s
Jenrick confirms his resignation saying he can’t carry on with direction of immigration policy
FFS. Get some prospective.
Dan Smith
@Dan1763
·
26m
I seem to remember Jenrick being described as a Sunak ally put in Home Office to keep an eye on Braveman
That clearly isn’t right 🤷♀️
Suggest ramping rates and lowering thresholds for inheritance tax, introducing land value taxation, or abolishing the sodding triple lock and see how far you get.
Home Secretary James Cleverly confirmed Robert Jenrick has resigned from his government post after he was missing from the front bench in the Commons this evening.
https://news.sky.com/story/robert-jenrick-resigns-as-immigration-minister-over-governments-rwanda-plan-home-office-minister-13024262
This isn’t legally binding on Parliament but is supposed to act as a nudge to address the incompatibility. It won’t make much difference to the Tories in the Commons who are becoming seriously unhinged in their pursuit to get the bunting out as the first flight takes off .
The HOL is an altogether different matter . They tend to be mindful of breaching international Agreements . It will be that against the right wing media portraying them as enemies of the people .
Now is the time to throw the nutters out though. They're described often as the right of the party, but they're just the nutters. A sensible Tory party standing at the next GE will undoubtedly get annihilated, but they can have perhaps 200 good MPs rather than 100+100 arses.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/#:~:text=The main culprit in this,the food we eat grows.
Many older varieties are still available if you grow your own. They also have the advantage of a longer cropping season, which is a problem for commercial growers but an advantage for domestic growers.
@PaulBrandITV
·
6m
Jenrick says the bill is a “triumph of hope over experience” - ie it won’t work.
He promises his support to his long-standing friend Sunak from the backbenches. But he also makes clear he’ll be campaigning on this issue and others. Positioned for leadership bid later down line?
However both just split the rightwing vote and allowed the Liberal government 3 successive general election victories with clear majorities.
So in 2003 the Tories and Canadian Alliance (the successor to Reform) merged to form today's Conservative Party of Canada which eventually got back to power when it won most seats in the 2006 Canadian general election under Stephen Harper.
Under PR however the centre right and populist or libertarian right have stood separately and formed coalitions for government after the election. That is now the case in Sweden with the Moderates and Swedish Democrats, in Spain with the PP and Vox, in Italy with Brothers of Italy, Lega Nord and Forza Italia and in New Zealand with the Nationals and NZ First and the ACT.
If we had PR a longer term realignment of the right would therefore be likely yes, not under FPTP unless Reform merges with and takes over the Tories a la Canada
Incidentally if you google "that annoying man who keeps recommending his trading software" he's the first entry. He's called Greg Secker.
Also incidentally, you should be able to get something that would move you up to £20 per 1000 views. You're finance and economics and sponsors love that.
Is that enough in the coming sea change election?